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Re-imagining alternative education The district principal of the West Shore’s adult and alternative education has a new vision for learning
T
he new signage isn’t even on the building yet, and once it’s fastened into place it may not be accurate for very long. That’s the nature of change, however, and change is exactly what has been going on within the Sooke School District’s (SD62) alternative education programs – with more on the way. Paul Block, district principal of adult and alternative education for SD62, is one of the people driving that change. It makes sense, since he has always had a soft spot for those on the margins of society – as many of the students in SD62’s alternative education programs are. Mike Davies He says growing up Reporting in East Vancouver as a middle-class kid playing in punk bands gave him a different view of the world and formed the basis for his future early in life. “I got to meet a whole different demographic of people, and really started to understand early on that the story of people’s lives are a heck of a lot different than perhaps many of us in middle-class life understand and appreciate,” Block says. “What you see on the outside is maybe not what’s going on on the inside.” That understanding and appreciation for the struggles of others is what eventually led him to working within the education system in a position where he can work with those who are struggling within that system, and attempt to find a better way to help them learn. “The students that we work with,” he says, “can’t be successful with the curriculum until we stabilize their lives. When there are things going on in their lives, domestic challenges at home, or they’re homeless – which is the case with a lot of our kids – or they’re couchsurfing, or they have substance abuse
Mike Davies/News Gazette staff
Mark Kaercher, left, vice-principal of the Westshore Centre for Learning & Training’s Colwood campus, and Paul Block, district principal for adult and alternative education for the Sooke School District, take a break on the front stairs of the main building at Colwood Campus. The building is the new hub for classes for the centre’s school-age students. issues … sitting in a classroom doing math goes way down the list of priorities. Education is a huge primary piece of what we do, but before we can educate, we have to stabilize. “These kids are highly intelligent, incredibly resourceful and very resilient,” Block says. “They just need some guidance and compassion for what they’ve endured and continue to endure.” The main way to build a foundation
for learning, he says, is to build a level of trust and sense of community that is welcoming and secure; a comfortable place for students to thrive. Helping achieve that is the programs’ newly incorporated “cohort model,” where students move through non predetermined curriculum in groups – much like what happens in elementary and middle school. “What I saw when I was working in
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primary school, was the strength and power of the cohort model, where the same group of kids move through together and build a community,” Block says. He believes it will translate well for those older kids who don’t necessarily learn best in a traditional educational structure. PleASe See: Partnerships, Page A6
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