Education Canada - June 2020 (Vol. 60 No. 2)

www.edcan.ca

THE SKILLED TRADES A dual-credit trades program for high school students Le soutien offert aux enseignants novices est primordial How can we strengthen Canada’s apprenticeship system?

La formation professionnelle est souvent teintée de certains mythes Bringing trades awareness to Northern students

June/Juin 2020 Vol. 60 No. 2 $10 Publication 40031215 Display until September 1, 2020

LES MÉTIERS SPÉCIALISÉS

PLUS: Digital skills and trades | Le choix

de carrière est une étape importante pour les jeunes | A system-wide approach to staff well-being

Published by

Publié par

TM

MC

Table des matières

PHOTO: COURTESY SOUTH SLAVE DIVISIONAL EDUCATION COUNCIL

June/Juin 2020 n Vol. 60 No. 2 n www.edcan.ca

5 MOT DU RÉDACTEUR

Bien choisir son métier 6 VOIX DU RÉSEAU PHOTO: COURTESY KPU / MATT LAW

14

Soutenir les éducateurs pendant le déconfinement Par Max Cooke 28 L’attrait des jeunes pour les métiers spécialisés Qu’en est-il en 2020?

Par Mireille Moisan

22

31 Formation professionnelle Les élèves de moins de 21 ans ont-ils un projet professionnel qui les anime?

Par Chantale Beaucher et Stéphanie Breton

Contents Trading Up

6 NETWORK VOICES

Supporting Educators Through the Post-COVID-19 Recovery Phase

By Max Cooke 8 PROMISING PRACTICES

A Walking Curriculum

By Gillian Judson 10 WELL AT WORK

Growing Well-Being Across a System

By Gail Markin, Renge Bailie, Megan Zazelenchuk, Amanda LaBoucane and Sabre Cherkowski 12 VIEWPOINT

The Creativity Question: Does schooling really kill creativity?

By Gregory C. Gerber 14 TAP into Trades Building trades awareness in Canada’s North

By Curtis Brown and Chris Talbot

18 The Great Canadian Training Gap Transforming the apprenticeship system

By D. W. Livingstone and Milosh Raykov 22 Youth Train in Trades A dual-credit program for secondary students

By Laura McDonald

COVER PHOTO: Courtesy KPU/Matt Law www.edcan.ca/magazine

Insertion professionnelle Par Nancy Goyette 38 DÉVELOPPEMENT PROFESSIONNEL

Les badges numériques Par Maxime Pelchat

41 Effective Collaborative Practices in ESL Education Conditions that nurture best practices

By Ana Vintan and Tiffany Gallagher

40 POINT DE VUE

Explorer les métiers spécialisés dès la 6e année Par Nathalie Néron

44 BOOK REVIEW

Reconceptualizing Disability in Education

By Luigi Iannacci Reviewed by Ruthanne Tobin 56 VOICE OF EXPERIENCE

The Power of Why

By Stefanie Cole

www.edcan.ca/magazine

Doing is Believing Early introduction to skilled trades

By Nancy Battet

36 BIEN DANS MON TRAVAIL

25 Skilled Trades in the Digital Age New opportunities at the intersection of old and new career pathways

By Paul Stastny

WEB EXCLUSIVES

Vocational Education in Canadian Schools Toward expansive experiential learning

By Alison Taylor

34 Mécatronique Vers le développement de la technologie et l’innovation !

Par Marie-Josée Fecteau et Véronique Bolduc

Supporting Innovation Across the System Lessons from B.C.’s system change efforts

By Leyton Schnellert

CONTENU EXCLUSIF EN LIGNE

www.edcan.ca/fr/magazine PHOTO : GRACIEUSÉ DE LES AUTEURS CHANTALE BEACHER ET STÉPHANIE BRETON

5 EDITOR’S NOTE

PRATIQUE PROMETTEUSE

Former des gagnants Par Chantal Lapointe

31

EdCan Network | June/Juin 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 3

Executive Editor Max Cooke Editor Holly Bennett Rédacteur en chef francophone Jérôme St-Amand Art Director Dave Donald Digital Marketing Manager and Proofreader Sophie H.-Bienvenue Manager, Circulation and Membership Mia San José Advertising Sales Dovetail Communications Inc. (905) 886-6640 or advertise@edcan.ca TM

MC

Publisher Canadian Education Association Chair Denise Andre CEO Max Cooke Education Canada Editorial Board / Comité éditorial d’Éducation Canada Marius Bourgeoys, cofondateur d’escouadeÉDU, conférencier, coach et consultant, L’orignal, ON Dr. Curtis Brown, Superintendent, South Slave Divisional Education Council, Fort Smith, NT Dr. Steve Cardwell, Associate Vice President, Academic, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey, BC Dr. Alec Couros, Professor, Information and Communication Technologies; ICT Coordinator, University of Regina, Regina, SK Nathalie Couzon, technopédagogue, Collège Letendre, Laval, QC Grant Frost, President (Halifax County Local), Nova Scotia Teachers’ Union, Halifax, NS Roberto Gauvin, Education Specialist and School Entrepreneur, CyberNB, Lac-Baker, NB François Guité, consultant au ministère de l’Éducation, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche (MEESR) du Québec, Québec, QC Dr. Michelle Hogue, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the First Nations Transition Program, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB Stephen Hurley, Education Consultant; Founder of VoicEd Radio, Milton, ON

Dr Thierry Karsenti, Ph.D., titulaire de la Chaire de recherche du Canada sur les technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC) en éducation, Montréal, QC Normand Lessard, directeur général, Commission scolaire de la Beauce-Etchemin, Sainte-Justine, QC Jennifer Lewington, Freelance education journalist, Stratford, ON Corinne Payne, présidente, Fédération des comités de parents du Québec (FCPQ), Québec, QC David Price, Senior Associate, Innovation Unit, Leeds, UK Zoe Branigan Pipe, Teacher, Hamilton, ON Cynthia Richards, President, Canadian Home and School Federation, Chipman, NB Sébastien Stasse, directeur formation et recherche au CADRE21, Longueuil, QC Chris Wejr, Principal, Langley, BC Dr. Joel Westheimer, University Research Chair in the Sociology of Education, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON Andrew Woodall, Dean of Students, Concordia University, Montréal, QC Dr. Christine Younghusband, Assistant Professor, University of Northern British Columbia School of Education, Prince George, BC

© 2020 Canadian Education Association/l’Association canadienne d’éducation ISSN 0013-1253 Publications Mail Agreement No. 40031215 HST/TVH # R100763416 www.edcan.ca

Ancrés dans l’expérience et la perspective de l’éducation au Canada, nos articles, en anglais et en français, donnent voix aux enseignants, aux directeurs d’écoles, aux administrateurs et aux chercheurs, c’est-à-dire à un réseau croissant d’experts qui se penchent avec courage et honnêteté sur les enjeux actuels de l’école et de la pratique en classe. Pragmatique et accessible, fondé sur des données probantes, le magazine Éducation Canada jette des ponts entre politiques, recherche et pratique.

Le magazine Éducation Canada est publié quatre fois l’an par le Réseau ÉdCan. 60, avenue St. Clair E, bureau 703 Toronto, ON M4T 1N5 Tél. : 416 591-6300; Téléc. : 416 591-5345 Courriel : publications@edcan.ca www.edcan.ca/fr Membre de Magazines Canada Le Réseau ÉdCan ne vend pas d’abonnements au magazine Éducation Canada. Cette publication est réservée aux membres du Réseau ÉdCan. Les bibliothèques, les écoles et les établissements postsecondaires peuvent encore se procurer un abonnement par l’intermédiaire d’une agence d’abonnements.

Envoyez vos lettres et manuscrits à : Rédacteur en chef Éducation Canada redaction@edcan.ca Tél. : 416 591-6300 Téléc. : 416 591-5345

Rooted in the Canadian education experience and perspective, our English and French articles provide voice to teachers, principals, superintendents and researchers – a growing network of experts who examine today’s school and classroom challenges with courage and honesty. Pragmatic, accessible and evidencebased, Education Canada connects policy and research to classroom practice.

Education Canada is published four times yearly by the EdCan Network.

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Address all editorial correspondence to: Holly Bennett, Editor Education Canada editor@edcan.ca Tel: (705) 745-1419; Fax: (416) 591-5345 You are free to reproduce, distribute and transmit the articles in this publication, provided you attribute the author(s), Education Canada Vol. 60 (2), 2020, and a link to the EdCan Network (www.edcan.ca).

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The views expressed or implied in this publication are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EdCan Network. Publication of an advertisement in Education Canada does not constitute an endorsement by the EdCan Network of any advertiser’s product or service including professional learning opportunities.

4 EDUCATION CANADA • June/Juin 2020 | EdCan Network

Il est permis de reproduire, de distribuer et de transmettre les articles de ce magazine, à condition d’indiquer l’auteur (ou les auteurs) ainsi que Éducation Canada, Vol. 60 (2), 2020, et d’inclure un lien vers le Réseau ÉdCan (www.edcan.ca/fr). Vous ne pouvez pas utiliser les articles de cet ouvrage à des fins commerciales ou encore altérer, transformer ou étoffer les articles de ce magazine. Publication ISSN 0013-1253.

Les opinions exprimées de façons implicite et explicite dans ce magazine sont celles des auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement le point de vue du Réseau ÉdCan. La parution d’annonces dans les pages du magazine n’implique aucunement que le Réseau ÉdCan appuie les produits ou services annoncés, y compris les activités de formation professionelle.

Note : Le magazine Éducation Canada est conforme à la nouvelle orthographe. Le générique masculin est utilisé sans discrimination et uniquement dans le but d’alléger le texte.

www.edcan.ca/magazine

editor’s note / le mot du rédacteur

BY HOLLY BENNETT

PAR JÉROME ST-AMAND

Trading Up

Bien choisir son métier

AS WE FINALIZED the articles for this issue of Education Canada, schools and campuses across the country had been closed for about a month to reduce the spread of COVID-19. It looked like students would not be back in class anytime soon. And we were wondering how much sense it made to ship boxes of magazines to empty buildings.

Those closed schools are the reason we are not printing our May issue. Like the teachers and profs who have turned to online technology to connect with their students, we have created an onlineonly magazine. We invite you to enjoy the PDF version as you “shelter in place.”

In this issue of Education Canada we focus on the skilled trades, and specifically on the K-12 system’s role in connecting students to trades training.

So here’s the dilemma. While I still devoutly believe in the value of a liberal arts education, our world is full of highly educated young adults working precarious minimum-wage service jobs because that’s all they could find. Many of them never even considered skilled trades.

Probably nobody ever suggested that they were worth looking into.

Some students may have even been steered away from trades when they expressed interest.

Meanwhile, well paying, challenging, steady jobs are going unfilled in many trades sectors. While it’s not up to K-12 schools to qualify students for a trade, we think we could be doing a better job of introducing them to the trades as a desirable career path. We also need more options that allow secondary students to “try before they buy” (and ideally earn credits at the same time), and more fluid pathways that allow students to combine academic and skills-based training.

In our theme section, two innovative Canadian programs that give high schools students a great head start in trades (“TAP into Trades, p. 14, and “Youth Train in Trades,” p. 22) share how they fill that gap.

And looking at the bigger picture, David Livingstone and Milosh Raykov (p. 18) discuss the need for expanded apprenticeship programs and better linkages between our education and apprenticeship systems.

Paul Stastny (p. 25) examines our other big labour need – digital technology skills – and how the digitizing of many trades creates new opportunities, while Alison Taylor (on our website) argues for experiential and work-integrated learning programs as a means of breaking down “the binary between vocational and professional education.”

Perhaps it comes down to that old ideal of a “well-rounded education.” Shouldn’t an education include learning how to do things as well as how to know things? And can’t we, as Taylor suggests, educate students in a way that prepares them for both democratic citizenship and employability?

DEPUIS PLUSIEURS SEMAINES DÉJÀ, nos écoles sont fermées en raison de la pandémie issue de la COVID-19. Dans ce contexte, nous optons pour une version en ligne du numéro de mai afin d’éviter toute manipulation d’exemplaires du magazine. Nous vous invitons à prendre plaisir à sa lecture.

Choisir une carrière constitue une étape fondamentale de la vie des jeunes. De fait, la formation professionnelle fait partie de ces nombreuses possibilités permettant à ces derniers d’acquérir le savoirfaire et les connaissances qui donnent lieu à l’exercice d’un métier valorisant. Les compétences développées avec ce type de formation contribuent à actualiser le plein potentiel à condition d’afficher de la persévérance, de l’autonomie et de l’assiduité.

Qu’il recherche une formation professionnelle, une certification aux métiers semi-spécialisés ou encore un programme de perfectionnement, le jeune trouvera dans bien des cas une formule d’alternance entre le travail et les études. Ces différents types de certification, d’attestation et de diplômes permettent aux candidates et aux candidats d’exceller sur le plan professionnel.

Il faut néanmoins encourager tous les membres gravitant autour du jeune (p.ex., parents, amis, etc.) de le soutenir de façon constante.

Chaque parole est importante; chaque discussion peut donner lieu à des réflexions qui nourrissent son choix de carrière. Il faut aussi les informer. Quelles sont les conditions de travail du métier envisagé?

Quels sont les taux de placement des diplômés? Quel est le salaire?

Lever les obstacles pour entamer la formation professionnelle est par conséquent prioritaire. Car en effet, la non-qualification et le décrochage scolaire donnent lieu à des conséquences néfastes qui sont bien connues en sciences de l’éducation. Sans métier, donc, les difficultés s’accentuent (p.ex., chômage, problème de santé, etc.).

Dans un contexte de pénurie de main-d’œuvre, surtout dans une perspective de vieillissement de la population, la non-qualification prive les jeunes d’une arrivée active sur le marché du travail. Étant donné les besoins criants dans plusieurs secteurs, il est impératif d’aider le jeune à se connaître, à découvrir les métiers et les programmes d’études, à visiter les salons de métiers, etc. Soyons inspirants pour les soutenir dans le choix de leur métier !

www.edcan.ca/magazine

CORRECTION

Veuillez noter que le nom de l’auteure apparaissant sur l’article intitulé « De bonnes pratiques d’enseignement en sciences et technologies au primaire », publié dans le numéro de mars 2020, était incorrect.

Le nom de l’auteure aurait dû être celui de la professeure Christine Couture (Université du Québec à Chicoutimi) et non celui de la professeure Diane Pruneau (Université de Moncton). Éducation Canada regrette cette erreur et a corrigé la version en ligne de l’article : https://www.edcan.ca/articles/sciences-et-technologies/?lang=fr.

EdCan Network | June/Juin 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 5

network voices / voix du réseau BY/PAR MAX COOKE

Supporting Educators through the Post-COVID-19 Recovery Phase EdCan’s Well at Work initiative helps K-12 staff respond to the unprecedented challenges of returning to school.

Max Cooke is the CEO of the EdCan Network

Max Cooke est le directeur général du Réseau ÉdCan

ON BEHALF OF the EdCan Board and Advisory Council, I would like to wish our network members across the country continued safety and well-being during this challenging time. If you’re feeling over-Zoomed, overburdened and isolated, you are not alone.

We recognize that the stressful uncertainties associated with the “new normal” back-to-school awaiting teachers, staff and students will place even more strain on their mental health and well-being.

When the pandemic arrived in Canada, EdCan temporarily pivoted our Well at Work initiative – which aims to shift mindsets by showcasing research, policy and practice that results in healthier, happier, and more resilient K-12 staff – to Well at Home. We continue to offer our original, and carefully curated, tools and tips to help you (the front-line first-responders and system leader heroes) to take care of yourselves.

We unfortunately have had no choice but to postpone our Pan-Canadian Summit on K-12 Staff Well-Being that had been scheduled for November 2-4, 2020, but we continue to feature the foremost experts on this topic in an ongoing series of free webinars over the next few months with the goal of maintaining momentum on this crucial issue. I also encourage you to consider using our Well at Work Professional Development Discussion Kit, which offers group discussion and self-reflection guides that can help you and your colleagues unpack how you can strengthen social and emotional well-being together to achieve healthier schools.

Please continue to follow our social media accounts and subscribe to our e-newsletters for our latest blog posts and podcasts with a pan-Canadian perspective,

Find Us Online

www.edcan.ca/wellathome www.edcan.ca/wellatwork https://edcansummit.ca/webinar-series

6 EDUCATION CANADA • June/Juin 2020 | EdCan Network

from some of our country’s leading education thinkers, about how we move forward together. We encourage you to add your voice to this ongoing dialogue and please let us know how we can continue to support you and your colleagues to be at your best. Most importantly, please continue to be mindful and kind to yourselves by acknowledging how quickly this situation was cast upon us and how well we’ve all done to ensure that all children continue to learn. EC

Soutenir les éducateurs pendant le déconfinement L’initiative Bien dans mon travail du Réseau ÉdCan aide les intervenants* scolaires du primaire et du secondaire à relever les défis sans précédents du retour à l’école.

AU NOM des conseils d’administration et de consultation du Réseau ÉdCan, j’aimerais souhaiter à tous les membres de notre réseau partout au pays de la sécurité et du bienêtre en ces temps difficiles. Si Zoom vous incommode et que vous croulez sous les responsabilités tout en vous sentant isolé, sachez que vous n’êtes pas seuls.

Nous ne sommes pas sans savoir que le stress et les incertitudes du retour à l’école et de la nouvelle réalité qui attend les enseignants, les autres membres du personnel des écoles ainsi que les élèves risquent d’influencer négativement la santé mentale et le bien-être de tous. À l’arrivée de la pandémie au Canada, le Réseau ÉdCan a temporairement transformé son initiative Bien dans mon travail – qui vise à changer les mentalités www.edcan.ca/magazine

en mettant de l’avant la recherche, les politiques et les pratiques ayant comme résultat un personnel scolaire des niveaux primaire et secondaire en meilleure santé, plus heureux et plus résilient – en Bien chez soi. Nous proposons toujours des outils et des conseils exclusifs soigneusement sélectionnés pour vous aider – vous qui êtes les héros, en qualité d’intervenants de première ligne, et les chefs de file du secteur de l’enseignement – à prendre soin de vous.

