Muriel Martin students got a hands-on look at the provincial government this week as they held classes in the halls of the Alberta Legislature.
Teacher Danielle Jean had her Grade 6 class spend last week at the legislature as part of the province’s School at the Legislature program.
Muriel Martin is one of the 39 schools in the province that gets to participate in the program this year, said teacher Richard Pawsey, who had his class run through it the week before last.
“Something like government can seem very abstract to 11- and 12-year-olds,” he said, but this program lets students see the actual people behind it, making it easier for them to understand.
Jean said her class got to explore the legislature grounds, meet Spruce Grove-St. Albert MLA Trevor Horne, and hold a mock legislative session where they debated raising the legal drinking age to 21.
Student Sinead Duffy said her class debated a bill on which gender, girls or boys, should be allowed to use electronic devices in the classroom. The girls won.
“It was so much fun to come up with arguments for a really sexist bill.”
Duffy said she also got to see MLAs debating real bills in the House, noting how some followed procedural rules while others were “very, very rude” and yelled from across the room.
They even got to chat with Premier Rachel Notley as she waited for an elevator, Pawsey said.
“We were all a little bit star-struck.”
Jean said she hoped this experience would help students become active citizens.
“Our underlying theme in social studies is democracy and how democracy is the voice of the people. In order to have a voice, you have to take the responsibility of participating.”
Muriel Martin’s other two Grade 6 classes will do this program next spring, Jean said.
Bellerose students called for more Snapchat and cheaper parking passes this week during a school-wide consultation – one students say should lead to real results.
All 1,200-some students at Bellerose made their voices heard Wednesday as part of the second-annual School Voice conference. The event had students form groups to talk about the school’s direction and influence school policy, and was similar to the open-house consultations often held by governments.
Bellerose held a similar event called Connect the Dots about 25 years ago when it first opened, said teacher and event organizer Sue Leighton. The school decided to bring it back last year at the suggestion of then-principal Jyoti Mangat, student leaders, and members of the St. Albert BAM for Youth group.
“When you’re in a school of 1,200 kids, often times you don’t get time to just sit and talk,” she said. This event was meant to help students feel more connected to their school and become active citizens.
Student leaders had their peers discuss what they liked and didn’t like about Bellerose and express their thoughts as actions written on Post-It notes. The notes were then stuck on posters around the gym to indicate if the school should “start,” “stop,” or “continue” these actions.
Several of the notes called on the school to stop blocking Internet access to Snapchat and to charge less for parking passes, for example. Others showed strong support for events such as the Bikeathon, milk-chugging contest and the School Voice conference.
Students Cole Zmurchik and Emily Pichlyk said you can learn a lot about what others think through an event such as this, especially since students tend to be more honest with their peers than their teachers. Comments from last year’s conference prompted staff to expand the school’s parking lot and clean up its washrooms.
Students will compile suggestions from this conference and present them to staff, Leighton said. Staffers will hold a follow-up presentation to tell students how they acted on those suggestions.
