Using a “structured freedom” approach, the Montessori School’s teachers (“directresses”) foster a setting that cultivates the child’s imagination, allowing them to be creative and think outside the box, but to do so while working alongside others. Each directress keeps a watchful eye on every student, demonstrating discipline, supportively guiding them, and staying constantly aware of the child’s readiness for specific, new material. This right-material-at-the-right-time mentality keeps children constantly evolving as individuals, but at a pace suitable to their particular personality.

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Mixing lessons on practical life, language, cultural studies, music and more, creative minds are encouraged, promoting the potential of each child in ways uncommon to traditional educational routes.

Q:  How does the Montessori School create an environment and curriculum that caters to and stimulates the child’s “absorbent mind”, and what are the benefits of this approach?

A: “What a child will find at Montessori School is a venue that caters to their individual needs. An environment that encourages creativity and outside-the-box thinking, but also educates children on how to work with others in a disciplined manner; the opportunity to solve problems their way, but to also cooperate with others. Our directresses act similar to movie directors, setting the stage and pointing the way, but allowing the child to engage the curriculum how they see fit. This not only teaches the child to comfortably operate in society, but to develop their imagination and ability to problem solve in manners superior to traditional educational means,” says Margie Bernadette, administrator at Vaughan’s Montessori School House.

www.montessorischoolhouse.ca, 9730 Dufferin St., Maple, Ont. 905.303.0011

Since his teenage years, Grossi has dabbled in the art of hair design, amassing 25 years of first-hand experience in the business. His roots in the industry began by watching his hairstylist-father at work, finally picking up the scissors himself to coax unruly and unmanageable manes into something to behold. “Anything I can see with my eyes I can do with my hands,” says Grossi. “It’s a wonderful feeling to go to work every day with 100 per cent confidence.”

Perhaps it’s this poise that has lifted  Grossi into the upper echelons of hair design. A dedicated pupil of hair styling, Grossi was trained by the best-of-the-best of the industry, with his stellar exactedness shining through at colour training courses and highly regarded hair competitions. The result of his devotion ultimately gave way to an oasis of beauty realized with L.A Hair Design, a Maple, Ont.-based hair salon that has withstood the tests of time. It was 30 years ago that Grossi was inspired to move his brand to Vaughan, upon returning from an inspirational  sojourn to the über-trendy metropolis of  Los Angeles. His salon continues to thrive as the place where women’s needs are understood and where loyal clientele keeps coming back for more. “Hair is a very important part of feeling sexy and confident about the way you look,” explains Grossi, creative director of the salon and a former finalist for the Canadian Hairdresser of the Year award.

Using a combination of modern techniques and the treasured customer service of yesteryear, Grossi’s
L.A Hair Design team excels at colour correction and repair; formal bridal hairstyles, traditional body wave perms and classic updos. Grossi says of his team: “I love to see young people that have natural talent and a good work attitude. When I find people like that, I try to stick with them and build them up, so that they can get their own clientele, which eventually builds confidence.”

Along with an array of hairstyling services, L.A Hair Design offers personal consultations, wash, cut and styles to meet the needs of the everyday woman and man. Esthetic services are also offered. An establishment where experts of style, cut, colour and charm coalesce, Grossi’s salon finds balance by working just as hard as it plays.

Whether he’s at home enjoying the company of his loving family, singing the lead vocals in a local rock band or giving his clients the look that best suits their personality and taste, Grossi continues to update his vast portfolio of talents. His father, who has close to 50 years of hairdressing and business experience, continues to push his son to achieve nothing but the best. “To this day, he advises me to continue perfecting my craft. Every time I think I have nothing else to learn from him, he shows me something, a lesson that I wouldn’t have learned if it wasn’t for him.”

www.lahairdesign.ca
905.832.2590

Established in 1972 by internationally renowned martial arts champion Cezar Borkowski, Northern Karate maintains a traditional philosophy of respect for others, and a practice of self-discovery and positive change. “It’s not just about punching and kicking. We’re about personal development. Once they start, our students are far more focused and tend to do better in school,” explains instructor and sixth-degree black belt Kyoshi Cos Vona. “I’ve had many, many families tell me they see a huge difference in their kids after just six months of karate.”

Under the guidance of Borkowski, Vona’s disciplined attitude, strong work ethic and over 35 years of martial arts experience translates into a serious and successful school. “Unfortunately, a lot of places people go to are more about leisure and not about learning. But here, there’s nothing watered down – we teach the same curriculum to a child as we do to an adult. We’re serious about what we teach, and that’s what people really like,” says Vona.