Malheureusement, nous devons de nouveau reporter notre Sommet pancanadien sur le bien-être au travail des intervenants scolaires d’écoles primaires et secondaires qui devait se dérouler du 2 au 4 novembre 2020, mais nous continuons d’explorer les propos des principaux experts en la matière dans une série de webinaires gratuits au cours des prochains mois, afin de maintenir le rythme au regard de cette question cruciale. Je vous encourage aussi à utiliser notre Trousse de discussion destinée au développement professionnel du personnel scolaire qui contient des guides d’autoréflexion et de discussion de groupe pour vous aider à développer, avec vos collègues, des stratégies visant à susciter le bien-être social et émotionnel qui permettent de créer des écoles plus saines.

www.edcan.ca/magazine

Je vous invite à continuer de suivre nos médias sociaux et à vous abonner à nos bulletins électroniques pour recevoir les derniers blogues et balados de certains des plus grands théoriciens en sciences de l’éducation au pays et apprendre comment aller de l’avant ensemble. Nous vous serions reconnaissants d’ajouter votre voix à ce dialogue et de nous faire savoir comment continuer à vous soutenir pour vous permettre d’être à votre mieux. Enfin, et surtout, nous vous prions de continuer de faire preuve d’attention et d’indulgence envers vous-même. De fait, il est impératif de reconnaître la rapidité avec laquelle nous nous sommes retrouvés dans cette situation et de se féliciter pour nos efforts communs visant à continuer de dispenser de l’enseignement à tous les élèves. ÉC * L e générique masculin est utilisé sans discrimination et uniquement dans le but d’alléger le texte.

Trouvez-nous en ligne

https://www.edcan.ca/well-at-work/well-at-home/?lang=fr https://www.edcan.ca/well-at-work/?lang=fr https:// edcansummit.ca/webinar-series (en anglais seulement)

EdCan Network | June/Juin 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 7

promising practices

BY GILLIAN JUDSON

PHOTO: AMELIA DARE

A Walking Curriculum Outdoor inquiry and imagination Gillian Judson, PhD, is Executive Director of the Centre For Imagination in Research, Culture and Education (www.circesfu.ca) at Simon Fraser University.

Her research and teaching are primarily concerned with the role of imagination in all learning, with a particular focus on imaginative, Placebased teaching practices.

“TWO GRADE 4 STUDENTS suddenly stop. Crouching down, unzipped coats hastily pushed behind them, they look closely at the base of a tree in the schoolyard. “Here,” one points eagerly. “This would be a great hiding place for an ant.”

“Yeah,” says the other, “but what about a mouse or a rat? That’s too small! There’s more hiding places over here – come on!” They both take off running. Mr. Reynold’s students have been told to find evidence of the great game of “hide and seek” going on all around them. The students learned that “hiders” may be prey and “seekers” predators. They look carefully, eyes opened to the largely invisible “game” that is played out everywhere in nature.

Yesterday, these same students paired up with their Kindergarten buddies to consider the life in the schoolyard. Wandering out in pairs, they searched for

8 EDUCATION CANADA • June 2020 | EdCan Network

evidence of growth and, afterwards, shared the “breaking news” of what was “growing on.” (See “Two Sample Walks.”)

The Walking Curriculum

The Walking Curriculum¹ is a teaching resource for K-12 educators who want to take student learning outside school walls. The 60 easy-to-use walk-focused activities are designed to engage students’ emotions and imaginations with their local natural and cultural communities, to broaden their awareness of the particular places where they go to school, and to evoke their sense of wonder in learning. Walking Curriculum activities can be used in any context to develop students’ sense of Place and to enrich their understanding of curricular topics.

The Walking Curriculum is designed for the educator who is passionate about supporting student learning and dedicated to growing in their practice, but who may not have considered moving outside the school walls to do so. All educators can afford their students the opportunity to connect with the wildness in the world – whether in urban, suburban, or rural settings.

Teachers often have few imagination-focused resources that can develop students’ sense of ecological understanding and at the same time can contribute www.edcan.ca/magazine

to their understanding of the mandated curriculum. The Walking Curriculum resource is designed to fill that gap. The proposed walking activities address a wide variety of themes, perspectives, and motivations. For example, students may be asked to find different things (such as shapes, spaces or lines, evidence of growth or change, “the best” hiding places), to change perspectives (imagine being a beetle, a detective, or a visitor from outer space), to encounter the world differently (emphasizing one sense over another or moving through space differently), to seek evidence of human-nature relationships, to identify patterns, or to locate natural or human systems in action. In all cases, the activities are designed to connect Place-based learning activities with cross-curricular goals and to serve as examples to inspire other Place-inspired teaching ideas.

It’s an overcast day when Ms. Rai’s Grade 9 students move their Social Studies learning outdoors. The students are seeking examples of different land uses—in particular how the community caters to cars.

Their observations fuel an interesting discussion in class about cultural priorities and values. Their teacher plans for their next walkingbased activity to look at walkability in their neighbourhoods. They will be considering how useable, safe, comfortable and appealing different footpaths are for pedestrians and will ultimately suggest improvements. Some of the same students spend time later that day walking with breath – they are taking a mindfulness walk and considering how their bodies move, how the rhythm of their moving bodies and their own in- and exhalations offer them a focus for their attention. They are learning about mental wellness and practicing through outdoor walking.

Schoolyards are often underused resources for learning the curriculum and for developing students’ connections with nature and community.

The message within the Walking Curriculum is simple: All educators (not just those who identify as “outdoor educators”) can help students re-imagine their relationship with the natural world wherever they go to school.

Engaging with nature ignites the imagination and fuels human curiosity.² There is an openness and a complexity in nature that engages our sense of wonder, and a sensuousness that engages the body in learning. I believe outdoor, imagination-focused learning is one way to ensure that our students leave school more curious than when they arrived. This may address a troubling trend of disengagement and boredom for many students as they proceed through school.

Educators’ observations

Educators using the Walking Curriculum say they appreciate how the approach creates a new space for their teaching – they are experimenting, collaborating and discussing these ideas in ways that can support their professional growth. Educators find the Walking Curriculum to be a powerful bridge connecting traditional, “placeless” ways of teaching with an Indigenous worldview that acknowledges human beings learn from the relationships they experience within their human, other-than-human, and more-than-human communities.

They are noticing the positive impact that the walks have on students’ mental well-being and their ability to regulate their emotions. And they report that their students’ observational skills are improving and their curiosity increasing – the walks take longer as students more deeply engage and as students are asking more questions, more often.

The Walking Curriculum encourages interdisciplinary learning, as educators connect the ideas/learning generated through the walkingwww.edcan.ca/magazine

based activities to other curricular topics.

Every walk in the Walking Curriculum can bring some aspect of the natural world and related curricular knowledge into focus. With increasing clarity students begin to see the wonder in the “ordinary” world around them.

Re-imagining where students learn

Walking has been called the “magic pill” for wellness as it can positively impact so many aspects of our physical and mental health.

Engaging with nature more routinely is also important for saving the planet. Research shows that undergoing meaningful experiences in nature as children can foster the development of a conservation ethic.

This is, of course, one of the ultimate goals of Green Schools: students who care about the Earth.

Two Sample Walks 1. The Hiding Place Walk: What good hiding places can you find? First think about a hiding place for yourself. Next, identify the best hiding places for a raccoon, a mouse, or a spider. Dramatic Tension: A giant life and death drama of “hide and go seek” is going on right now, all around us. Identify things that you think always try to hide. Why? It may be that the “hiders” are “prey” to other animals – they are likely to get eaten! Identify “prey” and “predators” – hiders and seekers.

2. The Growth Walk: What is growing on your walk? How do you know? What are the different ways in which growth appears to you? Role Play: What’s “growing on” in your schoolyard? Like a reporter, give a “breaking news” report about an example of things growing that you observed on your walk.

The Walking Curriculum challenges teachers to re-imagine how they teach and it encourages teachers to personally re-connect to Place and community. The Walking Curriculum encourages teachers to “get outside” (physically outside and, figuratively, “outside” by rethinking how they engage their students). Engaging learners in their local natural and cultural contexts may – in part – be as simple as taking imaginatively engaging, inquiry-focused walks. EC NOTES 1 G. Judson, A Walking Curriculum: Evoking wonder and developing sense of place (K-12) (KDP, 2018). Also available in French and Spanish. Learn more on imaginED www.educationthatinspires.ca 2 To learn more about imagination’s role in ecological understanding, read G. Judson, Engaging Imagination in Ecological Education: Practical strategies for teaching (Vancouver, B.C.: UBC Press, 2015); and G. Judson, A New Approach to Ecological Education: Engaging students’ imaginations in their world (New York: Peter Lang, 2010).

EdCan Network | June 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 9

well at work

BY GAIL MARKIN, RENGE BAILIE, MEGAN ZAZELENCHUK, AMANDA LABOUCANE AND SABRE CHERKOWSKI

ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCK

Gail Markin is a Counsellor and Teacher who supports Social Emotional Learning in the Langley School District (Langley, B.C.).

She is passionate about well-being for all.

Renge Bailie is a District Principal of Student Support Services with the Langley School District. Her portfolio includes all topics related to student safety and well-being.

Megan Zazelenchuk is a Human Resources Manager for Health and Wellness in the Langley School District.

Amanda LaBoucane is a health leadership professional who focuses on upstream health promotion and prevention through a population health lens.

Sabre Cherkowski is an associate professor in the Okanagan School of Education at the University of British Columbia. She is currently engaged in a multi-year, panCanadian research project on Flourishing in Schools.

Growing Well-Being Across a System Our emerging learning journey WHAT STARTED OUT as four individuals from different work roles, each of us having a shared goal of supporting well-being in schools, has become a collaborative passion project to grow and sustain well-being across our district. Through this article, we look back on our journey of learning and collaborating, reflecting on some of the insights we have gained about supporting staff well-being in school districts.

Thanks to an assistant superintendent who saw an unusual, but natural, alignment in our work, we formed our district wellness team in the fall of 2017. We each had different but complementary roles – a district principal for student services, a district teacher/counsellor and a human resources manager. We also brought a health authority partner onto our team, providing a valuable broader view of the communities within which the students and educators work and live.

We started our plans with a district-wide learning series on social emotional learning and well-being, to help staff understand the importance of this learning in schools and the amazing outcomes these skills and practices provide around student health, happiness and success.

It became apparent that these were the same skills and practices that we needed to build as adults, both so we could model and teach them to students and for our own health and happiness. We were starting to see the importance of adult well-being to positive outcomes for both the adults and the students.

We decided to make teacher and staff well-being our project focus. One of our first objectives was to gain an

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awareness of how our staff were doing, and to understand their sense of well-being at work. We wanted to gather people together to start a discussion and generate some ideas to support well-being in our district. As with many exciting and challenging tasks, this project became much more complex than we anticipated, and also very rich and rewarding. We are now at the stage of reflecting on all that we have learned, to inform our plans for how to continue the work of supporting teacher and staff well-being in our district. We’d like to share some of the themes that have emerged for us so far as we analyze and reflect on our experiences and data.

Three interconnected parts

Our work to date has underscored that well-being is holistic, encompassing interconnecting aspects. In particular, we have become aware of three important facets of staff well-being.

1. Well-being is individual. An important part of increasing well-being lies with the individual person. This assumption was our starting point, and it has remained an important aspect of how we understand well-being as holistic and interconnected. Focusing on growing staff well-being had us thinking about how to support practices of self-awareness and self-care. Much of the first year of our project was learning about social emotional skills and bringing that back to the district as learning conversations in the workplace. We found that sometimes just acknowledging that self-care matters and sharing what that looks like can go a long way in supporting people to take care of themselves, especially in helping professions where we are so used to caring for others.

2. Well-being is relational. The second interconnected part that became very clear is that well-being is relational and that we are better together, both in terms of productivity/success and in terms of health, happiness and overall well-being. The main focus of our second year was on the relational aspects in our well-being work.

This led us to connect with Dr. Sabre Cherkowski. She was completing a multi-year research project on teacher well-being, where she and her colleague, Dr. Keith Walker, had built a theoretical and practical understanding of what it means for educators to flourish in their work.¹ Her research was framed within a positive organizational perspective that highlighted how focusing on and supporting positive human capacities at work, such as compassion, humility, kindness, and forgiveness, had a positive and generative affect that often led to increases in other aspects of work such as creativity, productivity, innovation, and commitment to the organization.

We were interested in Dr. Cherkowski’s research approach of using a strength-based, appreciative www.edcan.ca/magazine

perspective to notice and nurture what was already working well and what already gives staff a sense of well-being in their work. We were also interested in learning more about an appreciative approach to positive change, focusing on what happens when the whole system is invited into the conversation to reflect on how we might promote and support well-being across our district. With Dr. Cherkowski and the consent of our district, we designed a continuation of our learning series, inviting staff across the district to join us for three dinner events that offered an opportunity to: • learn about research on well-being in educational workplaces • engage in conversations designed to gain a better sense of what well-being means to different individuals and teams across the district • learn how to design a collaborative, appreciative inquiry project to further build on what is already working well • ensure opportunities to analyze, tweak and share progress of the inquiries • provide a model for how staff might create conditions in their work contexts for appreciative conversations at and about work.

At each event, Dr. Cherkowski guided some 150 attendees through a sequence of reflections and activities focused on: • Purpose (what makes us feel alive, engaged, connected and well in our work?)

• Passion (what are our strengths, gifts, talents that we can draw on to help live out our purpose at work?)

• Play (how might we innovate, create, design environments that enliven our passions and purpose?)

• Plan (what resources, materials, supports and knowledge do we need to build and grow our flourishing?)

The conversations that emerged created a safe, caring, uplifted environment where colleagues shared their dreams and desires in their work, as well as their challenges and struggles. The evenings became a space for building the relational processes necessary for the work of nurturing well-being for self and others in our own work contexts.

We observed that teams and individuals were now working on plans to connect what they were learning about flourishing to things they might try out in their context. One example was a principal who designed a “tree of flourishing” that she took to her teachers and staff.

She suggested they fill out all the ways that they, their students, and their school community were experiencing well-being. As they filled out the tree over a course of a few weeks and posted it around the school, this gave them a sense of pride and ownership for all that was working well. It also provided a touchpoint for conversations around struggles and challenges, as there was a sense of being cared for by a larger community that was working together to tend to the entire tree. Within the challenging and seemingly never-ending work of meeting school goals for all students, this principal developed a tool that evoked a sense of hope, of joy, and of agency about being well together at work.

While participants in our dinner series were working on their inquiries, we were planning to find out more about how teachers and staff were doing with their well-being. We decided to conduct focus groups with teachers and staff in different roles. Our deeper learning from these focus groups is still to come as we work with this valuable data, but we have already learned some things from this process. The first is to bring your district leadership and your union groups into the process early. This was such a helpful process and a good reminder that everyone wants well-being. We are all working toward a common goal. The second one is that health and wellwww.edcan.ca/magazine

being is something people want to talk about. People want to tell their stories and they want to be heard. If you are going to ask the questions, you have to be prepared to listen to the answers and be willing to co-create a plan that moves discussion into action.

3. Well-being is system-wide. Reminding ourselves to engage in our change work from the level of the system is an especially important piece, even though it often proves difficult to navigate and implement.

Our commitment to growing staff well-being across the district meant that we needed to think about the system in all its interrelated parts to embed well-being for the long term. Looking back at our approach through a systems-lens, we: • interviewed as many staff as possible to get a sense of their experiences and what change might be necessary • established a structure for improving the quality of our communication about well-being through the dinner learning series • are now analyzing the data we’ve collected to see how we can continue to grow well-being across the system.

We have learned that systems are relational entities, and that we need to take care to avoid assigning blame to any part of the system as a separate actor. At the same time, we need to avoid always looking outside the system for our solutions. We have come to understand that “we” are also the system – individuals and groups carrying out our work together toward shared goals, influencing and impacting all other parts of the system. There can be a feeling of empowerment in knowing that we are the ones who inform, create and follow (or not) the policies and practices of “the system.” Many of these practices are helpful to keep things moving. They create a sense of order and common understanding that help define and support our work. It can also be frustrating to realize that our implication in the system also means that many of our practices and our ways of doing things come from a historical context that is no longer applicable or helpful to us.

As we learn more about systems change we are building the courage to look at our ways of working compassionately and to be open to the possibilities that follow.

As we begin to understand the interconnectedness of the system, we are also reminded that the feeling of efficacy around systems change is also very important. There is a balance between knowing that some larger changes take time and will require patience, and that other small actions can happen quickly. Focusing our attention on the ways these small changes can impact the larger system over time and contribute to well-being is at the heart of Cherkowski and Walker’s work on flourishing in schools. We are developing a sense of agency, a power to be able co-create an emerging future where decisions and practices around well-being become a primary component of our culture: the way we do things.

Multiple voices and ways of knowing

One of our most important learnings so far, and what may turn out to be the “secret sauce” for the work of growing well-being for all in schools, is the importance of bringing in multiple voices and ways of knowing. We also need time, space and resources for this work to become sustainable. A few passionate people cannot do this alone or in their “spare time” without it impacting their own health and well-being.

In the next part of our journey we will expand our team and look at ways to make this work sustainable and impactful for the long term. EC NOTE 1 S. Cherkowski and K. Walker, K. Teacher Wellbeing: Noticing, nurturing, and sustaining flourishing in schools (Burlington, ON: Word and Deed Press, 2018).

EdCan Network | June 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 11

viewpoint

BY GREGORY C. GERBER

PHOTO: ISTOCK

The Creativity Question Does schooling really kill creativity?

Greg Gerber has 19 years of experience teaching and leading in K-12 education in B.C. and remains actively engaged in B.C.’s curriculum transformation implementation efforts. Greg is Assistant Professor and Dean of the Instructional Technology program at the Vancouver campuses of the New York Institute of Technology.

HAVE YOU EVER HAD one of those moments where, in what seems to present itself as a sudden flash of insight, you recognize that something you had previously considered to be an unequivocal truth might not hold up quite so strongly? I have, and I’m still thinking about it, so I’d like to invite you on my journey up to this point.

Schools should foster creativity, and there are very few people who would assert otherwise. Education reform speakers call for increased focus on creativity development, and the B.C. curriculum places creative thinking as an essential target for core competency development. Yet in the last two decades it has often been suggested that schools, unfortunately, have precisely the opposite effect – that schools kill creativity.

Sir Ken Robinson made this idea popular in his viral Ted talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”¹ Citing research that sought to measure creativity in populations of people, Robinson projects a wonderfully impactful chart which illustrates the percentage of people who score at the genius level by age group. The trend is staggeringly clear; a straight down-angled line connects the data points between five-year-olds who score in the genius range for divergent thinking (at 95 percent), ten-year-olds (32 percent), and 15-year-olds (10 percent). “There is something happening to our children,” Sir Ken remarks.

