Rural Education Congress 2010

A very kind lady, by the name of Connie Bailey, stopped by our station this morning with two armfuls of doughnuts. If ever we were lacking energy, zest was suddenly restored when the boxes of sugar were placed on the table.
“You’ll have to do a little poll on which is better,” laughed Bailey about the Robins doughnuts versus the ones from Tim Hortons. But we liked her idea. A quick poll of the e-journalism team proved that 10 out of 11 people preferred Tim Hortons.
But we’re really not that fussy. Anytime people would like to bring us doughnuts is fine by us; we’ll eat them no matter where they are from.
Thanks again!

The message “Preparing Students Today…for Tomorrow” is one that is hard to miss around the building of TCU Place for the last three days.
Because the slogan is displayed everywhere we look, we decided to ask a few participants to answer the question themselves on what they think needs to be done to prepare today’s students for upcoming life events.
National Congress Chair Brian Keegan believes that one of the ways to prepare students for “tomorrow” is to have them become independent learners.
“Rather than seeing them as those who are just soaking up information, we need to see them as those who have the knowledge to learn,” say Keegan. He also believes that it is important to make sure that students stand a solid ground around technology, as advancement in technology is making a difference in education.
Another congress participant feels in order to prepare students, communication skills need to be increased. Literacy, oral speaking and the use of technology, she adds, all fall under that category.
“We can’t teach them everything they need to know, but we can teach them how to find the information they are going to need,” the unidentified participant advises. She says that working effectively on teaching kids to reach out and communicate with others will provide them skills to succeed.
Member-at-Large Christine Boyczuk agrees with the message that Monday morning keynote speaker Vianne Timmons brought to participants; encouraging families to become involved in their children’s educations.
“It’s a very important role we haven’t fulfilled that we might take on,” Boyczuk informs. She also says that many of the things that are currently being done, such as working with school councils to help encourage families, are very important to continue to build on.
Planning Committee member Pat Renihan agrees with the message Alexandre Trudeau delivered Sunday night, saying that students need to graduate from educational programs with a sense of moral justice and a sense of responsibility for our planet.
“It’s also important to obtain a sense of humor,” he says. “It’s important to be able to laugh at yourself.”

Yesterday morning at the Upper Hall section of TCU Place, Shelly Janostin and Hazel Lorenz gave an outstanding presentation about the power of partnerships and career development for students. Janostin and Lorenz said this concept came about accidently over coffee one day. Both of these women work for the Living Sky School Division. Together, they have created a program which includes 50 communities and 2 cities and helps employers and students better understand expectations of the job shadow experience. Before this program was created, the businesses that took on Career and Work Exploration students were not fully aware of their responsibilities and were sometimes apprehensive about taking on kids. These ladies have changed this by building a business/school partnership.

Receiving funding did not come easily to these ladies. Being from a rural community in Saskatchewan they found local businesses were already being nickeled and dimed. Thankfully, they received a grant from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education to proceed with their proposal. The $50 000 grant was put to good use by hiring a Career Portfolio Liaison to conduct surveys throughout schools and businesses and to let community members know how important career development is. In addition, this has been beneficial to the students in this school division and now many students have resumes and portfolios to showcase their skills and abilities future employers, colleges and universities.

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