Hey folks, it’s Randy, your favorite blogger in PLP. You might have already guessed it, it’s reflection time!

school year has came to an end, and as always we wrap it up with an amazing spring exhibition.

our spring exhibition this year is about schools, more specifically “How might we transform education systems to create more engaged and informed citizens?”

This driving question seems quite vague but specific at the same time. It targets our current Canadian education system and the civic side of our society. Before we make any radical changes to our current schools, we first need to understand the purpose of schools.

We read many articles in class talking about the purpose of schools. Most of them divided their purpose into five sections. Socializing, passing down knowledge, moral education, sparking interests, and preparing for students’ future. Some could argue that schools are like a daycare where the government manipulates the children, but I don’t find that particularly true.

Keystone 1

We went on further investigation by interviewing people with different backgrounds. I interviewed my cousin again, whom I had talked to during my podcast last year. I asked him the questions I’d prepared beforehand, and in conclusion, this is his answer to the purpose of school:

“There are many aspects to the purpose of school, and it varies from student to student. The government tries their best to distribute education resources among the students, and ultimately, they want to create the ideal/functional type of people for society. The purpose of school is also different from student to student. Some see it as a place to hang out and have fun (socializing), but some see it as their only opportunity for success. We are fortunate to be able to attend a university so easily in Canada, with no need for an entrance exam or heavy workload. Many children in developing countries will be forced to become farmers/construction workers if they don’t get into an Uni.

School is where we are taught the basic skills of life and given opportunities to try out new things. Nowadays, schools are focusing on raising white collars, so it is 100% up to us to find our own passions and dreams.”

The day after my interview with my cousin Yang, I asked some of the people around me about their thoughts on school. All these interviewees have different backgrounds, so their answers vary. I had an interview with Kai, an international student from Vietnam; I also had an interview with a local Canadian student native to Deep Cove. It was interesting how their culture and identity influenced their school views. Of course, I also had to interview my mother, she’s like the classic example of a Chinese citizen, but surprisingly she does not have a traditional view of the school.

You would imagine an Asian parent having strict rules of only getting A+ in school, but my mom values the learning environment provided more than students’ performances. It’s interesting how she addresses bullying issues in schools in China and compares that to the Canadian education system.

Gathering all my interviewees’ and my personal opinions, this is my conclusion about the purpose of schools.

In class, we also did some traditional learning. AKA textbook reading. We learned the importance of globalization, and looked at many factors that builds our Canadian identity. We connected these terms to our project, and had a test on them.

Eventually, we started to build our final products and finalize our thesis to the driving questions.

DQ answer/ project pitch

Through more research, I’ve realized that most people working do not enjoy what they are doing for work. Statistic says that only 15% of people are engaged at work leaving a significant 85% unhappy at their jobs. Meaning that the majority of people in this world are working routine 9-5 jobs, and not “engaged” in our society.

The cause of this is mainly from their lack of interest. Up to 25% of high school students have their parents pick their career path for them, and up to 50-75% of university students choose to switch majors before getting their first bachelor degree. Not only is this a huge waste of time, but it also points out a problem. Most high school students have no idea what they want to do in life. To fix this problem, we need to find a way to spark student’s interests earlier, and provide more career focused opportunity for students to explore.

Let me present to you my solution:

“General-Major Based Learning” AKA G.M.B.L.

General-Major Based Learning is a program targeted towards grade 11 and 12 students. They start off by completing a survey, which tells them their best fitted college majors based on their personality and strength etc. Students would proceeds to declare one of the five general majors based on their survey results and interests.

Each general major has a list of career targeted courses designed specifically for that major, as well as a list of college major that fits under that general category. A lot of these courses are introduction courses modified by me, to be easier for students to understand. Not only are they more applicable in real life, but they also allow students to step a foot into a specific field of careers.

After all, student are only engaged when they find their learning meaningful. There’s been countless times where I’ve heard of the question “How will this ever be useful to me?” G.M.B.L allows students switch general majors each semester until they find their true passions.

This General-Major based system does not directly tells what students should do in life, but rather help students to explore more possibilities for themselves, so that when students graduate from high school, they at least have a general direction of where they want to be in life.

Exhibition Experience

Throughout the 2 hours of exhibiting, and pitching my product. I’ve gotten a lot of nodding and people complementing on my brilliant idea. But this gets me a bit worried, if none of them comments constructive feedback, how will I be able to grow as a learner?

I looked prepared and professional, but deep in the roots it’s still a school project, and there has to be something I could improve on. Now I’m not saying it’s perfect, nothing is perfect. But I’ve given it my all, and at this very moment if I were to redo this project, I would still choose to do the same. I didn’t want to write a fake reflection paragraph talking about how it could’ve been better, so this is my true take on this project. “I am proud of this.”

This situation makes me wonder:

“If no one is critiquing or criticizing, then what drives us to make a positive change?”