Reflection #3 – Week 4

For this class we were given the opportunity to go downtown to PSII (Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry) and learn about what they do as well as get a tour of the school. I was surprised at how interesting the whole trip was. For the tour, we had one of the teachers (the founder of the school), Jeff Hopkins, as well as a grade 12 student who is set to graduate from the school in June.

A typical day at this school starts off with students meeting in groups of about 15 students and one teacher. This time is used for communicating the student’s plan for the day. Students create their own plan for the day and there are no specific block times in the school. For example, a student could choose to just research for a few hours of the day and then go to one lecture that they feel interested in attending. Teachers provide lectures throughout the day on different topics that are optional for students to attend. As well as this, students have the option to do either drop-in sessions where they do school work the traditional way (math questions), or they can choose to do a project on the subject/topic. They have different rooms for anything that students want to do, like small music rooms/recording studios, science labs, a kitchen, and others. Students can choose to do projects on anything they are interested in. It could be something that a student wouldn’t think a project could be completed on in school (eg. video games), or it could be something very complex. It’s all about what they are passionate about or interested in. For example, the student that was helping with the tour has been working on creating an artificial heart for the past year and a half. Teachers are there to provide guidance and assistance to the students when needed.

I have some concerns with this school though. One concern that I have with it is that tests are optional for students. This concerns me because it might cause problems for them later down the road when they are in post secondary taking exams in a fairly strict test-taking environment. Even though they say that everything in the curriculum is covered in order to graduate, I’m concerned that some topics and subjects are only loosely taught/learned. That leaves the potential for some important topics to get skimmed over because they are focusing so much on other subjects. It’s hard to judge it when I haven’t actually experienced it first-hand though. I think that this school has a really cool idea in allowing students more control over their learning and letting them dive deeper into topics that they are passionate about, I just think that the execution could be slightly different.