Clarke Mackey has taught in the Department of Film and Media at Queen’s University since 1988. Over the last forty years his feature films, television shows, and documentaries on social justice issues have won awards and garnered much critical praise. In the early 1980s, Mackey took a six-year sabbatical from his media career to work as a preschool teacher. It was during this time that he first developed his ideas about vernacular culture.