“School kills creativity, and that has to change.”

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The polemical nature of the “school kills creativity” proclamation is effective for instilling a passion for change and better serving students, but it also causes me to wonder: are schools, in fact, the raison d’être for the decline of students’ creativity as they proceed through the education system?

Or is it possible that we are not considering the larger picture?

Think back to when you were young, as far back as your memory allows. I recall running about the house with a towel adorning my shoulders – convinced, unequivocally, that human flight was in my immediate future. One more push, a more forceful thrust of my arms, or jumping a little higher… I knew it was only a matter of when and not if I would fly like Superman. I’m guessing that you can also recall examples that showcase your childhood creative genius and belief in possibility. I can’t imagine that our God-given abilities are so easily lost as a result of our education system.

There are some things other than schooling that take place during those years of growth that, I believe, may have more to do with explaining our diminishing creativity – something less sinister, and something more sinister.

Let’s consider these in turn.

The dawn of reason

First, as we age we grow in our ability to think, or to ratiocinate, which literally means to process and consider rationally and logically. When I was a child, I believed that a hero-esque endowment of flight was possible, and I acted according to that belief. I jumped. I leapt. I bounded into the air off flights of stairs, couches, and bookshelves. Over time – thankfully not too much time – the bruises and sprained ankles taught me that my belief might not reign within reasonable expectation. And as I www.edcan.ca/magazine

think of this, I recognize something profound: reason tempers creative expression. I wonder, is it possible that Sir Ken’s measurement of creativity, exemplified by how many uses an individual can think of for a paper clip, favours quantity and not the quality of divergent thinking?

As one’s ability to think and reason increases, we should expect that many creative inclinations are filtered. I have bad, yet innovative ideas frequently, but I don’t act on or share them because I recognize that they don’t merit an audience. Older people will presumably not think of as many uses for a paper clip because they know what

Creativity empowered breeds revision. It is fostered through a willingness to try, recognizing that there is always more we can learn through experiencing failure. a paperclip can (and can’t) do, and thus discard possibilities that seem to lack value. The expression of creative ideation is reduced as a natural consequence of growth, development, and the maturation of logical thinking – not necessarily by being choked out by the hands of schooling. In fact, Kyung Hee Kim’s research shows that although a student’s creative Fluency score decreases as he progresses through the grade levels, his ability to elaborate on ideas, diversify areas of consideration, and stick with and develop ideas increase over the same timeframes.² (For graphs of every measure tracked in this study, see the online version of the article at www.edcan.ca.)

Embracing possibility

But there is also something more sinister which comes into play – something that begins as a small weed and often grows over the years, potentially muting our willingness to engage our innate creativity. As many of us age, we stop believing in possibility, an essential ingredient fueling curiosity, the desire to explore,³ and one’s investment in creativity. Schooling, as Sir Ken Robinson points out, plays a significant role in shaping the thinking habits of children. Many teachers focus on the attainment of specific knowledge and thereby perpetuate a foundational ideological alignment with the idea that there always exists a “right” answer. Being “right” is rewarded. Being “wrong” is stigmatized and often penalized. Too often, content-focused teaching fails to recognize that a student’s ability to be “wrong” is an essential ingredient for seeing and pursuing possibility.

www.edcan.ca/magazine

Failure left uncelebrated feeds into new conceptualizations of limitation. My dream of human flight died with my final plop to the floor, accompanied by the laughter and ridicule of siblings. What might have become of my passion if I had been encouraged to rework the idea, to trade in the towel-cape and seek out increasingly reasoned approaches? (Perhaps the Wright brothers had similar beginnings.)

Creativity empowered breeds revision. It is fostered through a willingness to try, recognizing that an idea only dies when we accept our last failure as final.⁴ There is always more we can learn through experiencing failure.

It is, then, the role of the teacher to foster seeing possibility by reframing failure, to take time to consider whimsy, and to teach students how what might first be regarded as a bad or weak idea can often be reworked into a good one. Focus on asking questions over providing answers – on exploration over giving directives. Provide students with time to reason through the merit of their ideas. Facilitate and coach students to think by considering the answers to the questions, “What if?” or “How might?” or “What’s next?”⁵ I have never met a teacher who entered the profession with a vision of producing die-cut student minions. Instead, they became teachers because of a deep desire to help students live into and reach their potential. We learn (and teach) so that we might expose new potential solutions, insights, or abilities and then press into, or live into, those possibilities. Teachers strive to recognize possibility within the landscape of every student’s individual giftedness, then work to nurture their unique complement of talents.

How do we do this?

Spend time dreaming, on your own and with your students.

Acknowledge that sometimes the dreams that seem crazy may just be the seed of the next idea that changes the world, then empower an attitude to try. Shakespeare said it well in Measure for Measure: “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.” If we give up on something, it is finished. Where we continue to believe in possibility, creativity knows very few limits. EC NOTES 1 TEDTalks: Sir Ken Robinson, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” (New York, N.Y: Films Media Group, 2009).

2 K. Kim, “The Creativity Crisis: The decrease in creative thinking scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking,” Creativity Research Journal 23, no. 4 (2011): 285-295.

3 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, How People Learn II: Learners, contexts, and cultures (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2018), 149.

4 R. Beghetto, “Taking Beautiful Risks in Education,” The Arts and Creativity in Schools 76, no. 4 (2018): 18-24.

5 Kolb, David & Kolb, Alice. (2017). The Experiential Educator: Principles and Practices of Experiential Learning.

EdCan Network | June 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 13

THE SKILLED TRADES

TAP into

Trades

Building trades awareness in Canada’s North Curtis Brown is the Superintendent for the South Slave Divisional Education Council (SSDEC), was named Canadian Superintendent of the Year (2011) by the Canadian Association of School System Administrators, and is a recipient of the Governor General’s Polar Medal (2019).

Chris Talbot is the Public Affairs Coordinator for the SSDEC.

BY CURTIS BROWN AND CHRIS TALBOT THE SKILLED TRADES GAP continues to widen as

more tradespersons retire than join the Red Seal ranks each year. Such is the case in the Northwest Territories, where the largely Indigenous population is located in 33 communities distributed across more than 1.3 million square kilometres of land between the Alberta border and the High Arctic. With the high cost of living and lack of skilled tradespeople in most communities, it may be impossible to find a plumber or an electrician – and the pipes freeze quickly at 40 below.

The trades shortage is exacerbated by the prevalence of oil, natural gas and mining activities in the North that have generated a large demand for skilled workers. Compounding the issue is the fact that schools in the North are small and often lack shop facilities and qualified instructors. As a result, finding ways to raise awareness and expose Northern students to careers in the trades is problematic.

In 2005, the South Slave Divisional Education Council (SSDEC), Aurora College and the Fort Smith Career Centre formed a partnership called the South Slave Communities’ Learning Network (SSCLN). The SSCLN’s first task was to brainstorm initiatives of mutual interest and potential benefit to the South Slave region and

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the predominantly Indigenous communities (75% Dene and Métis) of Fort Smith (Chipewyan, Cree, English and French), Hay River (Slavey, English and French), Fort Resolution (Chipewyan), K’atlodeeche First Nation (Slavey), and the fly-in-only community of Lutsel K’e (Chipewyan).

The SSCLN identified career development as a key area of mutual interest, which then led to the creation of the Trades Awareness Program (TAP). TAP began with the intent of providing a hands-on trades experience for students in the South Slave who did not otherwise have exposure to qualified instructors, accredited shops or equipment. The hope is that, through TAP, more and more students will be motivated to complete high school, enrol in the College, and pursue careers in the trades, with potential benefit to both themselves and their communities.

Program description

The Trades Awareness Program (TAP) brings interested Grade 8-12 students from the outlying communities to the Thebacha Campus of Aurora College in Fort Smith to experience a series of short courses in several different trades. For each week of sessions, the partnership www.edcan.ca/magazine

PHOTO: COURTESY SOUTH SLAVE DIVISIONAL EDUCATION COUNCIL

The students always really enjoy the TAP Trades Olympics (shown here, the pipe-fitting competition).

organizes transportation, meals and accommodation in the student residences, and instruction for 30-50 students.

After its inception in 2005, TAP quickly expanded from a oneweek pilot into a three-part program in which students can earn up to three credits toward high school graduation. The TAP program now includes two on-site options for students: TAP Introductory and TAP Intensive.

First-time participants attend TAP Introductory, which provides students with experiences in a variety of trades. Students spend one full day in each of four different trades. Depending on the availability of instructors and facilities, students have had the opportunity to choose one-day workshops in carpentry, plumbing, cooking, electrical, welding, computer diagnosis and repair, heavy equipment technology, and environment and natural resources technology. In most years, local businesses have also partnered and generously provided more options for students in mechanics, aviation, and hairdressing.

The TAP Introductory schedule keeps students busy and authentically engaged. Each day they are fitted with proper attire, be it steel-toed boots, hard hats, chef uniforms, welding leathers, hair nets, or safety goggles. They learn about such things as basic pipe fitting, extension cord composition and assembly, meal planning and preparation, toilet installation, and how to use tools like hand saws, measuring tapes, band saws and welders. The flight simulator at the flight training centre of the local airline has been a highlight for www.edcan.ca/magazine

many. The students who rotate through the cooking option prepare lunch for the entire group of students in the Introductory program for that day. Most students also return to their communities having completed a project or two they can take home – wooden birdhouses, extension cords and metal wind chimes, to name a few.

The Introductory program also includes workplace safety and career development sessions, and an extremely popular Trades Olympics event where students compete against each other in a race that has included tasks such as hammering a nail, sawing a piece of wood, assembling a pipe fitting design, and installing a light switch cover.

Completion of the Introductory program is a prerequisite for students who are interested in returning to attend one or more TAP Intensive sessions. In the Intensive program, students complete a week in one trade of their choice, providing students with more indepth exposure to that trade. Some students have returned for a third and fourth Intensive session, when space is available, to gain further exposure in a different trade than they did in previous years.

In both programs, students are required to participate in all activities and behave respectfully at all times. They are informed that they are ambassadors for their people, their schools and their communities, and reminded that their behaviour and effort should make their respective families and communities proud. Thankfully, it is a rare case in which a student breaks the rules and must be sent home early.

EdCan Network | June 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 15

PHOTOS: COURTESY SOUTH SLAVE DIVISIONAL EDUCATION COUNCIL

Students in the Introductory program try their hand at electrical wiring.

Students are evaluated by instructors in both the Introductory and Intensive modules by means of an evaluation rubric. The rubric addresses six areas: safety, student effort, punctuality, participation, use of equipment, and task completion/workmanship. Students are able to earn one credit upon successful completion of the Introductory Program and another credit in the Intensive Program. A third credit is also available for work completed by participating students in their home community in preparation for TAP Intensive, and follow-up reporting and personal career planning upon their return.

The delivery of TAP over its 15-year history is attributable to those involved in the SSCLN partnership. Each plays a critical role. The regional school council provides the students and chaperones, organizes transportation (taxis, buses and a chartered flight for Lutsel K’e students) and hires the program coordinator to plan, promote and oversee both TAP modules each year. The Career Centre has access to labour market funding and provides student access to career counsellors during the TAP modules. Aurora College provides the facilities, accommodations and trades instructors for the modules. Other important partners are local businesses that also provide instruction and facilities. The efforts of the SSCLN ensure there is no cost to students who wish to attend TAP.

Measuring success

When TAP rolled out as a pilot in 2005, the SSCLN identified several objectives, including: • generating more awareness of trades occupations • providing access to accredited shops and instructors • offering work-related experience and skills development • promoting college programs and residence life • networking and building friendships between youth from various communities and cultures • encouraging students to be ambassadors and proud representa-

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tives of their people, their schools and their communities.

Clearly, the program has provided awareness and access, having introduced hundreds of students to the trades over the past 15 years, but how do we know if it’s making a difference and worth continuing?

Student interest and participation in the program is one measure.

Approximately 80-100 students attend TAP each year (in a region of only 1,300 JK-12 students overall). The program set a new participation record this past fall when Aurora College was able to accommodate 53 students in the Introductory program. Most Introductory students return for TAP Intensive.

TAP has proven popular as further evidenced by consistently positive ratings from students, chaperones, and instructors on feedback forms completed and submitted on the last day of each program.

The feedback forms encourage facilitators of the program to ensure a quality program every year. The initiative stays fresh and is constantly improving because the feedback is also used to prepare a report with conclusions, commendations, and recommendations for further improvements the following year. An analysis of this historical data found that over 96 percent of students and chaperones who attended over the years indicated the value of the program to be either “very good” or “good.”

The partnership also contracted out a longitudinal review of the program that sought feedback from both past and present students, including those who were in post-secondary school and/or in the workforce. The review’ has garnered further feedback on the longterm value of the program and helped to determine what further improvements might be considered. The study concluded that TAP was both memorable and valuable. TAP helped 81 percent of participants to decide on their future careers. Thirty-nine percent indicated TAP helped them decide to pursue a career in one particular trade.

Feedback also confirmed that some students discovered the trades www.edcan.ca/magazine

were not for them, which can also be considered a positive outcome from the program.

Due mostly to the Trades Awareness Program and its success, the SSCLN partnership was presented with the Premier’s Award of Excellence for Collaboration.

Both students and their parents have expressed surprise and excitement about how much they learn and the skills they can employ in such a short period of time. The fact that most of the instructors and chaperones are enthusiastic and Indigenous themselves has provided important modelling for students to consider and set similar career goals, especially for our students from the smaller and more remote communities.

We give others the last word on the success of TAP. These quotes were obtained as part of the longitudinal review: “It was very good, in fact, it was better than I expected,” wrote one student. “I met new people, learned new things and most importantly I had fun. The instructors and chaperones were amazing and I learned a lot. It was useful to me because it opened me up to new opportunities and it gave me ideas of what I want to be in the future.”

week per calendar year. In the end, it still means taking students out of their normal classroom routines for an entire week, which means catch-up on their return. Students tend not to enrol in their final Grade 12 year, when success on the diploma exams takes precedence.

Maintaining relations and commitment to the initiative in the face of staff turnover has also been a priority. Only one of the three original CEOs remains. Yet the program has been able to continue each year because of its evident value and because of the partnership, commitment, and generous contributions of the South Slave Divisional Education Council, Aurora College, and the Fort Smith Career Centre (Government of the NWT Department of Education, Culture and Employment).

TAP-ping into the future

The SSCLN partnership and its Trades Awareness Program was designed to provide students with greater information and exposure to the trades and college life. TAP gives opportunities for students

“I have always had a fascination with mechanics, and how things work together to make an effective machine. Seeing the shop and tools, meeting the instructors, I realized that I wanted to become a mechanic,” wrote another student.

“The students are told, on the very first day, that they are in a college setting and that they are expected to behave as college students. And, they do!” wrote one instructor. “The reason I take part in and support this program is just this: the students who participate are being given a valuable opportunity to experience a trade and what they can expect while attending a post-secondary institution. While many may not go into a trade, I hope that all of them will attend college or university at some point, and what better way to get a feel for it than in this safe and nurturing environment. As long as this program runs, I will continue to participate and support it.”

“My daughter has learned a lot from the TAP program,” responded one parent. “She cooks a lot at home now and likes to try new things. When she got back from the program she told me she had lots of fun and enjoyed the instructors. I hope she gets to go one last time this coming year. Thanks again.”

Overcoming challenges

The program has been a tremendous success, but it has not been without its challenges.

The North may be small in population, but it’s large in land size.

With South Slave communities and schools separated by hundreds of kilometres of highway, and one community accessible only by air, the logistics are nothing short of complicated.

Scheduling both the Introductory and Intensive modules also requires a delicate balance. TAP must be scheduled during appropriate times in the calendars of five schools, when regular Aurora College programs are not in session and students not in the dormitory, when the college instructors are available, and when a suitable coordinator can be contracted. TAP also relies on the ability of local businesses to fit students into their busy schedules. The available dates vary from year to year but have most often occurred in September and June, with at least one Introductory and one Intensive www.edcan.ca/magazine

Cheryl Fabian (Katlodeeche First Nation) attended the program in 2005 and later graduated from the Camp Cook Program at Thebacha Campus.

from across the South Slave to “try out” several trades. TAP has also been instrumental in getting students thinking about the trades as viable career options after high school. But TAP has proven to be more than that.

Justice Murray Sinclair has said, in reference to the legacy of Residential Schools, “Reconciliation is about forging and maintaining respectful relationships,” and, “Education is what got us here, and education is what will get us out.” TAP appears to be doing its part in responding to these calls to action. Since students have been scheduled according to their preferred trades, the makeup of each group changes daily, which provides opportunities to socialize with youth from other communities. The meals and social activities further integrate students with food and laughter. The quiet silos of students, clustered by community and language group on day one, completely transform by the end of the week into large group banter and laughter, hugs, exchanges of contact information, and sometimes tears upon departure. In addition to increasing career opportunities for youth, TAP is also helping to break down cultural barriers, strengthen relations, expand comfort zones, and encourage student aspirations.

The skilled trades gap isn’t going away. However, by providing students with an organized gateway to the trades that is both fun and educational, TAP is strengthening relations and creating futures. EC EdCan Network | June 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 17

THE SKILLED TRADES

The Great Canadian Training Gap Transforming the apprenticeship system D. W. Livingstone is past Canada Research Chair of Lifelong Learning and Work and Professor Emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT), and editor of Education and Jobs: Exploring the gaps.

Milosh Raykov is Associate Professor at the University of Malta and co-author of studies in the domain of high school apprenticeship and early school leaving.

BY D. W. LIVINGSTONE AND MILOSH RAYKOV CANADA HAS ONE of the most fully developed sys-

tems of general formal education in the world. There are diverse and relatively accessible programs of studies from early Kindergarten to post-doctoral university levels. By international standards, the quality of many of these programs is outstanding, as confirmed by the recently released OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests for reading, mathematics and science.1 The proportion of Canadians who have completed a post-secondary university or community college program is among the highest in the world. Canadian school systems still have a lot of room for improvement on equity issues, but in terms of general levels of participation and quality of provision, they have few current peers.2 In addition, it is well documented that Canadian adults are very active lifelong learners, spending much more time in informal learning activities than organized formal education.3 But the Canadian apprenticeship system is quite a different story.

