High school students in Niagara are getting a bit of a end-of-term reprieve thanks to the pandemic.
Both the District School Board of Niagara and the Niagara Catholic District School Board have decided to cancel exams as some students are only in class a few days a week while others are learning entirely from home.
Niagara Catholic District School Board Superintendent of Education Ted Farrell says there will still be a cumulative evaluation.
“An exam is one way to measure learning, but it’s not the only way, and there are a lot of ways. I think this has been eye opening – there hasn’t been a major change in education in 30 – 40 years. This has shifted the sands and forced us all to look at what we’re doing.”
He also points out the world students are graduating into has dramatically changed.
“We want them to have the skills and the ability to be productive citizens and one of those important traits is honesty and it’s integrity,” he explains while addressing the challenges of learning in a virtual environment. “We’re not graduating them into the world that we finished high school in 1984 – We’re not preparing them for 1984, we’re preparing them for 2021 and beyond. And so the reality is that the students, many of them, their work places will be different. They’ll be working digitally. They will have access to a variety of different tools, they’ll be using social media, and we want them to be able to use those tools, all the tools, effectively, but in a very positive way.”
Click here to listen to Farrell’s full interview with Matt Holmes.
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