Teaching kids how to get along with others is as important as instruction in numeracy and literacy, and it is increasingly the focus of Tri-City public schools.
Last Tuesday, the School District 43 board of education approved action plans for learning (APL) that stressed that students should learn personal awareness and responsibility as a core competency — and 59% of the district’s schools identified it as a priority.
“If you don’t attend to this, nothing else will get done,” Coquitlam Teachers' Association president Ken Christensen told The Tri-City News.
He said social emotional learning has always been a priority in schools and while APL show that it is a main focus, other skills such as literacy and numeracy are also important.
“They put this APL structure in place, it doesn’t mean that other things are not regarded,” said Christensen, who said helping students learn to calm themselves, work with others and be kind are “skills they need in life.”
In a summary of school goals, 7% identified numeracy, 24% identified literacy and 69% were working on other topics.
Core competencies that schools identified needed to be worked on at their schools, included the following: 59% declared personal awareness and responsibility, while much smaller numbers identified communication (15%), critical or creative thinking (6%), positive personal and cultural identity (1%) and social responsibility (16%).
Port Coquitlam Trustee Judy Shirra questioned whether the school district is doing enough to explain its objectives and said many parents are worried that students aren’t learning their ABCs and basic math.
Assistant superintendent Reno Ciolfi said that while the new curriculum isn’t stressing mastery of a “fixed body of learning,” students are still learning literacy and numeracy and parents have a high degree of trust about what’s going on in the classroom.