The training gap

In stark contrast, the Canadian apprenticeship system has had relatively low participation rates and low completion rates. There is long-time agreement among policymakers that there have been chronic shortages of certified skilled trades, and public opinion surveys consistently show that the majority of Canadians want to give among the highest funding priorities to apprenticeship programs.4 The German apprenticeship system has frequently been suggested as one Canada could emulate.5 According to recent estimates, about half of Germans in their 30s have completed an apprenticeship. Most of these start at high school age, with extensive information about a wide range of occupations – and placements into

18 EDUCATION CANADA • June 2020 | EdCan Network

them – available through school-related agencies and networks of employers. The vast majority of apprenticeships are completed and most lead to permanent jobs.

Most Canadian apprenticeships begin after high school is finished, when both information and placements remain fragmented, and completions are probably less than half. So, only around ten percent of Canadians in their 30s have completed apprenticeships. (See Figure 1.)

While there are many differences between German and Canadian apprenticeship systems and both systems are changing, it is reasonably clear that the Canadian system has a lot of room for development.

On the other hand, Germans in their 30s are only about half as likely as Canadians to have university or college completion. So, it could be argued that many Germans are being denied opportunities to reach their full educational potential by early selection into specific occupations, however effective their apprenticeships are.

The bottom line for Canada is that there is great potential for closing the apprenticeship training gap by providing more opportunities for practical job-related training in conjunction with our current high post-secondary educational levels.

21st century jobs and apprenticeships

It is reasonably clear that, whatever decent jobs are available in the foreseeable future, more of them will involve working with knowledge rather than handling material goods – the much heralded “knowledge economy.” Since the 1980s, both industrial trades and clerical, sales and service jobs have been declining, while professional and managerial jobs have grown greatly.6 Rapid increases in popular demand for, and completion of, post-secondary education reflect public awareness of these employment www.edcan.ca/magazine

PHOTO: ISTOCK

changes. But there is a serious and increasing disconnect between advanced education and jobs. There are now many more highly qualified graduates than jobs with matching requirements, a condition we call underemployment or over-qualification. Canada has one of the most underemployed labour forces in the world. Of course, in a dynamic market economy, there are continual technological changes that call for new technical skills. But with Canadian students and workers continuing pursuit of new qualifications and informal lifelong learning, specific skills gaps do not last long and their underemployment continues to grow.7 One response to this condition would be to narrow access to postsecondary education. While this might now appeal to some shortsighted, austerity-minded elites, denial of educational opportunity is never a good idea and it would also fritter away Canada’s current leading post-secondary education position. Much better to find ways to close the gap by improving the linkage between advanced education and 21st century jobs.

The most effective means of linking education and jobs has been apprenticeship. Prior to the era of industrialization and mass schooling, most work-related learning occurred on the job from others who had already mastered it. In countries with well-established skilled trades apprenticeship systems, like Germany, these systems became integrated with emerging school systems. In Canada, we relied for a long time on importing skilled trades from abroad while schooling developed quite separately. The technical skill-focused programs in high schools had little connection with relevant job experience.

The relatively small apprenticeship programs in Canada and the U.S., generally with poor linkage to the educational system and low completion rates, have changed only gradually. This contrasts with more rapid evolution and expansion in countries like Germany, Australia and England to many occupations beyond the dwindling numbers in traditional skilled trades. Canada may now finally be producing more auto mechanics and plumbers on a per capita basis than www.edcan.ca/magazine

Germany, but Germany is producing far more apprenticed IT professionals, health technologists and other knowledge workers better matched to the growing numbers of knowledge economy jobs. We are producing plenty of potential knowledge workers through our universities and colleges, but without effective linkage to apprenticeship experience, many of their skills are wasted: nearly 50 percent of clerical, sales and service workers in Canada are now underemployed and their skills are unrecognized by their employers. There is also serious continuing underrepresentation of women, visible minorities and immigrants in apprenticeships. All these conditions cry out for coordinated national action.

Policymakers in some countries (e.g. France) have recognized the value of creating effective new pathways between post-secondary education and apprenticeships in response to the growth of knowledge work that requires advanced formal education to perform well.

The challenge for Germany is to produce more post-secondary graduates to link with its apprenticeship system. This is probably a greater institutional and resource challenge than Canada’s need to create apprenticeships for its much higher proportion of post-secondary graduates.

An anemic apprenticeship system is not the only reason for the large gap between educational qualifications and workplace utilization in Canada. A branch-plant economy focused on extraction and export of raw materials rather than more complex value-added jobs has been a factor. Governments responded keenly to popular demand for more post-secondary education programs in the simplistic belief that such educational investment would naturally lead to job creation – it did not. Antagonistic workplace relations led employers’ organizations with similar faith in human capital investment for job creation to encourage the production of large numbers of highly qualified potential workers – perhaps also in the hope that their presence as a “reserve army” would serve to discipline already hired workers. Unions in this context found little chance of working with either EdCan Network | June 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 19

employers or governments cooperatively to determine working conditions or workplace training programs, as was the case for many years in Germany’s “co-determination” model.

But all of these conditions are changing in Canada – with growing recognition of underemployment of post-secondary graduates, the evident need to “harness” the talent of more of these highly qualified people for a “knowledge economy” and an increasing level of organization of professional employees into unions and associations to contend for greater recognition and reward for their skills. The need for an apprenticeship system linking workplace experience more fully and effectively with both high schools and post-secondary institutions is becoming painfully obvious to anyone who cares to look closely at education and work in this country.

Next steps

Many people now recognize the value of linking formal schooling and job experience. For many years, some of our universities have reached out to networks of employers and developed effective programs integrating schooling and work in applied fields like engineering. Most community colleges now have administrative departments established to aid in providing practical job experience for students.

There have also been increasing efforts to provide pathways to apprenticeships via high schools (e.g. Co-op Diploma Apprenticeships in Ontario). Individuals are making increasing efforts to find more effective pathways to jobs – more university graduates are going to community colleges to acquire technical job skills, for example.

In sum, there are increasing numbers of largely ad hoc efforts at all levels of the education system to find means to ensure needed job experience for prospective graduates, but most have proven temporary and difficult to sustain. Coordinated initiatives to further develop the apprenticeship system in this country continue to suffer from a lack of commitment by employers, labour unions and governments.

At the same time, there is probably no other public policy issue on which there is currently greater declared agreement between the general public, employers, unions and governments across this country than the need for a more fully developed apprenticeship system for more effective preparation for 21st century jobs. There are working models all around us. They have to be more effectively organized and expanded. But that is a task that neither Canadian employers, unions nor governments are inclined to own at the moment.

Employers, unions and governments have alluded ad nauseum to an array of barriers preventing growth of our apprenticeship system much beyond 50 odd Red Seal trades recognized since the 1960s.

Familiar factors include: regional economic differences, inequitable funding responsibilities, overly complex administrative processes, low status of apprentices, and parental bias toward more academic programs. All of these may be valid from the standpoint of current vested interests. But all are also directly surmountable through concerted action such as: • Most urgently, take advantage of the great current national consensus to coordinate and consolidate groups of employers, unions/ associations and governments, and proceed to establish clear pathways to placement and completion of greatly increased numbers of apprenticeships in designated occupations.

• Secondly, coordinate easy access to information on a widening array of apprenticed occupations through government, employer and union and professional association websites for students, parents, teachers, vocational counsellors to use.

• Thirdly, reform the Canada Apprenticeship Act to expand designated apprenticeship occupations, harmonize national standards and require compulsory certification for many of them.

20 EDUCATION CANADA • June 2020 | EdCan Network

Figure 1: Post-secondary and Apprenticeship Completions, Canada and Germany (% of 25-34 age group) 80

n Canada n Germany 60

60% 50%

40

32% 20

10%

0

Post-sec completion

Apprenticeship complete

SOURCES: Canada: Statistics Canada. Education Highlight Tables, 2016 Census. Highest level of educational attainment by sex and selected age groups.

Germany: 25-34 age group from: www.worldometers.info/world-population/germany-population/#age-structure; post-sec completion from OECD, 2018. Education at a Glance; apprenticeships completed estimated from: www.apprenticeship-toolbox.eu/germany/apprenticeship.

A more fully developed apprenticeship system would not be a panacea for all education-job transition problems, but it would ensure more effective transitions from school to work for many and reduce underemployment for large numbers of post-secondary graduates.

We have seen exceptional personal efforts by Canadian young people in recent decades to invest in higher education. They deserve decent jobs to use their achieved qualifications for the good of themselves and society. Canadian employers, labour unions, governments and the highly educated general public all now increasingly recognize the value of apprenticeships. Concerted efforts by our governments, employers and unions are needed now. Let’s do it. EC NOTES 1 Snapshot of Student Performance: www.oecd.org/pisa/publications/pisa-2018-resultshtm.htm 2 David Clandfield et al., Restacking the Deck: Streaming by class, race and gender in Ontario schools (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2014).

3 D. W. Livingstone, Lifelong Learning in Paid and Unpaid Work: Survey and case study findings (London: Routledge, 2010).

4 Doug Hart and Arlo Kempf, Public Attitudes Toward Education in Ontario 2018: The 20th OISE survey of educational issues (Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 2018). www.oise.utoronto.ca 5 For an extensive comparison of the Canadian apprenticeship system with Germany, England, France, Australia, the U.S. and several other countries, see Erica Smith and Ros Brennan Kemmis, Towards a Model Apprenticeship Framework: A comparative analysis of national apprenticeship systems (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2013).

6 D. W. Livingstone and B. Watts, “The Changing Class Structure and Pivotal Role of Professional Employees in an Advanced Capitalist ‘Knowledge Economy’: Canada, 1982–2016,” Studies in Political Economy 99, No. 1 (2018): 79-96.

7 D. W. Livingstone, “Underemployment of Highly Qualified Labour in Advanced Capitalism: Trends and prospects,” Journal of Education and Work 32, No. 4 (2019): 305-319.

www.edcan.ca/magazine

THE SKILLED TRADES

Youth Train in Trades A dual-credit program for secondary students

Laura McDonald is the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Trades and Technology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. She holds a BA in Psychology from SFU, Post Baccalaureate in Business Admin (Commerce) from Thompson Rivers University, a Women in Leadership Certificate from Cornell University, and is currently working on her Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies from Athabasca University. She is also a member of the B.C. Association of Trades and Technology Administrators Executive and of the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum National Supporting Women in Trades Task Force.

BY LAURA McDONALD CLASSIC THINKING SAYS: Students with strong aca-

demics go to university and those who don’t do well in school go into the trades. The Faculty of Trades and Technology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) seeks to dispel that myth and elevate trades to its rightful place alongside traditional academics at Canada’s only polytechnic university.

Challenging that misconception isn’t easy. Trades are often seen as dirty, back-breaking grunt work.

The truth is that academics play a huge role in the day-to-day work of most skilled tradespeople. Beyond the hands-on skills of each trade, students often use lots of math, and often physics, to complete complex tasks.

Effective communication skills are also a must-have, so students are expected to have a solid foundation in English. And like other professionals, tradespeople use a host of soft skills to get their work done, including critical thinking, problem solving, time management, and creativity.

Through our program, Youth Train in Trades, we hope to counter the stigma surrounding skilled trades for counsellors, parents, and students. Youth Train in Trades provides opportunities beyond the ordinary shop class to high school students who want to explore a career in trades. Through the university, students receive an education in the trade of their choice, all while still in high school.

What is youth train in trades?

Youth Train in Trades is a trilateral partnership between KPU, local school districts, and the B.C.-focused Indus-

22 EDUCATION CANADA • June 2020 | EdCan Network

try Training Authority (ITA), which funds the program.

It offers high school students an opportunity to learn a trade, while earning credits that count toward their high school diploma and Level 1 of their trades training.

The Youth Train in Trades portfolio is administered by the Associate Dean of Trades and Technology (my office and my team) at KPU. Through regular Trades Training Partnership meetings, the school district representatives come to KPU to discuss schedules, questions, supports, and other information. There are also guest speakers to inform the school districts about things such as student rights and responsibilities.

Currently, KPU has agreements for Youth Train in Trades programs with ten B.C. school districts. For the participating school districts, these programs open up a world beyond traditional academics. KPU’s Faculty of Trades and Technology offers six Youth Train in Trades programs: Automotive, Carpentry, Masonry, Millwright, Plumbing and Piping, and Welding.

The program is relatively low cost for students, as high schools cover the tuition and fees. Students are only responsible for purchasing textbooks and any required personal protective equipment. Mark Flynn, Principal of Career Education at Surrey Schools, says, “We don’t offer programs in-house where students can actually do technical training. In the school system, for it to be viable, you would have to run a full class of 20 to 24 students. If we had too small a number, we couldn’t run the program.

With KPU we can adjust. There’s more flexibility.”

Flynn adds, “KPU are easy to work with because they’ve been involved with this for so long they underwww.edcan.ca/magazine

PHOTOS: COURTESY KPU / MATT LAW

www.edcan.ca/magazine

EdCan Network | June 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 23

stand what the school districts need to make it work and what our students need to be successful in a program like this.”

Welding and Millwright, in particular, offer unique opportunities for high school students interested in the trades. “They’re really popular in our district. There’s always an interest in the programs, especially for Welding,” said Flynn.

Secondary schools lack the physical space and specialist equipment needed to offer trades programs like Welding or Millwright on their own. Welders fuse metal using flame-cutting, brazing and soldering equipment to form a permanent bond, while millwrights install, align, maintain, inspect, repair, overhaul and dismantle machinery and heavy mechanical equipment.

Getting a head start on trades training

As mentioned, KPU offers six Youth Train in Trades programs.

Depending on the program, they run between 21 and 30 weeks. Most are hybrid programs, with the bulk of the program taught at the student’s high school by a KPU instructor and several weeks taught at the KPU Tech campus.

Piping, Millwright and Welding are all delivered at KPU Tech in blended classrooms, where high school students learn alongside adult fee-paying students.

A Red Seal endorsement can open up a wide range of career paths that value the fundamental knowledge and experience gained through a trades education.

KPU brings the school districts and KPU instructors together to clearly define who’s teaching what. The ITA curriculum defines these as “Line Items”. The instructors negotiate who is teaching which lines to ensure all the required ITA curriculum is covered.

Once enrolled in Youth Train in Trades, students are 100 percent committed to their respective trade. Unless done on their own time, students won’t be taking other high school courses alongside the program. Youth Train in Trades is a dual-credit program, so students are earning high school as well as post-secondary credits.

“Most of our students are in Grade 12 when they do the program,” says Flynn. “So, they’re still going forward with their Dogwood [high school diploma], and now, because the market’s so good, they’re walking out into well-paying jobs. They’re job ready. It’s just a great stepping stone.”

Students in the program learn from skilled, Red Seal-endorsed KPU instructors, using the ITA curriculum. The Red Seal program sets common standards to assess the skills of tradespeople across Canada. To reach Red Seal level in welding, for example, they will have completed their Welding Level 1 and Level 2 apprenticeships, then, depending on their life experiences and employment status, their Welding Level 3 or Level B before taking their Red Seal exam.

High school students who take Welding Foundations at KPU through Youth Train in Trades earn the equivalent of a Welding Level 1 and

24 EDUCATION CANADA • June 2020 | EdCan Network

Level 2 apprenticeship.

At KPU, a Millwright student gets the equivalent of all the theory that a Level 1 apprentice would get, says Brian Myette, Millwright instructor and department chair. “Basically, a student who graduates from Millwright is going to get about 50 percent theory, 50 percent practical training,” he says. “And we have a simulated work environment. Why? Because they’re getting credit for practical hours towards their apprenticeship and Level 1 as well.”

The program provides more than specific trade skills. Students also acquire important work skills.

“We recognize that when the students first come in, it’s going to be a big transition for them,” says Myette. “The people studying trades can range in age from 17 up. So, it’s a mix. It’s very diverse. So, they come in, and they’re with many more mature students. That environment means there’s not as much horseplay. They decide it’s time to get serious, so it’s a very good learning environment.”

The benefits of the Youth Train in Trades program are not lost on Jaeden Wildenboer, a KPU Youth Train in Trades graduate and Red Seal-certified welder.

“Honestly, I don’t know what else I’d be doing besides this if I didn’t have that opportunity,” says Wildenboer. “With the skill set and the confidence that it built for me, it opened up so much.”

Most students take Youth Train in Trades in their final semester of high school. For Wildenboer, that meant making some hard decisions.

“When I first had the choice, I did second guess it because I wanted to have my last year of high school with my friends,” he says. “But now that I look back at it, I definitely made the right decision. I’m further ahead than anyone else that I can think of and it’s all because of Youth Train in Trades.”

With his passion ignited, Wildenboer continued to work in welding, gaining valuable hours as he waited for his chance to return for more training. Wildenboer landed a job within a month of graduating from Youth Train in Trades. “That’s only because I wanted to take a month off because we were doing a family vacation that summer.

Otherwise it would have been sooner,” he adds.

“I knew I wanted to go back for my B level,” says Wildenboer. “I got my Red Seal when I was 19. I’ve just been working ever since.”

Wildenboer says he frequently gets job offers from other companies.

“I mean, I don’t even ask them for a job, they just come to me and offer it. I have a great job.”

Now 21, Wildenboer is a big advocate of Youth Train in Trades and has encouraged several friends to take the program.

“Honestly, if I had the chance to do it again, I wouldn’t hesitate,” he says. “I thought it would be a huge step being obviously one of the youngest people in the whole university. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The way the teachers had it all lined up, and all of the processes and everything we did there, it just made me overall a more confident person.”

Beyond the trades themselves, a Red Seal endorsement can open up a wide range of career paths that value the foundational knowledge and experience gained through a trades education, including being a business owner, supervisor, or trades instructor. As educators, we need to make sure that trades are seen by students as a viable career path, not a “backup plan.” Tradespeople require the same commitment and perseverance to succeed as anyone in any other profession.

Thanks to the support of ITA, Youth Train in Trades ensures students aren’t limited to what the high school has to offer and opens up a broader range of career opportunities. EC www.edcan.ca/magazine

THE SKILLED TRADES

Skilled Trades in the Digital Age

PHOTO: ISTOCK

New opportunities at the intersection of old and new career pathways

Paul Stastny is a part of the communications team with the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC). ICTC is a notfor-profit, national centre of expertise for strengthening Canada’s digital advantage in a global economy through trusted research, practical policy advice, and creative capacitybuilding programs.

www.edcan.ca/magazine

BY PAUL STASTNY THE SO-CALLED FOURTH Industrial Revolution is

underway, as a combination of digital technologies permeate every sector of the economy and most every occupation – including those in the skilled trades. The digitization of trades demands new skill sets, makes some trades more appealing to a wider range of apprentices, and is creating new career and training pathways.

