School in Seven Oaks division wins national award

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This article was published 06/05/2019 (2509 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the Manitoba government embarks on a major review of public education, for the third time in 10 years a Seven Oaks School Division school has won a national award for innovation in teaching and learning.

It may be just a fluke that no other school division in the country has won the award more than once, but it likely has more to do with the fact that all three awards — one to Seven Oaks Met and two, including this year’s, to the Maples Met School — are part of a relatively new style of high school learning. Students spend two out of five days in internships, outside of the classroom, related to curriculum based on what they want to learn.

Both of these schools are part of a network of alternative schools known as Big Picture Learning that originated in Providence, R.I., at the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center (the “Met”), which opened in 1996.

The Maples Met School has been awarded this year’s Ken Spencer Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning for its Met Innovation Centre for Entrepreneurship program.

It’s a targeted effort that includes 10 of the 140 students at Maples Met. Students design startups that cater to real clients as they work with mentors at North Forge Technology Exchange and Ace Space Project at Red River College.

Teresa Dukes, the CEO of North Forge, quoted her predecessor, Jeff Ryzner, whose enthusiasm for the program was stated like this: “Imagine if we had a school for entrepreneurship — like we have hockey schools — and if we were teaching kids how to be entrepreneurs and how to innovate multiple times throughout their high school careers… what they could accomplish once they graduated?”

Obviously, not every high school student wants to think about starting their own business, but, talk about getting a leg up!

North Forge mentors walk students through the process of innovation and receive mentorship from serial entrepreneur Bryce North on topics such as making effective idea pitches.

Brian O’Leary, the superintendent of the Seven Oaks School Division, said, “We say that the Met school is for anybody but it’s not for everybody. There are lots of students for whom the regular high school program is what they want and works to their style of learning. But even within our regular program we’re trying to make more use of internships and real-world experience.”

There has been a growing awareness in certain quarters of the business community about the need for the educational system to provide students with more exposure to the workplace.

Dave Angus, the president of the Johnson Group and the former longtime president of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, started a business with his son, Scott. HP Change looks at building better bridges between high schools and employers.

“There is a weakness there,” Angus said. “We don’t provide enough workplace opportunities for high school students. That’s why I really like the Met school program. They have really nailed it. They have designed a project with real educational outcomes that’s good for both the businesses and the students.”

Angus said in addition to doing the “right thing” for young kids, there is great opportunity for companies to learn from them as well as create relationships with the next generation or prospective employees.

There are 200 Met schools around the world, but only two in Canada, both of them in Seven Oaks (both of them on Jefferson Avenue, for that matter.) Ben Carr, the principal of the Maples Met School, is enthusiastic about the outcomes.

“They will go on to find significant success in large part because… if you spend four years at Maples Met, you finish with more than 1,500 hours of real-world experience working with mentors out in the community,” he said. “Think of the network that you have as an 18-year-old kid with four years of internships. It’s pretty remarkable.”

O’Leary said the recipe for stronger attainment in education has to be based on students’ interests and passion for learning.

If the absentee rate is any indication of success, the Met school model is working pretty well. O’Leary said the provincewide rate is 22 per cent — in which students miss 10 classes or more per year — and the Met school’s rate is zero per cent.

“The kids are there every day,” O’Leary said. “The key to success of the program is that the education is built around their interests and passions.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca