Newly minted Education Minister Mike Bernier made the Sea to Sky school district the site of his first official tour by stopping in Squamish on Monday.
Bernier, along with school board representatives and West Vancouver-Sea to Sky MLA Jordan Sturdy, visited the Stawamus school site, where two new programs of choice were launched last week.
Cultural Journeys and Learning Expeditions at Stawamus aim to focus on the core academic subjects through outdoor and First Nations education.
“Programs like this, what I just saw today here and in some of the other parts of the district, are exactly what we are talking about – of different ways of learning and ensuring that all of our children have opportunities,” Bernier said after visiting several classrooms at Stawamus.
“When you talk about the opportunities around critical thinking, this is what we are talking about.”
The new provincial curriculum, B.C.’s Education Plan, has just started to be rolled out in schools for students in kindergarten to Grade 9. The curriculum for high school students will be fully in place by next fall.
The promise of the new curriculum is that it will focus less on memorizing and more on critical thinking skills, according to Bernier.
“With the world changing, we want to make sure the core competencies are there with our children, with reading, writing and arithmetic – those are the main things we have to instill in our kids – but also remembering that every child learns differently and allowing teachers the flexibility to ensure that our children get those skill sets,” he said.
More than 100 teachers and education experts put the new curriculum together, said Bernier.
“This year is a transition year with the curriculum and so it will be completely implemented starting in the 2016-2017 year,” he said.
Bernier said Sturdy initiated the Sea to Sky tour, which stopped at schools in Whistler and Pemberton before the final stopover in Squamish.
At a meeting in with education stakeholders in Whistler on Sunday, Bernier said one of the short-term goals is to ensure all schools have access to high-speed Internet.
“The district has been doing things that the whole province will be doing so there is lots that the system here can help educate the rest [of the province on] and benefit from our experience here,” Sturdy said.
After the tour of Stawamus, Bernier was headed to the Sea to Sky school board office for a meeting with the board, he said.
Bernier took over the education portfolio from Peter Fassbender in July.
– With files from Glacier Media