At the same time, the blurring of lines between information and communications technology (ICT) and skilled trades has created a confusing occupational grey area. The two sectors notably share one feature: both ICT

and trades need more workers.

For educators, this evolution in the workplace will require a better understanding of the overlap between trades and digital tech, its extent and limitations, and the new opportunities it presents to students willing to consider less traditional careers.

Size of the prize

The digital economy has been growing at roughly double the pace of the wider economy for more than a decade now. According to the most recent labour forecast by EdCan Network | June 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 25

the Information and Communication Technology Council (ICTC), by 2023, the demand for digitally skilled talent in Canada is expected to exceed 305,000. If filled, ICTC expects total employment in the Canadian digital economy to reach more than 2.1 million tech jobs.1 Interestingly, more than half of the current tech work is outside of the ICT sector per se. That means most tech jobs are now in sectors such as banking, insurance, and oil and gas, and in organizations across the entire economy looking to digital technology for better operational, safety and environmental performance.

The rapid growth of the digital economy has outstripped available ICT talent. In Canada’s major tech hubs – Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal – the shortfall in senior-level tech workers has even prompted international hiring symposiums such as the one last year in Calgary, hosted by Calgary Economic Development and international ICT recruitment firm VanHack. In October, VanHack vetted 36 intermediate and senior tech job seekers from five continents to help local Calgary companies hire the talent they desperately need to grow. The skilled trades tell a similar story. Fewer youth are learning the skills needed to replace an aging generation of soon-toretire tradespeople. Critical shortages in skilled workers are on the horizon.2 In Alberta, during the economic downturn, trades groups reported continued healthy demand for skilled workers, but during the province’s oil and gas boom years, worker shortages were so acute that projects also imported tradespeople from abroad. This practice is expensive and risky, and almost always “the option of last resort,” whether in trades or tech.

Messaging

By now, educators have surely heard a well-honed message from Canada’s trades groups. “If we want to have a well-functioning society, we need people with diverse interests and diverse skills,” says Shaun Thorson, Chief Executive Officer of Skills/Compétences Canada. Students should be led to consider all occupations and not just those that shepherd them through a university education, he says.

This message, however, doesn’t seem to be translating into more tradespeople. Despite steady, well-compensated work in trades, there remains a deeply entrenched perception that trades are a lesser career path to one that requires a university education – even as increasing numbers of university graduates struggle to find employment.

“It’s worth repeating that not everyone wants an office job in front of a computer,” Thorson says. “And not everyone wants to be out on a worksite, working with tools and materials. The main thing is to tell students to do their research and not get trapped in the six to ten occupations that you mostly hear about.”

Digitization of trades

Some of the obvious examples of digitized trades are the diagnostic tools that automotive and heavy-equipment technicians use today.

GPS-guided excavation is now run-of-the-mill technology in road construction and natural resource extraction projects. Schematic drawings are now mostly read on tablets rather than from rolls of paper blueprints.

Pretty much all trades contractors rely on scheduling, invoicing and other software programs to expedite their paperwork. The ubiquitous smartphone and the many communication platforms such

26 EDUCATION CANADA • June 2020 | EdCan Network

as Teams and other video/chat/file-sharing apps allow for greater collaboration and problem solving among tradespeople, designers and engineers. And new digital applications are being introduced each year.

Janis Lawrence-Harper, director of research and development with Careers: The Next Generation, an Alberta trade group launched in 1997 to support the growth of the oilsands industry by promoting skilled trades, adds some of the latest developments along this digital journey. “In the oilsands, the heavy haulers have a tremendous number of sensors that collect data about everything from how hard the equipment is hitting bumps, to how inflated the tires are and where the bumps are located so the road can actually be fixed,” she says. That data is tracked and processed by the mechanic, whose job it is to optimize the efficient running of these machines. (What Lawrence-Harper doesn’t mention is that autonomous vehicles are also becoming the norm in some mining operations in Alberta and around the world.)

Agricultural equipment technicians also rely on data to do their job. Advanced agricultural equipment today can seed a field within an inch of the previous year’s seeding plan. To maximize crop growth, drones help run and monitor fertilization programs.

“As technology continues to play a bigger role in many skilled trades, we are going to see changes in the required skillsets,” says Lawrence-Harper. “That might mean those occupations change, or in some cases, it might create new specialized positions that could fall into the categories of skilled trades and ICT. It will be up to the Alberta government to decide where those occupations belong.”.

ICT as a trade

The Working Centre, an Ontario group established in 1982 as a response to unemployment and poverty in downtown Kitchener, now lists several ICT roles as skilled trades under the “Services” banner. These occupations include Contact Centre Customer Service Agent, Technical Support Agent, Hardware Technician, and Network Technician.

The grey area between tech and trades has prompted Careers: The Next Generation to launch an Information and Communication Technology Internship Program to help meet the growing demand for tech workers in the next decade. The program offers six-week hands-on-learning internships to high school students interested in expanding their understanding of ICT opportunities in the workplace and to help define their potential career paths.

“We’re piloting it this year – though it’s a bit of a stretch right now with the COVID 19 pandemic,” Lawrence-Harper says. “We see a huge synergy between skilled trades and ICT. These two directions build on each other and this program bridges that gap between tech and trades.”

Careers: The Next Generation works with companies and organizations whose primary role isn’t ICT, but which have an ICT dimension. These have been in transportation, construction, marketing, the not-for-profit sector or others. At the other end, Careers works with high school staff to match Grade 11 and 12 students who have specific ICT skills and interests with target company needs. “Pacific Western, for example, has a lot of heavy-equipment technicians, so we talk to them about what role ICT plays in their company, what www.edcan.ca/magazine

the crossover is in their heavy-equipment garage and how they could benefit from hiring a student intern,” Lawrence-Harper says. The company or organization foots the bill for the six-week internship, and benefits from the placement to the extent of the type and scope of work identified for the intern. Part of this value proposition is a line of sight to future ICT hiring, development of mentoring capabilities, strengthening of its ICT focus and connection to community.

To date, about 30 students have taken part in this internship, but the program is expected to expand into something bigger. LawrenceHarper says that the skilled trades’ training model, which combines on-the-job mentoring and post-secondary education, could apply to learning certain ICT roles.

The blurring of lines between information and communications technology and skilled trades has created a confusing occupational grey area.

technology challenges other sterotypes. The image of the socially inept techie in a dim backroom full of computer screens is giving way to tech workers who can fluently explain digital functionalities and present the business case for a new technology platform to C-suite executives.

A parallel trend in the skilled trades is driven by the collaborative nature of digital technology, which is allowing tradespeople to share their expertise. Construction outcomes, for example, can be improved when trades collaboration is sought earlier in the planning and design process rather than later in the execution stage, as has traditionally been the case. Shared digital platforms are facilitating this type of stakeholder consultation.

Exposing students to these tech and occupational trends is key.

Educators can play an important role in helping students find meaningful careers by sharing their understanding of digital technology developments and their impacts on in-demand occupations. This awareness could extend to keeping abreast of new tech curricula developments in Canada’s post-secondary institutions, and various initiatives such as the Careers ICT pilot, or ICTC’s nationwide CyberTitan program, which provides middle and secondary school students with a foundation in digital skills by participating in a competition to fend off simulated cyber attacks. Career options have never been as diverse as they are today. EC NOTES 1 ICTC is in the process of revising this pre-COVID-19 forecast. Moreover, ICTC’s previous forecast to 2021 projected a significantly lower demand of 216,000 tech jobs, which was largely due to a change in methodology; more ICT-related National Occupational Classification codes were included in the 2023 forecast.

2 Again, how this will be affected by the Covid-19 pandemic was unknown at the time of writing.

Limitations and pathways

Despite the overlap of skilled trades and tech, Skills Canada’s Thorson is careful not to oversell the razzle and dazzle of tech to prospective apprentices. “The digitization of trades is exciting and interesting and may initially attract more students to learn about what’s involved in these occupations, but I don’t think digital tech will necessarily keep them in a skilled trade occupation [if they don’t enjoy the trade itself],” he says.

ICTC’s manager of data analysis and research, Rob Davidson, puts a finer point on this. “Trades are typically tactile occupations. So they are almost the opposite of digital jobs, which are mostly abstract,” he says. Many tech roles, in fact, involve high levels of abstract thinking and knowledge of programming languages. This is true of the top five in-demand digital occupations identified by ICTC’s Canada’s Growth Currency: Digital Talent Outlook 2023 (software developer, data scientist, data analyst, UX/UI designer, and full stack developer).

Thorson, however, urges people to move beyond the idea that students are either abstract learners or experiential learners. Students fall somewhere along a continuum between these poles. This perspective opens the door to “helping students find the right comfort level with abstract concepts that are married to tactile occupations that manipulate objects.”

Moreover, Davidson notes that the growing importance of digital www.edcan.ca/magazine

EdCan Network | June 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 27

LES MÉTIERS SPÉCIALISÉS

L’attrait des jeunes pour les métiers spécialisés

Qu’en est-il en 2020?

Mireille Moisan, conseillère d’orientation en milieu scolaire au Québec depuis 15 ans et chargée de projets et inspectrice pour l’OCCOQ depuis plus de 10 ans. Mme Moisan est reconnue pour son ouverture, son authenticité et son engagement profond envers la profession.

Elle a également rédigé plusieurs articles et participé à maints évènements en lien avec l’orientation scolaire et professionnelle au cours de ses années de pratique.

PAR MIREILLE MOISAN ALORS QUE SE MULTIPLIENT les possibilités d’emploi un

peu partout sur le territoire, et qu’émergent continuellement de nouveaux métiers et de nouvelles professions, les jeunes de niveau secondaire continuent d’exprimer les mêmes questionnements en lien avec leur future profession. Quel est le meilleur choix? Comment faire pour bien « m’orienter »? Mes proches seront-ils d’accord et me soutiendront-ils dans mes décisions? Ces questionnements renvoient à un certain nombre de préoccupations encore plus importantes chez les jeunes, soit celles liées à la connaissance qu’ils ont d’eux-mêmes, à l’identification de leurs aspirations et de leurs projets de vie, à la compréhension qu’ils ont du marché du travail et du monde scolaire, et au soutien des pairs et de la famille.

De plus, à l’ère des réseaux sociaux, les jeunes sont constamment bombardés de publicités et de messages de toutes sortes portant notamment sur les « meilleures » possibilités d’emploi, les nombreux programmes de formation, les différentes institutions d’enseignements. Ces éléments se conjuguent aux nombreux écrits vantant notamment l’accomplissement professionnel, la réussite et, surtout, le bonheur au travail. Bref, la pression est grande et les choix sont abondants.

Par conséquent, il est normal que les jeunes se sentent

28 ÉDUCATION CANADA • Juin 2020 | Le Réseau Édcan

démunis et désorientés face à leur choix de carrière, ce choix tant attendu et craint à la fois! Dans ce contexte, qu’en est-il des métiers spécialisés, de l’attrait des jeunes (ou non) à l’endroit de ce niveau de formation?

Comment faire pour mieux comprendre les projets d’avenir des jeunes et le rôle que peut avoir la formation professionnelle?

Vers une compréhension de l’orientation scolaire et professionnelle

Au préalable, il est important de bien comprendre ce qu’est l’orientation pour mieux aborder la place des métiers spécialisés dans le cheminement scolaire des jeunes. Précisons d’abord que « s’orienter » signifie, entre autres, saisir sa réalité propre, connaître et approfondir sa personnalité, l’intégrer et la transposer dans un projet de carrière à son image. C’est un exercice qui est fait tout au long de la vie, par le biais des expériences personnelles, sociales, professionnelles, et qui exige une certaine réflexion sur soi-même, un retour sur ses acquis, sur ses apprentissages, sur son passé.

Pour faciliter le cheminement de l’individu, le conseiller d’orientation est un professionnel, un guide qui l’accompagne notamment dans la connaissance de soi. Étant www.edcan.ca/fr/magazine

PHOTO : ISTOCK

un expert en relation d’aide, en évaluation du fonctionnement psychologique, des ressources personnelles et des conditions du milieu, le conseiller d’orientation aide la personne à prendre conscience du monde qui l’entoure, de ses traits personnels, de ses valeurs, de ses aptitudes et intérêts, ceci afin de lui permettre de croire en lui-même et en ses projets et faire des choix appropriés et satisfaisants.

Pour les jeunes, le fait d’établir un projet de carrière à sa mesure permet également de persévérer à l’école et d’augmenter la motivation scolaire. En effet, quoi de mieux que de croire en soi et en un projet réaliste pour avoir le goût de mettre les efforts nécessaires à l’atteinte de ses buts? Il faut savoir toutefois que, bien que « trouver sa voie » peut sembler un exercice anodin, ce n’est pas toujours chose facile et c’est particulièrement vrai chez les jeunes qui éprouvent des difficultés d’apprentissage ou qui sont en situation de handicap.

Les raisons qui motivent une consultation chez les jeunes peuvent être de plusieurs ordres, comme l’indécision vocationnelle, l’anxiété face aux différents choix, les besoins spécifiques des jeunes en difficulté d’adaptation ou d’apprentissage, le manque d’information au regard des programmes de formation, le besoin de confirmer son www.edcan.ca/fr/magazine

choix, l’exploration des métiers et des professions, pour ne nommer que ces éléments.

Qu’en est-il des métiers spécialisés?

Au même titre que la formation collégiale ou universitaire, la formation professionnelle est l’une des nombreuses possibilités qui se présentent aux jeunes dans leur exploration des mondes scolaire et professionnel. Explorer ces différentes avenues constitue une étape indispensable dans le processus d’orientation de carrière. Cela permet de découvrir ses aptitudes, de consolider certains apprentissages sur soi ou encore de valider des projets. Alors que certains s’accompliront dans un métier professionnel, d’autres rencontreront des obstacles comme les préjugés de leur entourage, le manque d’information sur les métiers ou encore des craintes par rapport au métier souhaité. Il n’est pas rare, malheureusement, que des jeunes abandonnent leur projet en raison du manque de soutien ou d’accompagnement de leurs proches...

Il faut savoir que les métiers spécialisés offrent des perspectives d’avenir très intéressantes pour les jeunes. Au Canada, de nombreux Le Réseau Édcan | Juin 2020 • ÉDUCATION CANADA 29

métiers sont en pénurie de main-d’œuvre et certains centres de formation professionnelle se voient même dans l’obligation de fermer des programmes d’études en raison du manque d’inscriptions. Seulement en construction, un rapport paru à l’automne 2019 (Association de la construction du Québec) indique qu’il y aura un déficit de plus de 20 000 travailleurs sur les chantiers d’ici les 10 prochaines années. Et c’est une réalité également présente dans une panoplie de métiers : grutiers, bouchers, serveurs, plombiers, etc. Il est donc faux de croire que les possibilités d’avenir sont restreintes pour ce type de travail et que l’avenir est peu reluisant pour ceux qui optent pour un métier spécialisé.

Mais il n’est pas question ici de privilégier ce type de formation au profit d’une autre formation. Tel que mentionné précédemment, le choix du jeune doit tenir compte de plusieurs éléments comme ses traits de personnalité, ses intérêts, ses aptitudes, ses valeurs, afin qu’il puisse se réaliser pleinement et maintienne sa motivation et sa persévérance dans la voie qu’il a choisie. Toutefois, la formation professionnelle doit faire partie des possibilités qui se présentent au jeune, ceci afin qu’il puisse explorer et considérer toutes les options envisageables. Autrement dit, il faut lui donner la chance de s’identifier, ou non, à ce type de formation qualifiante qui représente un fort pourcentage de ce qui peut lui être offert. Le fait d’y renoncer, pour certains, équivaut presque à renoncer à une partie de soi.

Le rôle des parents : encourager les métiers ou non?

Les parents souhaitent généralement ce qu’il y a de mieux pour leur jeune et ceci est également vrai en ce qui concerne le choix de carrière.

Les parents espèrent pour leur enfant des conditions d’emploi excellentes comme une sécurité d’emploi, un bon taux de placement et un salaire intéressant. Mais, dans les faits, la formation professionnelle est souvent teintée de certains mythes : • La formation professionnelle est limitée : uniquement au Québec, il existe approximativement 150 programmes de formation professionnelle.

• La formation professionnelle ne permet pas d’accéder aux études supérieures : le système d’éducation favorise les cheminements variés. Plusieurs diplômés se spécialisent dans leur domaine et d’autres poursuivent des études collégiales ou universitaires.

Certaines passerelles permettent également l’accessibilité aux études supérieures.

• Les métiers spécialisés sont réservés aux garçons : en formation professionnelle (au Québec), le ratio hommes/femmes tourne généralement autour de 55 hommes pour 45 femmes1. Notons qu’il existe, d’une part, des programmes où les femmes sont minoritaires et, d’autre part, des programmes où les hommes sont minoritaires. Dans ce contexte, on considère que ces hommes ou ces femmes se dirigent vers un métier non traditionnel.

• Les métiers s’adressent davantage aux personnes dites « manuelles » : en fait, même si les notions à acquérir sont plus concrètes et axées sur les aspects pratiques des métiers, les étudiants doivent aussi faire appel à leurs habiletés intellectuelles et à des aptitudes particulières comme le sens de l’organisation, l’esprit d’analyse et la logique. De fait, la maîtrise des mathématiques, du français ou de l’anglais est souvent essentielle.

• Les salaires des diplômés de métiers spécialisés sont moins élevés : rien n’est moins vrai. Plusieurs diplômés débutent dans le marché du travail avec des salaires très appréciables, parfois même plus élevés que certains diplômés des cégeps et universités.

Et certains deviennent cadres ou gravissent les échelons dans de grandes entreprises et voient leurs conditions de travail se bonifier au fil des années.

30 ÉDUCATION CANADA • Juin 2020 | Le Réseau Édcan

Pour explorer de façon exhaustive les formations existantes et contrer les préjugés liés aux métiers spécialisés, il est pertinent d’accompagner le jeune dans la découverte des métiers, notamment en visitant des foires d’emploi, des portes ouvertes dans les écoles de formation ou encore en l’encourageant à participer à des activités comme « étudiant d’un jour ». Une telle exploration l’aide assurément à reconnaître ce qui lui convient ou ce qui lui convient moins… Cela favorise du même coup sa connaissance de lui-même.

Quelques conseils

• L’importance de communiquer : lorsque le choix d’un jeune qui s’intéresse aux métiers ne correspond pas aux attentes de son entourage, il est recommandé de dialoguer avec lui afin de vérifier ce qui l’intéresse dans ce choix, sans le juger, et en apprendre davantage sur ses intérêts et sur ce qui le motive.

