This week I was fortunate enough to go and explore the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry as apart of my tech class. I wasn’t sure what to expect as I had never been in an independent school before, I was pleasantly surprised to see how it was run. The way they do things there makes sense and allows children to follow their passions and learn other subjects using them. This increases motivation and understanding as students are actually interested. The students were all so quiet and focused on their work. The school itself was also very cool, I really liked the tech room they even had 3d printers for the kids to use. After seeing all of this I definitely think there are aspects of the education system that need to be changed/reimagined. Students need to be given the time and support to follow their passions and ask the questions they want to ask. This can be very hard for public school teachers as they have way bigger class sizes, have schedules and time restraints, less resources, less support, and more. One of the potential issues of this type of learning is how does it transfer to post secondary. One of the teachers daughters actually went to this school, she said her daughter found her undergrad degree to be boring and dry as it wasn’t all about exactly what she wanted to learn (found the masters to be much better), and that some of the standardized testing can be tough to get used too. I think the benefits outweigh the cons and that students should be given more control over their learning.
