Graduation ceremonies were altered by the global COVID-19 pandemic, but for Mark Lucas, principal of Many Faces Education Centre, the changes presented an opportunity.
“Sometimes, it's really difficult to break tradition,” he said.
“When something like this comes along, you almost have to in order to make something happen - so we did.
Since students couldn’t attend a major grad ceremony, Lucas and other school staff brought the celebration to the students. They drove to each graduate’s house and presented them personally with their diploma and honours.
“We broke tradition and we ended up visiting each grad house. It was such a success for the community, the grads, the staff, that the staff wants to do it every year now,” he said.
Thinking outside the box is what Many Faces is all about. At a presentation to the Flin Flon School Division Board in 2019, Lucas outlined what makes Many Faces different. A key point during his presentation was allowing students more independence on how to meet learning outcomes - a valuable skill for students during a pandemic.
“I think students across the country should be switching to become that self-motivated learner,” Lucas said.
“Figuring out that metacognitive way of, ‘How do I learn? What do I enjoy learning?’ Because once that happens, then you enjoy learning.”
Lucas said the 2019/20 school year included a class called “inquiry learning” at Many Faces, which allows students to pick a topic and work with teachers to fit the topic into a traditional class. Lucas said the goal of inquiry learning is to teach students how to learn as well as a subject.
“If [students] want to know something, they're jumping on Google. Teachers no longer are the masters of knowledge,” he said.
“If we can facilitate teaching students into figuring out they can become their own pathway to knowledge - Holy cow, watch out.”
It wasn’t purely smooth sailing for Many Faces during the pandemic. Lucas said while the school was able to provide a laptop to each student, some students were not able to use the technology.
“What comes along with that is the connectivity - some families don't have WiFi,” he said. “The other part that comes with that is some family dynamics are not the same. There could be 12, 13, 14 people in a house, I may have to look after my younger siblings.”
The pandemic also shone a light on a lack of fairness in education.
“How do you make sure that learning is equitable amongst those students, when things like that happen?” he asked.
“I don’t know the answer. We tried to make it as equitable as possible, but when something like this jumps on us, you’re not prepared. You do the best you can, but there’s some gaps, that’s for sure.”
Lucas said the teaching staff is ready to help students catch up if they did fall behind while doing work at home.
“Some parents are really worried, their child didn't do any work at all - what I say to them is, ‘It’s okay,’” he said.
“It’ll be a teacher’s job to get that student caught back up, no matter the grade level. What I hope we do as educators is stress the importance that if this happens again, you’ve got to be prepared to do that work from home and we're going to need the support of the community and families as well.”
Preparations are already underway for the next school year. Lucas said Many Faces isn’t taking any chances. Even if schools are open for students on Sept. 8, the school will be treating the year as if distance learning is taking place.