• La pertinence de s’informer : il faut s’informer sur le métier identifié par le jeune et tenter de faire taire les préjugés qui peuvent y être liés. L’Internet est une source inépuisable d’informations pertinentes sur le sujet, incluant les sites Web des institutions scolaires.

• La nécessité d’explorer : il est fortement recommandé de profiter des activités portes-ouvertes des institutions et de ne pas se gêner pour poser des questions aux responsables des programmes qui connaissent leur domaine mieux que personne.

• Et d’utiliser les ressources : même si le conseiller d’orientation se doit de conserver le secret professionnel, il peut aisément répondre aux préoccupations et inquiétudes des proches, tout en guidant la personne qui souhaite accompagner un jeune.

Il en va de même lorsque le jeune débute sa formation, les encouragements et le soutien parental sont toujours aussi importants pour sa réussite et sa persévérance scolaire. Il appréciera ce soutien et cet intérêt envers ses projets.

Outils au service des parents et des jeunes

Les choix qui se présentent au jeune sont nombreux et répondent à toutes sortes de besoins. Que ce soit pour le jeune qui a des besoins particuliers, pour celui qui s’intéresse à la formation professionnelle, la formation collégiale ou encore universitaire, ou pour cet autre qui souhaite vivre une expérience de travail ou un stage à l’étranger, le jeune et ses parents sont confrontés à de toutes nouvelles expériences qui comportent leur lot de questionnements et d’incertitudes.

Pour aider les parents à mieux comprendre le processus d’orientation professionnelle et à accompagner leur jeune dans cette belle aventure, l’Ordre des conseillers et conseillères d’orientation du Québec a conçu un espace virtuel spécifiquement pour les parents désirant s’outiller pour mieux accompagner leur jeune dans son orientation scolaire et professionnelle. Le site est accessible via l’adresse suivante : Espaceparents.org. Une section complète a été développée pour les études postsecondaires, incluant la formation professionnelle. Des trucs, astuces et outils sont proposés pour mieux comprendre ce qu’est la formation professionnelle et constater tout ce qu’elle peut représenter dans le cheminement des jeunes. De plus, un conseiller d’orientation en ligne est disponible pour répondre aux questions des parents qui souhaitent accompagner leur jeune tout au long de son cheminement scolaire. ÉC NOTE 1 MEESR, SIS, Portail informationnel, Système Charlemagne, données au 2015-0806, traitement Direction de l’Adéquation Formation-Emploi

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LES MÉTIERS SPÉCIALISÉS

Formation professionnelle

Chantale Beaucher est professeure au Département de pédagogie de l’Université de Sherbrooke depuis 2003 où elle est rattachée aux programmes d’enseignement professionnel. Ses recherches actuelles se penchent sur le concept de rapport au savoir ainsi qu’aux problématiques des élèves à besoins particuliers en formation professionnelle. Elle est également directrice de l’Observatoire de la formation professionnelle du Québec.

Stéphanie Breton est professeure au Département de pédagogie de l’Université de Sherbrooke, intervient dans les programmes d’enseignement professionnel. Ses intérêts de recherche portent sur les adultes en formation qui éprouvent des difficultés d’apprentissage, notamment en formation professionnelle.

PHOTO : GRACIEUSÉ DE LES AUTEURS CHANTALE BEACHER ET STÉPHANIE BRETON

Les élèves de moins de 21 ans ont-ils un projet professionnel qui les anime?

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PAR CHANTALE BEAUCHER ET STÉPHANIE BRETON « QUEL MÉTIER souhaites-tu exercer quand tu seras

adulte? » LA grande question! LA question piège que la parenté pose aux jeunes au souper du jour de l’An, entre un vœu de « succès dans tes études » et une dernière tournée de tarte aux pommes. Cela dit, la pression que subissent les jeunes pour identifier leur voie professionnelle rapidement et efficacement est forte. Les adolescents sont généralement amenés à se prononcer entre 15 à 17 ans sur leur intention professionnelle. Avec les

moyens et les ressources à leur disposition, ils tentent de cerner ce qui leur apparaît être l’orientation la plus pertinente pour eux.

Les défis de l’orientation professionnelle

Les critères qui déterminent ce qui est une « orientation pertinente » peuvent toutefois différer entre les jeunes et les adultes. Aux yeux de l’adulte, le projet du jeune peut comporter des failles. Mais faire un choix pertinent, Le Réseau Édcan | Juin 2020 • ÉDUCATION CANADA 31

réaliste, rationnel, bien documenté et adapté à ses aptitudes n’est pas simple. De fait, un jeune peut avoir une vision idéalisée du métier qu’il envisage; il peut avoir un objectif irréaliste qui s’accorde plus ou moins bien avec ses capacités; il peut opter pour un cheminement qui ne reflète pas l’orientation souhaitée. Pourtant, ce choix peut lui permettre de progresser, de se développer et de cheminer vers la vie adulte, et surtout, ce choix est susceptible d’avoir du sens pour le jeune malgré les failles qu’y observent les adultes1 2.

Pour imager les choses, comparons les projets professionnels des jeunes à du gruyère : il y a bien là un fond de fromage, mais il est plein de trous. Devant un jeune en processus d’orientation, la question à se poser alors, en tant qu’adulte bienveillant, mais parfois oppressant, est celui-ci : « est-ce qu’un fromage à trous demeure un fromage valable? » Autrement dit, si le projet du jeune comporte des failles aux yeux des adultes, peut-il tout de même constituer une intention d’avenir valable? Porteuse de sens? Qui mobilise l’élève sur ses apprentissages? Certainement3!

La différence entre un projet bien ferme et une aspiration (un projet à trous) peut se situer à différents endroits. Notamment, l’aspiration qu’un jeune porte peut avoir tout de même du sens dans l’optique où il lui permet de se mobiliser vers un but à atteindre. S’il change d’orientation en cours de route, cette première aspiration aura contribué positivement au développement du jeune. Autrement dit, elle l’aura fait cheminer.

Pourquoi la formation professionnelle (FP)?

Une enquête sur les caractéristiques et les besoins des élèves de FP réalisée en 2019 au Québec auprès de 2 680 élèves nous a permis de répondre, entre autres choses, à des questions concernant les raisons qui poussent les jeunes à s’inscrire dans ce secteur de formation4.

Pourquoi se diriger vers cette voie de diplomation, souvent perçue au Québec comme la voie de la dernière chance pour les élèves en difficulté? Plus spécifiquement, pour quelles raisons les jeunes de moins de 21 ans s’inscrivent-ils en formation professionnelle menant à un métier spécialisé?

L’enquête a eu lieu dans les régions de l’Estrie, du Saguenay et du Lac-St-Jean. Pour l’ensemble des répondants, l’âge varie entre 15 et 61 ans. Parmi les répondants, les élèves de moins de 21 ans forment le groupe démographique le plus important, soit 1 134 élèves (42,3 % de l’échantillon). Parmi ces jeunes, 87,7 % étaient inscrits en formation générale (secondaire ou adulte) avant d’entreprendre leurs études professionnelles.

Par ailleurs, alors que la FP est constituée de 21 secteurs d’activité, les jeunes de moins de 21 ans ayant répondu au sondage se concentrent principalement dans trois d’entre eux où ils représentent plus de la moitié des répondants, soit 1) en entretien d’équipement motorisé (60,1 %); 2) en soins esthétiques (56 %); 3) en métallurgie (54,4 %).

Les données recueillies dans cette étude mettent en évidence le fait que pour la plupart des jeunes répondants, le programme auquel ils se sont inscrits constitue leur premier choix. Ces données s’éloignent du portrait plus sombre dressé jusqu’à maintenant des élèves de FP, réputés pour s’y trouver par défaut ou par « incapacité » à poursuivre des études avancées. De façon plus précise, les élèves ont été

32 ÉDUCATION CANADA • Juin 2020 | Le Réseau Édcan

questionnés sur les raisons à la base du choix de leur programme d’études professionnelles. Les prochaines lignes rendent compte de ces raisons.

Quelques statistiques

La Figure 1 présente le pourcentage de réponses des élèves au regard des raisons qui les ont amenés à leur choix de programme d’études.

Puisqu’ils peuvent avoir répondu oui à plus d’une raison dans le sondage, le total dépasse 100 %.

Figure 1. Les raisons motivant le choix de programme en formation professionnelle chez les élèves de moins de 21 ans Plus de 40 % des élèves ont répondu « oui » à ces raisons : • 76 % : Il conduit au métier que j’ai envie d’exercer dans la vie.

• 47 % : C’est le programme qui correspond le mieux à mes forces, mes qualités, mes aptitudes.

• 47 % : J’aime le côté manuel du métier visé.

• 42 % : Pour ma satisfaction personnelle, par curiosité, par envie d’avoir de nouvelles connaissances.

De 40 % à 10 % des élèves ont répondu « oui » à ces raisons : • 34 % : Le taux de placement est élevé.

• 20 % : Le programme est court.

• 19 % : Parce que je n’avais pas envie ou que je ne pouvais pas faire des études au Cégep ou à l’Université.

• 18 % : Pour améliorer ma situation professionnelle (avoir de meilleures conditions de travail, faire plus d’argent, être plus stable, etc.)

• 15 % : En vue de démarrer mon entreprise.

• 11 % : C’est le programme que m’a recommandé un conseiller en orientation.

De 10 % à 1 % des élèves ont répondu « oui » à ces raisons : • 10 % : Une personne de mon entourage m’y a incité ou a fait des démarches pour moi.

• 8 % : Pour obtenir le diplôme lié au métier que j’exerçais déjà.

• 7 % : Pour obtenir un diplôme, n’importe quel faisait l’affaire.

• 6 % : Pour quitter la maison.

• 5 % : Parce que mes amis s’y inscrivent aussi.

• 3 % : En attendant d’être accepté dans un autre programme.

1 % ou moins des élèves ont répondu « oui » à ces raisons : • 1 % : Pour obtenir un prêt-bourse.

• 0,3 % : J’ai perdu mon emploi précédent ou il devient difficile de demeurer en emploi dans mon domaine.

• 0,3 % : Parce que mes diplômes ne sont pas reconnus au Québec.

• 0,1 % : J’ai été fortement incité ou obligé par l’assuranceemploi ou la sécurité du revenu.

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Le marché de l’emploi est également en transformation et les débouchés des métiers spécialisés sont plus attrayants.

Mais que disent ces données des aspirations et des projets professionnels? Les jeunes inscrits en FP y sont-ils par dépit, par hasard, par défaut? Les raisons ayant motivé leur choix fournissent-elles des indices d’élèves en bonne posture, porteurs d’un projet ou d’une aspiration permettant de se mobiliser sur leurs études, ou non? En fait, ces statistiques signalent quelque chose de très intéressant. En effet, plusieurs des jeunes de 15 à 21 ans interrogés semblent non seulement savoir pourquoi ils s’inscrivent dans une formation professionnelle, mais ils annoncent le faire parce qu’ils se connaissent bien et qu’ils connaissent aussi les débouchés du programme choisi.

Les trois quarts des élèves de moins de 21 ans ont dit avoir choisi leur programme d’étude parce qu’il conduit au métier qu’ils veulent exercer dans la vie. Ensuite, deux autres raisons rejoignent pratiquement la moitié des jeunes : c’est parce que le programme correspond à leurs forces, leurs qualités et leurs aptitudes et qu’ils aiment le côté manuel du métier qu’ils exerceront qu’ils l’ont choisi. Puis, 42 % des jeunes élèves ont indiqué que le choix du programme était en lien avec une satisfaction personnelle, une curiosité et la soif de nouvelles connaissances.

On peut donc considérer que de nombreux jeunes de moins de 21 ans inscrits en FP s’y trouvent pour de « bonnes raisons », du moins, pour des raisons qui sont en lien avec qui ils sont et ce qu’ils veulent faire comme métier. Ces motifs sont susceptibles de faciliter la mobilisation des élèves sur l’apprentissage et leur permettre de cheminer progressivement malgré les obstacles.

En contrepartie, pour certains jeunes, les raisons qui les ont poussés à s’inscrire dans leur programme d’études professionnelles signalent qu’il y a surtout des trous dans leur fromage. Ces élèves sont possiblement porteurs d’une aspiration professionnelle. Certaines de ces aspirations, bien que moins solides, peuvent être porteuses de sens pour les élèves, mais dans d’autres cas, elles sont plutôt le symptôme d’une indécision professionnelle ou de difficultés personnelles.

Ainsi, 19 % des jeunes de moins de 21 ans sont inscrits en FP parce qu’ils n’avaient pas envie ou ne pouvaient pas faire des études au cégep ou à l’université. Certains pourraient avoir envisagé ou tenté d’entreprendre des études postsecondaires sans mener le projet à www.edcan.ca/fr/magazine

terme. Puis, dans le cas de 10 % des élèves de moins de 21 ans, c’est une personne de l’entourage qui a fait des démarches pour les inscrire en FP ou les a incités à le faire. Le choix de programme ne semble donc pas provenir initialement des élèves, du moins, pas complètement, ce qui est susceptible de compliquer la mobilisation sur l’apprentissage.

D’autres jeunes (7 %) se sont inscrits en considérant que n’importe quel programme faisait l’affaire. Cette raison témoigne de l’absence de projet professionnel défini, cependant, ces élèves se maintiennent en formation et poursuivent leur progression. Quelques élèves (5 % des jeunes) disent que c’est pour suivre leurs amis qu’ils se sont inscrits en FP. Dans leur cas également, se note une impression de choix par défaut et peu réfléchi ou du moins d’un choix éloigné d’un projet professionnel. Enfin, à peine 3 % des élèves annoncent s’être inscrits à un programme en attendant de pouvoir accéder à un autre programme de formation.

Ainsi, même si certains jeunes inscrits en FP présentent un portrait plus sombre en termes de choix professionnel, leur situation demeure peu fréquente si elle est comparée à l’ensemble des répondants du même âge. Ces contextes plus éloignés du projet ou des aspirations porteuses de sens ne concernent en effet que moins d’un élève sur cinq.

Conclusion

En somme, quatre élèves sur cinq de moins de 21 ans inscrits en FP y sont pour des raisons qui témoignent de l’actualisation d’une aspiration ou d’un projet professionnel liée à une connaissance de soi et des métiers sur lesquels déboucheront leurs études. Nous sommes donc loin du portrait négatif souvent brossé au sujet de la formation professionnelle et des personnes qui s’y inscrivent. Ces jeunes ne se sentent pas, pour la grande majorité, dans une impasse, mais en route vers la réussite et l’exercice du métier qu’ils ont choisi. Certes, un certain nombre d’élèves ont une posture plus incertaine face à leur choix de programme et de carrière, mais ils sont nettement moins nombreux que ce qui s’observait il y a quelques années. La réputation de voie de la dernière chance qu’a longtemps portée la formation professionnelle semble ainsi être de moins en moins méritée. Cette situation est probablement liée au fait que le paysage du marché de l’emploi est également en transformation et que les débouchés des métiers spécialisés sont plus attrayants. Ainsi, dans le processus d’orientation professionnelle des jeunes, les parents et les enseignants gagneraient à soutenir leur exploration des métiers spécialisés ; ils risquent en effet de rencontrer des oreilles bien attentives. ÉC NOTES 1 Beaucher, C. et Dumas, I. (2008). Les intentions d’avenir d’adolescents de

cinquième secondaire : aspirations ou projets professionnels? Carriérologie, 11(3-4).

2 Beaucher, C. (2004). La nature du rapport au Savoir d’adolescents de cinquième secondaire au regard des aspirations ou projet professionnels.

Thèse de doctorat non publiée en sciences de l’éducation de l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Montréal : UQAM. 3 Beaucher, C. (2004). La nature du rapport au Savoir d’adolescents de cinquième secondaire.

4 Beaucher, C. (2004). La nature du rapport au Savoir d’adolescents de cinquième secondaire.

Le Réseau Édcan | Juin 2020 • ÉDUCATION CANADA 33

LES MÉTIERS SPÉCIALISÉS

Mécatronique Vers le développement de la technologie et l’innovation !

Marie-Josée Fecteau est directrice du service de la formation professionnelle, de l’éducation des adultes et aux entreprises de la commission scolaire de la BeauceEtchemin. Elle a occupé préalablement les fonctions de direction d’écoles primaire et secondaire.

Véronique Bolduc est directrice-adjointe du service de la formation professionnelle, de l’éducation des adultes et aux entreprises de la commission scolaire de la Beauce-Etchemin.

Provenant du secteur manufacturier au sein de la gestion des ressources humaines elle a débuté au sein du secteur de l’éducation comme enseignante en production textile en formation continue au début de l’année 2000.

PAR MARIE-JOSÉE FECTEAU ET VÉRONIQUE BOLDUC LA RÉGION DE LA BEAUCE, située au sud de la ville de

Québec, est un fleuron d’entrepreneurs qui développent de l’expertise dans différents secteurs. La région est reconnue pour son tissu industriel et entrepreneurial rassemblant plus de 500 entreprises manufacturières de secteurs d’activités diversifiés, tels que les secteurs du métal, du bois, des textiles techniques et des matériaux composites. La Beauce désire également se positionner dans la transformation numérique. Ces entreprises sont invitées à profiter rapidement des opportunités de l’industrie 4.0 afin d’améliorer leur compétitivité et d’assurer leur pérennité. La mécatronique constitue donc un levier qui permet à ces entreprises d’adopter et d’implanter les pratiques du 4.0 dans leurs systèmes, processus et procédés manufacturiers. Les avantages de la mécatronique sont importants tant pour les entreprises de production manufacturière que pour les équipementiers.