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On top of traditional group classes, seminars and workshops, Northern Karate offers a plethora of special programs, including a variety of traditional Okinawan weapons (Kubodo) training, self-defence classes such as Bully Proof® for kids and the street-oriented Reality Check®. Catering to families and individuals regardless of age or experience, Northern Karate offers a safe venue to relieve stress, aggression and
develop focus.

Although they’ve accumulated enough experience to fill several lifetimes, the instructors at Northern Karate are constantly working to enhance their abilities and improve their schools. “We get together and train with our head instructor, [Borkowski], every couple of weeks. We’re consistently training, honing and improving the curriculum,” says Vona. “We’ve been doing this since 1972. You can’t think of very many places – gyms or martial arts schools – that have been around for that long.”

For more on the phenomenal establishments, head over to the website or stop by one of 10 Northern Karate Schools throughout the GTA. www.northernkarate.com

Aurora: 905.726.8886 / Maple: 905.303.5202 / Rutherford: 905.265.7777 Richmond Hill: 905.508.5811 / Woodbridge: 905.856.4047

Kleinburg
Secretly known as the “Forest Hill” of Vaughan, Kleinburg houses the affluent executive types.

Kleinburg locals hold much pride in the area’s reputation, which is home to the famed McMichael Canadian Art Collection and Kortright Centre for Conservation.Take a stroll through the historic village to discover its treasured shops.

Neighbourhood Hot Spots:
Avenue Market Café: The chic and trendy spot to grab an espresso and be seen.
Mr. McGregor’s House Tea: The mix of a lovely garden, baked goods and home-cooked dishes make you feel like you’re visiting family.
Villaggio Ristorante: Chef Antonio Barbiere’s charming ambiance gives Italian cuisine a gorgeous look.

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Housing Stock:
Your entry ticket starts at $650,000 for cosy bungalows, while monster mansions along the conservation and Humber River are by far the most expensive. Zoning changes are in progress, so expect major transformations for Kleinburg.

Maple
If you’re looking for action, Maple is the place! Canada’s Wonderland, Vaughan Mills and fine restaurants are the staple stops for locals and visitors. With the approval of a subway extension, an influx of 416ers are expected to make the trip.

Neighbourhood Hot Spots:
The Keg: A fave spot for after-work drinks and mingling. Think loud and busy!
Pollo Loco Churraqueria: The place to taste the best BBQ chicken around.
Grazie: Suburban sister to its uptown location, it maintains a busy yet casual mood with rustic eats for any occassion.

Housing Stock: Best variety of options, from starter cribs to luxury condos. Affordable townhomes begin at $350,000, whereas deep-pocket splurges along Weston Road can run over $2 million.

3700 Steeles Ave., W. Vaughan, Ont.  — B. 416.748.9598
131 Woodbridge Ave. Woodbridge, Ont. — B. 905.856.1111
647.405.Sold (7653) — F. 905.856.9782   www.ReMaxExcellenceRealty.com

Every time I’m asked where I’m from I hesitate. I pause because I want to avoid the know-it-all smirk. I equivocate because I don’t want to hear the toxic and discriminative comments that fall from ignorant lips. That’s not fair to me or any other resident of Vaughan who lives life according to the law.

I’m not naive, but Vaughan is primarily a city full of heart, ­not villains. So why do cantankerous mediums continue to pollute our clean air with what appears to be anti-Italianism and acrimonious sound bites?

What alarms me the most is that Italians continue to be easy targets because they prefer not to speak out on issues that concern them. And many people take advantage of that.

Yellow journalism was at its best with a recent feature on Vaughan entitled “The Land of the Rich and Infamous,” written by Chris Nuttall-Smith, former food editor and current freelancer for Toronto Life. Residents of Vaughan found this story – which lambastes 905 developers, Mayor Linda Jackson, Vaughan council and the Italian community – plainly distasteful.

I asked Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino how he feels when his culture or the community he lives in is criticized in the media.

Julian Fantino, Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner

“Most of the critics have an agenda of their own, and very often there are issues that are not properly portrayed or reported,” responds Commissioner Fantino. I think it’s disconcerting … very often the facts are not really known. A lot of it is just sensationalism. The screaming headlines … all of that I think is intended to tear down and disenfranchise not only the community, but the people, unfairly. There’s far too much of that I think, going on in Vaughan,” adds Fantino, who has lived in this community since 1981.

