Back in my own country, before visiting Canada, I was a fan of Canadian TV shows like Much Music, Speakers Corner, Electric Circus, Just for Laugh, and Kids in the Hall. Their content deals with culture shocks; diversity is displayed as enjoyable. “Cool, diversity as an entertaining thing, reducing fear; it promotes inclusion!”, I thought. When I was invited to work at the Ontario Science Centre because of a single suggestion I had dropped into the visitor’s suggestion box, I felt diversity was not only enjoyable but a benchmarking strategy towards excellence. “Excellence is why inclusion has been promoted”, I thought. In my many visits to Toronto, I followed the inclusion efforts around the city. For example, I attended a special graduation party; the school had decided to offer a separated class to non-straight students in order to release the stress of dealing with gender discrimination. “It was a community request”, a teacher told me when I question the separation. “Ah, the popular voice is being listened to”, I thought. As associate researcher at the Ontario Science Centre and meeting teachers at the OISE/ University of Toronto, I was introduced to the cohort initiatives, informal science techniques, collaborative investigation, and the OSC hosts’ and researchers’ work practices. I was glad to find inclusive practices, knowledge being collaboratively created, where experts learn with non experts. So later, when I returned to Canada to experience life not in academic settings, I was surprised to face the huge wall of the acculturation process in the job market. The conformation industry generates all kinds of expertise jobs for Canadians, who are willing to teach their riches (their ways of doing things). In government agencies, non profit organization, universities, and work places with volunteer openings, there are all kinds of experts to help people to meet the standards: job counselors, resume and cover letter specialists, accent experts, social workers, settlement specialists, certified translators, education certifiers, profession certifier, and so on. I felt the challenges of being outside the mainstream culture. Attending the high school, I hoped to better understand what is to be an outsider of the mainstream culture in Canada. There, I found people like me, bicultural (Aboriginal and French people, and immigrants), right brained or left brained who have family, health or social issues. There, I found people with different mindsets; sometimes too reformists or creative; sometimes too independent, jumping into the so-called ‘real world’ with no fears; and sometimes too focused on taking care of family and friends. At the high school, I found people like me, struggling to catch up to the mainstream pace which never waits because it is so busy. I learned that outsiders are not foreign people, but anyone, Canadian or not, who has a life challenge which is unexpected (or not addressed) by the mainstream system. Promoting this investigation about what is the experience of learning to learn for adults coming back to high school, my hope was to better understand my life possibilities in Canadian society. Facing this job market wall, starting to become hopeless, I hoped my investigation peers would help me to understand. And they did. Together we revealed our riches and renovated our hope.

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