Un domaine nouveau

Le domaine de la mécatronique est relativement nouveau : le mot mécatronique est apparu officiellement dans le dictionnaire Larousse en 20051. Il le définit ainsi : « un produit ou un procédé est mécatronique lorsque l’on retrouve dans ce produit ou dans ce procédé une combinaison synergique entre la mécanique, l’électronique, l’automatisation et l’informatique. L’objectif de l’utilisation de la mécatronique est d’augmenter et d’op-

34 ÉDUCATION CANADA • Juin 2020 | Le Réseau Édcan

timiser la fonctionnalité des produits et des procédés de production. » Au printemps 2018, la région de la Beauce a accueilli la septième édition de Savoir Affaires. Cet événement annuel est « une démarche innovante proposée par l’Université du Québec qui fait appel au savoir et à la créativité d’étudiants de cycles supérieurs, de gens d’affaires et d’intervenants économiques pour développer de nouvelles occasions d’affaires axées sur la diversification économique et la dynamisation régionale2. » Le comité organisateur a alors ciblé le thème de la mécatronique pour l’une des journées de l’évènement. Mécanium, Centre collégial de transfert technologique (CCTT) qui œuvre dans l’innovation en mécanique industrielle situé à Saint-Georges en Beauce, a alors été sollicité pour parrainer la journée « mécatronique » et participer activement à l’organisation de cette journée. C’est au cours de ce grand rassemblement que la mécatronique a émergé comme projet mobilisateur. Fort de ce constat, le milieu du développement économique mise sur la création d’un pôle d’excellence en mécatronique. Ce projet régional structurant nécessite l’édification d’un écosystème mécatronique unissant l’éducation avec ses trois ordres d’enseignement, le développement économique et les entreprises. Cet écosystème assurera la viabilité du pôle d’excellence en mécatronique. C’est ainsi que les membres du Comité d’éducation interordres www.edcan.ca/fr/magazine

PHOTO : ISTOCK

Beauce-Etchemin, comité composé de la Commission scolaire de la Beauce-Etchemin, du Cégep Beauce-Appalaches et du Centre universitaire des Appalaches, ont convenu d’explorer et d’identifier les besoins de formation liés à la mécatronique pour les trois niveaux d’enseignement.

Identifier les besoins de formation

Afin d’identifier les besoins de formation en mécatronique pour les entreprises des territoires de la Beauce et des Etchemins, un projet stratégique de développement de main-d’œuvre a été déposé au Conseil régional des partenaires du marché du travail (CRPMT). Il s’ensuit l’administration d’un sondage afin de bien cerner les besoins du marché nous permettant d’offrir par la suite des formations adaptées répondant à l’adéquation formation-emploi de la région.

En collaboration avec les organismes de développement économique et Mécanium, le Comité d’éducation interordres Beauce-Etchemin avait comme objectif d’inventorier les besoins de formation actuels et anticipés liés à la mécatronique pour les travailleurs du secteur manufacturier de la Beauce et des Etchemins et de faire en sorte que notre région soit reconnue comme la Vallée de la mécatronique au Québec. Les besoins de formation identifiés ont été répartis vers chacun des niveaux d’enseignement. Ce projet constitue la première phase de l’intervention du Comité d’éducation interordres Beauce-Etchemin dans le domaine de la mécatronique. Ultimement, le déploiement de la formation en mécatronique contribuera à faire évoluer les entreprises vers le 4.0, rehaussera leur niveau technolowww.edcan.ca/fr/magazine

gique et favorisera l’innovation. Ces éléments auront un impact sur la compétitivité et les bénéfices retirés en matière de productivité. La combinaison de la mécatronique et de l’automatisation contribuera à diminuer la pression exercée par la pénurie de main-d’œuvre sur les entreprises manufacturières. À court terme, les régions de la Beauce et des Etchemins, qui sont reconnues pour leur dynamisme et leur proactivité, intensifieront leur rayonnement et adopteront un positionnement plus technologique par le développement du pôle d’excellence en mécatronique.

L’accroissement de la maturité numérique des entreprises manufacturières repose sur les compétences des travailleurs; en ce sens, une offre de formation appropriée dans le milieu participera au développement continu des expertises des travailleurs impliqués dans cet important virage.

Nous invitons d’autres régions du Canada à développer de tel partenariat et à rendre publiques les actions qui en découleront. Ainsi nous pourrons nous enrichir de nos expériences respectives.

Pour obtenir plus d’information sur le sujet, consultez l’article de Compétences Canada au sujet de la mécatronique3. ÉC NOTES 1 file:///Applications/La_mecatronique_c_est_quoi_-_Denis_Lecrux_-_Angers_2012. pdf 2 http://www.savoiraffaires.ca/uq/ 3 https://www.skillscompetencescanada.com/fr/carrieres/fabrication-ingenierie/ mecatronique/

Le Réseau Édcan | Juin 2020 • ÉDUCATION CANADA 35

bien dans mon travail PAR NANCY GOYETTE

direction lors de leur arrivée en poste est primordial pour amenuiser leur anxiété face à la tâche. Cependant, on peut se demander si la formation initiale pourrait les préparer davantage à cette insertion professionnelle afin de développer des compétences leur permettant de construire une identité professionnelle positive⁶.

Former les enseignants pour développer une identité professionnelle positive

ILLUSTRATION : ISTOCK

Malgré la complexité de la profession, il existe des enseignants qui ressentent du bien-être en enseignement⁷. Ces enseignants ont réussi à développer un « sens » de leur profession. Ce « sens », basé sur des valeurs (collaboration, bienveillance, empathie, etc.) et des représentations positives de soi (importance de leur rôle, confiance en soi, efficacité de leurs interventions), est porteur de bien-être. Cependant, on remarque que le développement de ce « sens » se fait souvent intuitivement, par des remises en question constantes nourries par leurs expériences, ce qui les aide à construire une identité professionnelle positive. En considérant que l’identité professionnelle est constituée de deux aspects en constante interaction, l’identité personnelle (ce que je suis comme individu) et l’identité sociale (ce qu’est un enseignant pour la société)⁸, il s’avère prometteur de travailler sur l’identité personnelle afin de construire des représentations positives de soi et de la profession. Comme formateur, il faut donc les accompagner dans une analyse réflexive qui met l’accent sur l’identité personnelle de l’étudiant et qui encourage la connaissance de soi au service de l’élaboration de représentations l’aidant à affronter les défis quotidiens de la profession. Pour ce faire, orienter ses analyses réflexives sur ce qui a du « sens » pour lui et sur l’élaboration de moyens satisfaisants pour bonifier ses interventions constitue une stratégie efficace. Ce « sens » est l’un des éléments qui favoriseront sa persévérance lors de son insertion professionnelle.

Insertion professionnelle Une phase cruciale pour cultiver le bien-être chez les enseignants novices Nancy Goyette est professeure et chercheure au Département des sciences de l’éducation à l’Université du Québec à TroisRivières. Ses champs d’expertise concernent le bien-être en enseignement, l’identité professionnelle positive et le développement d’institutions éducatives bienveillantes.

LA PROFESSION ENSEIGNANTE est actuellement confrontée à des enjeux importants comme la hausse du nombre d’élèves, les conditions de travail précaires, une lourdeur de la tâche et un manque de valorisation du corps enseignant¹. Ces enjeux engendrent une baisse d’inscription dans les programmes universitaires en enseignement, une pénurie d’enseignants dans certaines régions du pays, un manque d’engagement professionnel et de la détresse psychologique qui peut mener jusqu’au décrochage de la profession².

Peu de recherches pancanadiennes ont répertorié le taux d’attrition global des enseignants et les statistiques sont très variables d’une province à l’autre³. Toutefois, la période cruciale où l’on dénote davantage d’abandons se situe dans les cinq premières années de pratique.

Au Québec, 25 % des enseignants décrochent dans les trois premières années d’entrée dans la profession⁴. Une recherche en cours de Goyette⁵ démontre que le soutien offert aux enseignants novices par les collègues et la

36 ÉDUCATION CANADA • Juin 2020 | Le Réseau Édcan

Encourager nos enseignants novices à persévérer : un défi de taille

Face à la pénurie d’enseignants qui est un réel problème pour les directions d’établissement, il est impératif d’accompagner les novices dans leur insertion professionnelle par le biais de stratégies : programmes de mentorat, journées d’accueil, élaboration de trousses informatives, groupes de discussion, etc. Leur permettre l’accès à de la formation continue, quel que soit leur statut est aussi un élément à considérer, puisque les www.edcan.ca/fr/magazine

Le soutien offert aux enseignants novices par les collègues et la direction lors de leur arrivée en poste est primordial pour amenuiser leur anxiété face à la tâche. suppléants (souvent non qualifiés) ne bénéficient pas toujours de ces ressources pourtant indispensables pour leur développement professionnel. De plus, miser sur un esprit de collaboration entre collègues et l’importance d’une bonne intégration des enseignants novices dans la vie de l’école favorisera leur sentiment d’être soutenu par les pairs. Enfin, les valoriser dans leurs accomplissements et les accompagner dans leurs questionnements est nécessaire à l’élaboration d’une identité professionnelle positive. Malgré tout, l’enjeu capital reste le temps. Pour tous les enseignants, quelle que soit leur expérience, le manque de temps constitue l’un des facteurs majeurs qui nuisent à un meilleur développement professionnel par une réflexion sur soi et sur leurs pratiques. Cette réflexion est pourtant essentielle à l’élaboration d’un sens de la profession conduisant au bien-être. ÉC

www.edcan.ca/fr/magazine

NOTES 1 Tardif, M. (2013). La condition enseignante au Québec du XIXe au XXIe siècle : une histoire cousue de fils rouges : précarité, injustice et déclin de l’école publique.

Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval.

2 Kamanzi, P. C., Barroso da Costa, C. et Ndinga, P. (2017). Désengagement professionnel des enseignants canadiens : de la vocation à la désillusion. Une analyse à partir d’une modélisation par équations structurelles. McGill Journal of Education/Revue des sciences de l’éducation de McGill, 52(1), 115-134.

3 Kutsyuruba, B., Walker, K., Al Makhamreh, M. et Stroud Stasel, R. (2018). Attrition, Retention, and Development of Early Career Teachers: Pan-Canadian Narratives.

In Education, 24(1), 43-71.

4 Karsenti, T. et al. (2015). Analyse des facteurs explicatifs et des pistes de solution au phénomène du décrochage chez les nouveaux enseignants, et de son impact sur la réussite scolaire des élèves Rapport de recherche, programme actions concertées. Fonds de recherche. Société et culture.

5 Cette recherche est financée par les Fonds de recherche-Société et culture (FRSC) du Gouvernement du Québec (2019-2022).

6 Goyette, N. et Martineau, S. (2018). Les défis de la formation initiale des enseignants et le développement d’une identité professionnelle favorisant le bienêtre. Phronesis, 7(2), 4-19.

7 Goyette, N. (2014). Le bien-être dans l’enseignement : étude des forces de caractère chez des enseignants persévérants du primaire et du secondaire dans une approche axée sur la psychologie positive. (Thèse de Doctorat inédite, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, Québec).

Goyette, N. (2016). Développer le sens du métier pour favoriser le bien-être en formation initiale à l’enseignement. Revue canadienne en éducation, 39(4), 1-29.

Goyette, N. (2018). Le bien-être des enseignants, un vecteur de changement incontournable. Apprendre et enseigner aujourd’hui, 7(2), 5-9.

8 Gohier, C., Anadón, M., Bouchard, Y., Charbonneau, B. et Chevrier, J. (2001). La construction identitaire de l’enseignant sur le plan professionnel : un processus dynamique et interactif. Revue des sciences de l’éducation, 27(1), 3-32.

Le Réseau Édcan | Juin 2020 • ÉDUCATION CANADA 37

développement professionnel PAR MAXIME PELCHAT

ILLUSTRATION : GRACIEUSÉ CADRE21

Cette chronique a généreusement été élaborée par CADRE21 www.cadre21.org

Les badges numériques : valeur, confiance, reconnaissance et crédibilité Reconnaissance du développement professionnel

Œuvrant en éducation depuis le début des années 2000, Maxime Pelchat a enseigné les sciences humaines au secondaire dans la région de Québec.

Il s’intéresse de près au numérique et à ses impacts, autant dans l’espace scolaire que dans la société en général. À titre de stratège numérique pour le CADRE21, il contribue au rayonnement du développement professionnel en éducation francophone.

DEVANT L’EXPLOSION DES FAÇONS et des lieux pour apprendre, la reconnaissance des acquis est aujourd’hui un enjeu des plus importants. Que ça soit pour l’étudiante, le travailleur ou la cliente qui fait l’acquisition de nouvelles connaissances dans une optique de formation initiale, de formation continue ou simplement par intérêt personnel, une question demeure : à la fin de la formation reçue, quelle reconnaissance recevra-t-elle ou recevra-t-il et quelle en sera la crédibilité?

Autrefois réservé aux institutions d’enseignement, l’accès à l’apprentissage s’est démocratisé autant dans la nature de l’offre numérique que par les différentes instances susceptibles d’offrir de la formation de tout acabit. Les diplômes décernés par les instances gouvernementales à la fin des études secondaires, collégiales ou universitaires demeurent une référence reconnue, laissant présager un parcours rigoureux aux attentes précises. Mais d’autres parcours, tout aussi rigoureux, méritent aussi une forme de reconnaissance, car ces parcours contribuent aussi au renforcement des compétences professionnelles des apprenants et bien souvent, dans un mode de livraison plus flexible et ouverte que les formations dites traditionnelles¹.

38 ÉDUCATION CANADA • Juin 2020 | Le Réseau Édcan

C’est dans ce contexte que l’avènement des badges numériques permet à l’apprenant d’avoir un portfolio professionnel qui décrit des réalisations et qui donne une meilleure illustration des apprentissages et des compétences acquis. Ces badges ne se substituent pas aux diplômes et certificats plus classiques, mais viennent plutôt les complémenter.

Le badge numérique : une image et des métadonnées

Selon Geoffroi Garon, un badge numérique est « une représentation visuelle en ligne utilisée pour motiver les apprenants et reconnaître les apprentissages ou valider et certifier des compétences en situation d’apprentissage formel, informel ou non formel². » En d’autres termes, un badge numérique est une image en ligne, à laquelle sont associées des données soumises par l’apprenant (textes, blogue, vidéo, etc.) et qui répond à des critères d’obtention spécifiques. Une fois le badge décerné par l’organisme émetteur, ce badge est unique pour chaque apprenant et permet à son récipiendaire de l’afficher, avec ses données associées, dans un portfolio de développement professionnel.

Quels sont les avantages d’une reconnaissance par badge numérique?

Comparativement à une approche scolaire classique, le badge numérique montre beaucoup de flexibilité et de souplesse pour s’adapter aux nouvelles réalités.

Il permet de valoriser une plus grande diversité d’apprentissages et de compétences, notamment au sujet de compétences dites transversales ou globales comme; la communication, la collaboration et la créativité.

Bien qu’on les identifie comme des compétences incontournables pour le 21e siècle, ces dernières sont parfois difficiles à évaluer. Le badge numérique, qui inclut des artéfacts numériques soumis par l’apprenant en fonction des critères exigés, est un moyen de mettre en lumière ces compétences manifestées par l’apprenant.

Les métadonnées associées au badge permettent d’y inclure des preuves et des traces des réalisations de l’apprenant. Importable dans un portfolio professionnel, cette reconnaissance des acquis devient ainsi un curriculum vitae vivant et évocateur, affichable aux yeux de l’observateur (appréciateur) si l’apprenant (récipiendaire) le souhaite. On valorise ainsi les accomplissements et on reconnaît des niveaux de compétences atteints. Au fait, le badge numérique permet de générer de la confiance au sein d’un écosystème d’apprentissage. www.edcan.ca/fr/magazine

ÉCOSYSTÈME OCTROYEUR

RÉCIPIENDAIRE

CONFIANCE APPRÉCIATEUR

ses commentaires qui sont de nature utile, spécifique et bienveillante (ou « USB » comme le qualifie l’équipe du CADRE21). La valorisation des apprentissages s’en trouve amplifiée.

En éducation, en matière de développement professionnel, l’appréciateur d’un badge numérique peut être la direction d’école, un ordre professionnel, un conseil scolaire ou la communauté en général. Là où la formation continue est valorisée et soutenue, cet affichage favorise la reconnaissance du personnel éducatif et contribue à augmenter le sentiment d’efficacité professionnelle.

Tourné vers l’avenir

Figure 1 : Écosystème Source de l’image³

De plus en plus, on assiste à des dispositifs mis de l’avant par l’octroyeur où les échanges sont source de reconnaissance et de valorisation pour chaque apprenant. C’est le cas du travail des responsables de la rétroaction, notamment dans les formations du CADRE21; chaque soumission pour un badge numérique est lue et commentée directement à l’apprenant par un responsable qui offre

www.edcan.ca/fr/magazine

Les badges numériques, en plus de leur fonction de reconnaissance d’apprentissages formels ou informels, renferment des aspects de valeur, de confiance et de crédibilité. Comme indiqué au début de cet article, ils complémentent les diplômes et les certifications tout en donnant une résolution plus précise sur les apprentissages acquis. Les compétences professionnelles de l’apprenant sont ainsi alignées avec les exigences de plus en plus complexes du monde d’aujourd’hui et de demain. ÉC NOTES 1 https://blog.deloitte.fr/les-badges-de-competences-au-coeur-de-la-formationde-demain/ 2 https://www.cadre21.org/developpement/ 3 https://oce.uqam.ca/les-badges-numeriques-et-la-revolution-de-lapprentissage/

Le Réseau Édcan | Juin 2020 • ÉDUCATION CANADA 39

point de vue

PAR NATHALIE NÉRON PHOTO : GRACIEUSÉ DE L’AUTEUR NATHALIE NÉRON

Explorer les métiers spécialisés dès la 6e année Un choix de carrière excitant en métiers spécialisés offert au CECCE! Nathalie Néron fait partie de la famille du CECCE depuis plus de 28 ans. Elle a acquis une solide expérience en travaillant d’abord comme enseignante, puis conseillère pédagogique, pour finalement occuper un poste de direction adjointe au Service de soutien à l’apprentissage, volet programmes spécialisés.

LE CONSEIL DES ÉCOLES catholiques du CentreEst (CECCE), situé à Ottawa, est reconnu pour la transformation de l’expérience d’apprentissage, l’excellence, la bienveillance de ses écoles catholiques et la synergie avec la communauté. Avec plus de 25 500 élèves fréquentant 44 écoles élémentaires, 13 écoles secondaires et une école pour adultes, le CECCE est le plus grand réseau canadien d’écoles de langue française à l’extérieur du Québec.

Pour le CECCE, l’objectif est simple : offrir aux élèves des occasions d’apprentissage qui se traduisent en perspectives d’emplois réelles et abondantes. Motivé par cet objectif, et conscient du contexte actuel de pénurie de main-d’œuvre qualifiée dans les métiers spécialisés, le CECCE redouble ses efforts afin d’encourager les élèves à considérer de nouveaux choix de carrière enrichissants.