With Vaughan’s 2010 municipal election approaching, the Toronto Life feature raked Mayor Linda Jackson and Vaughan council over the coals. Any charges against Mayor Jackson have not yet been proven in a court of law.

Apart from portraying council members as the “enemies” of the mayor, Nuttall-Smith colours his introduction with a harsh physical description. “She’s 50 years old, with dyed blondish hair and skin that’s often the colour of inexpensive bronzer … It’s fair to say that she carries around a few extra pounds.” This passage raises the question as to whether or not a person’s appearance affects his or her ability to govern a city.

In 2000, years before Toronto Mayor David Miller began an exercise regime to shed his extra weight, he was lauded with an A+ and named best councillor by Toronto Life magazine. For Mayor Jackson, presenting her best appearance comes second to executing her duties as mayor, as she displayed during the endless hours she spent helping citizens in the aftermath of the Vaughan tornado. Mayor Jackson recalls: “The skies opened up, and I said, ‘Don’t give me an umbrella! These people’s homes are destroyed, and all I would be worried about would be an umbrella?”

I have resided in this city for a little more than 20 years, during which time my experiences with some of the
non-Vaughan populace have left me speechless. The media have taken every opportunity to splash its headlines about Vaughan with blood. As a result, the excellence of our city has been spoiled by unhealthy, unbalanced reporting, bordering an obsession with politics, lifestyle and Italian developers. Nuttall-Smith’s story begins with: “Everything about Vaughan – its executive estates, its hectares of malls, its politicians’ aspirations – is big and brash … Its expansion has been orchestrated by politically connected developers who know what they want.”

Toronto Life is published by St. Joseph Communications, which was founded in 1956 by Gaetano Gagliano, who is Italian. As Canada’s largest privately owned communications company, St. Joseph’s corporate communications office is located in the core of the Canadian marketplace – Vaughan.

I wanted to ask St. Joseph’s CEO Tony Gagliano how he felt about the way his heritage and the community he works in were criticized by the very brand he runs. After I made several attempts to arrange an interview with him, his executive assistant sent me this message in an e-mail: “As previously mentioned, I am unable to schedule any time for a call due to Tony’s [Gagliano] schedule for the next few weeks. There is no one else that I can recommend to speak on his behalf. We thank you again for this opportunity. Warm regards, Rose Giorgio.”

I tried to reach the five building magnates described in the Toronto Life story under the subheading, “Developer Kings: The builders of Vaughan’s suburbs are also some of the city’s richest residents.” But John DeGasperis (TACC Construction), Vic De Zen (Royal Group Technologies), Carlo Baldassarra (Greenpark Homes) and Rudy Bratty (Remington Group) opted not to comment. Would anyone who was criticized constantly be comfortable speaking to the media?

The only developer who offered his thoughts was Alfredo (Fred) DeGasperis, founder of the nation’s largest construction company, ConDrain.

While I don’t want to discredit the hard work that Nuttall-Smith did on his feature, he said DeGasperis was a resident of Vaughan, but he is not; rather, he lives in the city of Toronto. “I was upset when I heard about [the story]. We’re very proud of what we’ve done for many, many years. We still keep doing it. We build buildings. I know they [the media] make the problem bigger. They always try to throw dirt on a project,” says DeGapseris. He won a lawsuit against The Globe and Mail in 2000, for which the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered the newspaper and a journalist to pay him $780,000, which he then donated to charity.

Under the headshots of most of the developers, their estimated worth is listed. If money talks, why not explain where some of the cash goes? Every year, all these men, including Fred DeGasperis (“worth $1.4 billion”), donate millions to charities and hospitals.

In just one example, Fred DeGasperis and family donated a staggering $7 million to Toronto General Hospital in 2004 to enhance patient care at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre.

“We believe we should take care of the sick people. We believe that when you work so hard and you make decent money you should give back to charity. We’re very proud of what we’ve done for hospitals,” says DeGasperis, who, like the other developers, has extended his generosity to Toronto institutions like the Hospital for Sick Children, Mount Sinai, Sunnybrook and Princess Margaret hospitals.

“Our very generous donor community, which includes wonderful supporters from the city of Vaughan, allows us to raise funds to deliver breakthrough research, exemplary teaching and compassionate care at Princess Margaret Hospital, one of the top five cancer research centres in the world,” says Paul Alofs, president and CEO of The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation.

Matthew Teitelbaum

TACC Construction recently helped fund the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) services at the Markham Stoufville Hospital with a $1 million gift.

