SHS students speak out

Times Junior Reporter

 

The second annual Designing and Learning for Tomorrow: A Speak Out Forum was held in Carbon, AB, this past Friday, April 1. Several schools within the Golden Hills School Division were in attendance, including thirteen students from Strathmore High School. The students at the event were able to voice what they thought was working, what was not working, and what is needed to be done in order to create positive changes throughout the Golden Hills School Division.

The day was filled with several games and group activities, all encouraging the students to come together with their different insights and give feedback to the GHSD in how it could improve itself as a system. The superintendent of the GHSD, Dianne McBeth, made it clear that the information that was being gathered from the students was extremely important and will impact how the school division decides to use their resources and funding.  

“Students might not see their exact wording in the education plan, but we look for the really big themes (that were discussed in the forum),” said McBeth.

One of the larger themes that was discussed throughout the day was a strong emphasis on how all students vary in their learning styles. The students felt that having their knowledge assessed in a course based upon a single standardized test was not a true reflection of what that student may have learned throughout the entire course. The provincial diploma exams which account for fifty percent of a student’s mark, may appeal to one type of learner but does not fairly reflect all. 

McBeth believes that the school system has been doing standardized tests for enough years to know that it skews the opportunity for other students to express that they learn and present their ideas in different ways. McBeth also believes that if the school division wanted to sample the kids learning in certain areas of the curriculum on a broad scale, they could do so, but not necessarily turn that into a mark. 

“Teachers as well have issues with the weight of the diploma exams,” said McBeth. “They only measure a certain amount of learning and we know there are problems with that. When we create things like standardized tests, it is almost like we’re afraid the kids aren’t learning and afraid that the teachers aren’t teaching. The teachers end up teaching for the test and the kids work to get a mark on the test. That’s not really the heart of learning. The heart of learning comes from the deep desire to know.”

GHSD hopes to take a new direction with understanding that the purpose of kids learning is not to become ‘walking encyclopaedias,’ because the information is so readily available to them. GHSD hopes to focus on different ‘survival skills’, such as problem solving, working together, skills in written and verbal communication, the ability to analyze and show curiosity and imagination. 

According to McBeth, for change to be occur, the Minister of Alberta Education, Dave Hancock must hear the concerns from the students themselves. Rather than complaining amongst one another, students need to speak up and demand change from the decision makers.

Following the forum, SHS student Franquie Corallini strongly hopes that the GHSD got the ‘direct message.’

“I hope that they start prepping kids (for the future),” said Corallini. “It’s discouraging what’s going on right now – discouraging.”