Students' hard work pays dividends before their very eyes

On Friday, October 3rd, 2008, three politicians, all of them candidates in the upcoming Federal election, took time out of their busy schedules to visit Phoenix Alternative High School, of the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board, in Laval. The Honourable Robert Carrier, Bloc Québécois Member of Parliament from Alfred-Pellan riding, and Mr. Marc Drapeau of the Green Party and Mr. Michel Le Clair of the NDP – both running in Terrebonne-Blainville – all spent some time at Phoenix presenting their respective party platforms and responding to student concerns during the question period which followed their presentations.

This event was conceived in conjunction with the Reform which has been sweeping upwards through the province’s educational system for the last few years. This year, this new and challenging program finally reached Secondary 4 where a new history course – History and Citizenship Education – has been implemented.

Unlike the “old program”, the Reform is geared to the development of student competencies rather than requiring students to absorb and retain large quantities of historical information. The first two competencies revolve around the analysis and interpretation of social phenomena from historical perspective using the historical method. It was decided that we would use the Federal Election as the focus for the third competency which is the strengthening of the students’ exercise of citizenship through their study of history.

One problem associated with the implementation of the Reform in Quebec’s Anglophone sector has been the lack of resources, specifically textbooks. Since our study of the election was undertaken in conjunction with a later part of the new program for which English texts have yet to be supplied, we were confronted with a real challenge.

We began with a brief history of the evolution of democratic government from the time of New France, through the British régime, and right to the present. We emphasized that in a true democracy, it is the people who are sovereign and it is they who exercise real power by voting for officials, who, themselves once elected, theoretically have the ability to contribute to the drafting and passage of legislation in the voters’ interests.

At the outset, some students were not aware that an election was in the offing; nor were they aware of the philosophies and platforms of the different parties. They also had not thought about how they would have voted had these Grade 10 students been of voting age. At the conclusion of our study, however, students had mastered the basic differences among the ideas of the parties and most had expressed a preference. As a result of their focus on the election, students had become much more aware of their political and historical environments and appear to have enthusiastically accepted the responsibility of becoming future lifetime voters.

Using the Elections Canada website, students were able to determine who the candidates are in their respective constituencies. It was at this point that student volunteers were able to get Messieurs Carrier, Drapeau and Le Clair, out of all the major parties invited, to donate some of their precious time to our school’s Guest Speaker programme. Students were excited when their hard work paid dividends before their very eyes – an essential lesson on a number of levels. What more could any educator ask for?

Jerry Cohen

Teacher

Phoenix Alternative High School

Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board

Photo:AngPhoenix 1

(Photo: Martin Alarie)