Many Italian developers have also supported the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) with $500,000 contributions towards the Galleria Italia, a sculptural promenade across the front of the AGO. “I’m thrilled because I’ve never been with a group of donors who seemed more excited and pleased with the association and with their ability to make a difference,” says Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO’s Michael and Sonja Koerner director and CEO.

Cities in Canada and across the world are troubled by scandals, and whether it’s true or not, a dose of equilibrium and a dash of class go a long way in fair reportage.

“We don’t need any more bad publicity about Vaughan,” says Remo Ferri. “I think there’s a great community up here. It’s a great place, and some of us have worked very hard to build what we have. We’re not crooks,” adds the founder of The Remo Ferri Group of Automobiles. Earlier this year, Ferri, who supports a number of charities, opened North America’s largest Ferrari Maserati dealership in Vaughan.

The city of Vaughan is home to multiple ethnicities, living and learning together in one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities.

The issue of Italian culture begins when Nuttall-Smith writes, “The city has more than 250,000 residents today, and the largest concentration of Italian immigrants in Canada. More than 40 per cent of the population claims Italian heritage. Six out of eight of the city’s councillors are Italian; they often campaign in Italian and bow to local Italian-language media.”

Sandra Yeung Racco, Vaughan Councillor.

In instances like this, I’m jaded from having to explain, very slowly, that no, not every Vaughan resident is Italian. “We have a very multicultural and diverse group of residents and businesses,” says Vaughan Councillor Sandra Yeung Racco. I think that makes us very rare. We have a good balance of multiple cultures within our community.”

A surprise to most, the city of Vaughan is just 38 per cent Italian. The rest of the community includes Jewish, Indian, Russian, Vietnamese, French and Romanian cultures, among others. “It is a very interesting and special experience for emigrants that first come to live in Vaughan and are new to the country. For me, Vaughan has everything you need,” says Mimoza Gila, an Albanian who lives in Woodbridge.

I must dispel yet another illusion: that of the housing climate of Vaughan. Guess what! We don’t all live like starlets in Hollywood-style “executive estates” with Roman pillars and multiple garages. “A number of condominium apartments and multiple row houses have been built [in Vaughan] over the past few years,” states the city of Vaughan’s website.

Just take a drive through Vaughan’s major communities – Concord, Kleinburg, Maple, Thornhill, Woodbridge – and you will find families living under the roof of a condominium, duplex or ­– gasp! – renting. Also, Vaughan is not “paved over,” with more than 1,000 hectares of vacant land.

For those who do enjoy the niceties of an upscale life, it all wasn’t handed down to them on a silver platter.

Vaughan isn’t where ”old money” lives and breathes. That kind of currency dwells in Toronto’s lavish Rosedale neighbourhood, where our nation’s wealthiest hold tea parties and clink their crystal in a lifestyle set in the most posh and expensive neighbourhood in Canada.

Maurizio Bevilacqua

Vaughan is a city where immigrants settled many years ago, and instead of being stagnant, grew and expanded. Adding 10,000 new residents each year, Vaughan continues to be one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities. By 2031, it is expected to be home to 420,000 people. How could a city described as a “political mess” with “politically connected developers” continue to attract new residents?

“Vaughan is a city that can in fact become world-class,” explains Maurizio Bevilacqua, a member of Parliament who represents Vaughan. “People [in Vaughan] are entrepreneurial and enlightened in the sense that while they excel at creating economic growth, they also understand their social responsibility. We are willing to share with one another … our focus is to improve the quality of life and standard of living for all Vaughan residents.”

The people of Vaughan were not spoon-fed a great life. They have felt the effects of segregation, communism, fascism and Nazism; they have endured poverty and oppression. But they rose out of hardship and misery; they struggled and sweated and strained to get to where they are today so their children could enjoy a lifestyle they didn’t have. “A lot of people came to this country in the ’40s and ’50s with only the shirt on their back, wanting to make a better life for themselves,” says Mayor Jackson. “They sacrificed … leaving wives and children in other countries to come to this country to make a better life, and they worked non-stop.”

As the innocent and hardworking residents of Vaughan continue to face an unfair reputation, the city’s accomplishments have taken a back seat. “The perception being created is an unfortunate one, but it is one that certainly can be improved by presenting the true nature of Vaughan and the community – its reality, not its mythology,” says MP Bevilacqua.

It’s time to take a stand, so that the next time you venture out of Vaughan, you won’t feel ashamed to say where you came from.