Comment y arriver? Le CECCE se démarque par son désir d’offrir aux enfants des activités et des programmes leur permettant de se familiariser avec les métiers spécialisés et de découvrir ainsi de nouveaux intérêts et qui sait, de futures passions.

Dès la 6e année, les élèves du CECCE ont l’occasion de participer à des activités telles que la Journée d’exploration de carrière (JEC), des salons de carrières liées aux métiers spécialisés, des compétitions en robotique ainsi que des visites d’entreprises. Lors de ces activités, des ateliers pratiques permettent à ces derniers d’en apprendre davantage sur des carrières touchant les domaines de la plomberie, les circuits électriques, la maçonnerie, l’électricité industrielle, la fabrication, etc.

Tout au long de leur parcours au secondaire, les élèves du CECCE ont la chance de suivre des cours

40 ÉDUCATION CANADA • Juin 2020 | Le Réseau Édcan

pour découvrir plus de 200 métiers spécialisés. Afin de préparer les élèves au marché du travail de demain, ces cours comprennent non seulement une initiation aux métiers traditionnels, mais visent aussi à les outiller pour faire face aux changements technologiques qui affectent ces métiers, tels que l’intelligence artificielle, l’automatisation et l’arrivée des outils numériques.

En plus des cours, à compter de la 11e année, de nombreuses options sont proposées aux élèves intéressés par les métiers spécialisés. En voici deux :

Programme d’apprentissage pour les jeunes de l’Ontario (PAJO) – Initiative ministérielle

Ce programme vise à faciliter la transition entre l’école et le travail tout en permettant aux élèves d’explorer un métier en 11e ou 12e année. Ces élèves du palier secondaire ont l’occasion d’être des apprentis et de devenir certifiés dans un métier spécialisé. Pendant le semestre, l’élève inscrit à un PAJO suit la composante théorique du niveau 1 de base de la formation en apprentissage dans le domaine de son choix sur le campus du collège communautaire.

L’élève complète son horaire avec une expérience en éducation coopérative chez un employeur.

Programmes FOCUS – Initiative du CECCE

Dans la région d’Ottawa, l’élève en 11e ou en 12e année inscrit dans l’une des écoles du CECCE peut participer pendant un semestre à l’un des 15 programmes FOCUS, dont quelques-uns sont directement liés à un métier spécialisé. Ayant comme but de permettre à l’élève de vivre une expérience immersive dans un domaine d’intérêt, la salle de classe des programmes FOCUS est souvent en milieu communautaire (p. ex., chantier de construction, hôpital, cuisine de restaurant, salon de coiffure). Ces programmes permettent à chaque élève d’accumuler des crédits envers l’obtention de son diplôme, de l’expérience pratique et des certifications dans son domaine d’apprentissage. La participation des partenaires communautaires est primordiale afin d’offrir aux élèves une expérience d’apprentissage authentique.

Par le fait même, les employeurs ont la chance de contribuer à former la relève de demain.

De plus, pour les élèves de la 9e à la 12e année, le CECCE complète son offre avec le Centre professionnel et technique Minto, une école secondaire qui se veut un centre d’excellence en innovation avec un volet d’enseignement entièrement dédié aux métiers spécialisés. Le plus récent cours offert est le sport électronique (esport), soit un domaine de l’industrie en pleine expansion. C’est la première école francophone de l’Ontario à offrir un cours crédité en esport.

Finalement, l’ensemble des activités et des programmes offerts aux élèves du CECCE cherchent à susciter l’engagement envers les études dans un métier spécialisé, la soif d’apprendre et le désir de maîtriser des compétences essentielles au succès d’aujourd’hui et de demain. ÉC www.edcan.ca/fr/magazine

Effective Collaborative Practices in ESL Education

Tiffany Gallagher, PhD, is a professor in the Faculty of Education at Brock University in the Niagara Region (ON) and Director of the Brock Learning Lab. She is recognized for her research that aims to enhance teachers’ professional learning through coaching, and the learning of students with literacy difficulties and learning challenges.

www.edcan.ca/magazine

PHOTO: ISTOCK

Ana Vintan, MEd, is a professor in the School of English and Liberal Studies at Seneca College in Toronto.

She has a passion for teaching, and research in the areas of professional learning, connections among curriculum, instruction and assessment.

Conditions that nurture best practices

BY ANA VINTAN AND TIFFANY GALLAGHER CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH language learners (ELLs)

have language learning needs that are often supported through a complement of in-school professionals, including English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers, classroom teachers, educational resource teachers, coaches, ESL consultants, and administrators. Integrating contentbased teaching with appropriate skill-level tasks for ELLs requires a collaborative effort between classroom teachers and ESL teachers.

To understand the factors that facilitate collaboration

in ESL education, we interviewed and observed the teaching practices of four ESL teachers in Southern Ontario.

Based on the findings of these qualitative data, which complement and are supported by existing research, we provide some conditions that truly nurture innovation between ESL teachers and classroom teachers.

When ESL teachers and classroom teachers collaborate, each educator brings a unique perspective and repertoire of knowledge and experience, and it often takes time to negotiate ways of combining these lenses to creEdCan Network | June 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 41

ate an educational plan. Thus, one condition of collaboration is for educators to feel supported in contributing their specialization area within a collaborative relationship. Administrative support is also essential. When collaboration is prioritized by school administrators, resources and allocated time for collaborative practice are designated with an ESL focus, facilitating more authentic collaboration.

Our research revealed that ESL teachers negotiated collaboration based on a desire to work together and a belief that a cohesive educator team is important in ESL education. However, these ESL teachers encountered barriers such as a lack of training, technology and tools to facilitate collaboration and lack of time to do so. This resulted in limited and informal, surface-level collaboration.

Teaching approach

ESL educators often work with several different students at several different schools, so collaboration with the classroom teachers is essential. When ESL teachers and classroom teachers collaborate, there is potential for consistency and efficiency in pedagogical planning of targeted learning strategies for ELLs. Caroline, an ESL teacher, told us, “I love collaborating with teachers because I feel like it’s taking a little bit of stress off of them, initially, but it’s also giving them a toolkit so they’re prepared the next time around.”

Echoing this sentiment, other ESL teacher participants talked about successful collaborative relationships with classroom teachers that develop over time. Professional relationships among ESL teachers and classroom teachers that were described as authentic extended beyond situational conversations about particular events in the classroom. These relationships were rooted in a sense of reduced role differentiation between the ESL teachers and classroom teachers.

The time crunch

To collaborate effectively, educators working with ELLs need to have dedicated time in order to meet and co-plan, co-teach to some extent, and co-evaluate curriculum planning for ELLs. This need for devoted time for teachers to meet is a pervasive issue cited by others as well.1 Grant, an ESL teacher, talks about the challenge of finding meeting time: “The challenge I think in terms of collaboration is sometimes finding that time to meet with the teacher... Because classroom teachers have so many things going on, so it’s tough...”

Caroline spoke of the difficulty of carving out time for ESL among competing priorities: “I try to invite myself to those collaboration meetings [laughs], because then you can put an ESL perspective on the table. We have a half day each term that we’re allowed to use... to meet with teachers, but a lot of us find that’s just not enough time to meet with all the teachers we need to meet with... I do a lot of my meetings unofficially... And I’m always apologetic for using their time, because I know that prep time for them is so precious. But… in the end, it’s beneficial for both of us, because I can do a lot to help support them. I might co-teach a lesson, or I might, you know, plan a lesson based around something that they’re working on so that they don’t have to plan that lesson, and now they have time to do something else.”

This is a testament to the struggle experienced by all ESL teachers to liaise and support classroom teachers’ practice as well as meet Ministry of Education mandates to complete required documentations for ELLs. Central to this collaboration is a shared desire to approach curricu-

42 EDUCATION CANADA • June 2020 | EdCan Network

lum mapping with an ESL-specific focus, to set goals for as well as with ELLs, and to evaluate and modify plans along the way. ESL teacher Nicole talks about collaboration to build on ELLs’ strengths: “It’s like optimizing the support, but seeing that all the kids are capable and competent. [Focusing on] what do they know, and how can we move them forward, instead of looking at them as having a deficit.”

When educators took the time to co-plan in preparation for an upcoming unit, observations showed that they used instructional strategies such as small groups or one-on-one conferencing with ELLs, and as a result, provide differentiated instruction. There are recent examples of ESL teachers and content-area teachers co-planning using the principles of differentiated instruction in cooperative learningcentered approaches.2 This is beneficial to ELLs, as each of these students has unique learning and language needs.

When ESL teachers and classroom teachers collaborate, there is potential for consistency and efficiency in pedagogical planning for English language learners.

The crucial follow-up to this teaching approach is creating opportunities for teachers to discuss their observations and review effective teaching strategies. Thus, in addition to planning and teaching systems, it is crucial to also incorporate assessment systems in order to adjust pedagogy to meet ELLs’ needs. Collaboration among educators on assessment that informs ESL instruction (and not just program placement)3 is also an area for professional growth.

Technology as a collaborative tool

We asked how ESL teachers collaborate with in-school teams of educators to use instructional resources (digital and/or non-digital) to promote language instruction with ELLs. We found that ESL teachers supplemented non-digital resources with resources created by classroom teachers. Collaboration was focused on the goals of educational plans for ELLs, and resources to support ELLs in achieving these goals. In terms of non-digital resources, an emergent theme was that ESL teachers had over time created a repository of tools that could be adapted to fit individual ELLs’ learning needs. One aspect of collaboration that teachers considered valuable was how the ESL teachers shared these resources with other educational professionals (such as resource teachers) as a way of optimizing the time of all educators.

A second important finding was that, although ESL teacher participants saw the benefits of using technology to aid ELLs, collaboration in relation to the use of technological platforms in ESL education tended to remain at the surface level. For example, imparting technological resources was limited to sharing websites and pass codes for English translation or leveled texts.

Google Drive is one technology that is being used as a dynamic tool to support sharing and collaboration in literacy pedagogy and language instruction in the Canadian ESL classroom.4 Caroline, for example, had developed a bank of resources that she was willing to share with any teacher that could use them: “The beautiful thing www.edcan.ca/magazine

about Google Drive is, once you kind of get it organized, it’s there for you. So next year, I don’t necessarily have to do that again, I can just pull it out and add or adapt what I need to do.”

To improve the use of technological platforms in ESL education, it is imperative that the technological tools chosen by educators provide students with immediate feedback, to prevent students from making schematic integrations of incorrect responses. In this way, students gain an awareness of where errors are made, and can apply this new learning in the future. Platforms such as chatrooms in educational apps are being used with great success.5 Educators need opportunities to collaborate on integrating technology in instruction in ways that promote critical thinking and problem solving to guide students to meaningful learning.

Expanding collaboration

Our research reveals that ESL teachers value shared professional development as a way of enhancing collaboration with classroom teachers.

ESL teacher participants in this research project recognized that collaborating with educators within as well as across other school boards, may introduce them to innovative practices that they had otherwise not considered. Lauren recalled her involvement in an ESL symposium during the summer hosted by the local school board. The symposium was focused on ESL instruction and included ESL educators from various boards. Lauren found it beneficial to share experiences with different ESL teachers. Her recommendation was for more ESL teachers to be aware of such initiatives and become involved in large-scale events to interact and collaborate with various educators.

Both Caroline and Lauren talked about the benefits of partnering up

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with other school boards to collaborate and share strategies. These ESL teachers recognized that collaboration is required to improve and incorporate strategies that have been successful for other educators.

Facilitating connections among educators working with ELLs across the province to share successful approaches and develop tools that can be adapted and utilized in ESL education is a way to hasten the spread and uptake of innovative practice.

A collaborative approach in ESL education creates more supportive and nurturing environments for ELLs to thrive in. When ESL education is prioritized and approached as an inclusive practice aimed at blending the professional knowledge of several educators and backed by administrative support,6 ELLs as well as ESL teachers are not marginalized, and the success of students with various literacy requirements are considered as part of an inclusive practice. EC NOTES 1 A. Honigsfeld and M. Dove, “When Do Teachers and ESL Specialists Collaborate and Co-teach?” in Collaboration and Co-Teaching: Strategies for English Learners (SAGE: 2010).

2 G. M. Awada and K. H. Faour, “Effect of Glogster and Cooperative Learning Differentiated Instruction on Teachers’ Perceptions,” Teaching English with Technology 18, No. 2 (2018): 93-114.

3 B. A. Green, and M. Andrade, “Guiding Principles for Language Assessment Reform: A model for collaboration,” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 9, No. 4 (2010): 322-334.

4 N. Slavkov, “Sociocultural Theory, the L2 Writing Process, and Google Drive: Strange bedfellows?” TESL Canada Journal 32. No. 2 (2015): 80-94.

5 A. Sari, “EFL Peer Feedback Through the Chatroom in Padlet,” LLT Journal: A Journal on Language and Language Teaching 22, No. 1 (2019): 46-57.

6 Honigsfeld and Dove, “When Do Teachers and ESK Specialists Collaborate and Co-teach?”

EdCan Network | June 2020 • EDUCATION CANADA 43

book review

BY RUTHANNE TOBIN

RECONCEPTUALIZING DISABILITY IN EDUCATION

By Luigi Iannacci Lexington Books, 2018 ISBN-13: 978-1498542753

LUIGI IANNACCI’S Reconceptualizing Disability in Education elevates the discussion of how we “do” school for learners with disabilities and outlines pedagogical practices and discourses that favourably shape the identities of such learners.

Iannacci’s narrative style will appeal to all levels of educators, from elementary to graduate schools of teacher education, and to scholars working in the areas of inclusion, special education, and literacy. I have used this book in both an undergraduate class and a graduate class on personalized learning, to elucidate the connections among inclusion, 21st century notions of student-centered practices, and the implications

44 EDUCATION CANADA • June 2020 | EdCan Network

of using multiliteracies to reach the needs of all learners. The preservice teachers in my class were particularly moved by Chapter 3’s recounting of the story Evan’s Paper Crane, a transformative anecdote about a student who finds joy and empowerment in becoming the “knower” and “the skillful one.” My graduate class was taken with both the scope and boldness of the writing, as Iannacci explains why current practices for students with disabilities are woefully inadequate, and calls for a reconceptualization of disability in education This carefully crafted book will inspire educators to develop an inclusive learning environment informed by multiliteracies. Eschewing prescriptive strategies for setting up such an environment, Iannacci points to foundational principles that involve immersion in a variety of multimodal texts that enable literacy development for all students by thinking about them in asset-oriented ways, then differentiating instruction to ensure their success.

The book’s special chapter for parents provoked a productive discussion in my classes of how to approach and support the families of these learners.

It is rare to find a “good read” that also serves as an excellent reference text for educators who are advocating for learners with disabilities. This book does just that. EC Ruthanne Tobin is Associate Professor of Language and Literacy in the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria. The focus of her research is on personalized learning models that consider the needs, strengths and aspirations of diverse literacy learners.

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voice of experience

BY STEFANIE COLE

ILLUSTRATION: DAVE DONALD

The Power of Why Stefanie Cole has been an educator for over 25 years, working with the Durham District School Board and living in her hometown of Uxbridge with her supportive husband and three children.

ON INSTAGRAM, a quote from Stuart Shanker’s Mehrit Centre pops: “It’s not misbehaviour, it’s stress behaviour and how you react will make all the difference.”

I philosophically believe the statement. As a VicePrincipal, I work with my staff to build a welcoming and understanding school. But I saw the true power of that message the day my daughter quit her job.

Sixteen was tough. For my daughter, it brought an utter disconnect from school. There were suspensions, missed credits, and daily attendance calls. We had loud fights, and I’d let her go for a walk afterwards because she needed it, even though I was scared she might not come home.

School has never been easy for her. At age eight, she was diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder, which affects the nerves running between her ears, blurring the sounds before they reach her brain. Because she can’t process sounds clearly, it is hard for her to decode words and writing is difficult.

In Grade 8, there was a test she didn’t study for and failed dismally. She told me it was on Lois Reilly and the Mets. I searched my brain for any knowledge of a Lois Reilly in Canadian History, and the Mets… all I could think of was the baseball team.

Slowly I connected the dots. “Do you mean Louis Riel and the Métis?”

That was it. In class, she had worked on writing the notes while the teacher had talked. She couldn’t focus on both. It was all in her Individual Education Plan, but her disability is invisible, and often people only see a disengaged teenager. People don’t understand her needs, so she shuts down.

46 EDUCATION CANADA • June 2020 | EdCan Network

Her work life was good, though. McDonald’s hired her, and she liked it. She loved the kitchen camaraderie and the money. McDonald’s was structured. First, she learned the deep fryer, then the grill, and then the prepping area.

This success gave me hope. With work, I saw the girl I’ve always known.

Then they moved her to the front counter. Some voices were easy for her, but some she couldn’t hear at all.

Stress seeped into her workplace. I told her to explain her situation to the manager, but acknowledging differences is hard at 16. She started showing up late and missing shifts.

Then she no longer had a job.

Months later, she was hired at Subway for one three-hour shift a week. When people ordered specialty sandwiches she couldn’t remember the toppings, and when she asked her co-workers for help, they told her to read the support sheet. But with a line-up of people, processing written instructions was stressful. The complaints about work began.

Circumstances didn’t help. She traded one shift, but her co-worker cancelled en route. The next week, she wrote her schedule down incorrectly. Her boss texted her halfway through the shift, and she was hysterical.

“I’m going to get fired. I’m not ready for a job right now.”

I managed to get her to text him back, but he wanted to speak with her.

“I’m going to quit,” she said. “I can’t do this.”

On the phone, she took full responsibility for missing her shifts. She apologized and then gave her two-weeks’ notice.

And instead of accepting her resignation, her boss asked her why. He told her she’d been doing a great job and that both customers and staff had said positive things about her.

She told him everything. She told him about her hearing and that reading instructions when there was a line-up was stressful. She said the shifts were too short and too few, so that she had to re-learn everything each time. She said she’d mentioned she couldn’t work Tuesdays but kept getting her shift on Tuesdays.

Then he asked her what she needed.

Her answer was simple: longer shifts, more of them, and Tuesdays off.

He said he would work on it.

I cried from the other room.

The impact of that simple “why” was monumental.

His questions gave her dignity and respect. She was able to acknowledge her challenges and identify what she needed. He listened to and supported her.

I wish for that in her classroom. I wish her teachers would ask her why, and that she felt comfortable enough to share her reality, but it doesn’t happen. Yet as educators we have that power. “It’s not misbehaviour, it’s stress behaviour and how you react will make all the difference.” It’s truer than we know. EC www.edcan.ca/magazine