A Refreshing Look At Education - Editorial
This week we had the pleasure of attending the ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house for Bourne High School’s Innovation Pathways Program, and we are utterly impressed with and pleased to see such a level of academic rigor and student passion.
One of our younger reporters interviewed the teacher responsible for spearheading the program, Ann-Marie Strode, before the event to get the full scoop on the program and how it is benefiting students. When she came back to the newsroom, she shared with us that she was in awe of the outstanding opportunities being offered to high school students. Career exploration, targeted technical and academic coursework, and a mandatory personal finance class, all before getting to college? It seems unprecedented at this level, and yet, when you think about it, is the smartest and perhaps most helpful way that high schools can prepare their students for the future.
Those of us long removed from high school can likely empathize with our reporter, I’m sure, and share in a collective groan of yearning for the academic experiences and support systems available today.
But, more importantly, we should all rejoice at the wealth of opportunities and pathways to professional life now being offered to students as early as 9th grade. The whole idea, Ms. Strode has said, is to get the students to think and be excited about their futures and to see the relevancy in their coursework to getting there. Students are given the encouragement and permission to pursue their wildest dreams and are also provided with the tools to actually achieve them. It’s a marvel to see a program like this at the college level, never mind in high school.
One notion from the ceremony that really resonated with us was this: Bourne High School is evolving, it is adapting and it is changing the landscape of secondary education. It is taking education and putting it into the hands of the students, and we think that is one of the most powerful things educators can do. Kudos to the Innovations Pathways team, Superintendent Dr. Kerri Anne Quinlan-Zhou and the rest of the district. It’s exciting to think about where the program will go from here.