Important Learning Outside Of School Hours
It's not just during school hours that students can learn the skills that set them on the path to a successful life. For many, they learn just as much from the extracurricular activities in which they participate.
This has certainly been Bruce White's experience. He is a firm believer that students' school life should comprise 50 percent academics, 25 percent social activities, and 25 percent athletics.
In his long career as a math teacher, most recently at Vincent Massey Secondary School in Windsor, Ontario, he has offered various after-school opportunities to his students to help them achieve that healthy balance.
For example, White coached volleyball for many years. "Volleyball is a very mathematical sport," he admits with a smile, but it also requires that the players work as a team. Sports teams help create a good atmosphere in the school, making it a more positive place. Interestingly, he notes, his current school has its lowest rate of vandalism in years because so many students use the building at so many different times of day for sports and other extracurricular activities.
In his chosen field of math, White has always run extra classes at lunch and in spares for students who want to get ahead or catch up.
When White moved from one school to another, his former students complained that they no longer had a math coach to help them prepare for contests. It was at that point that White started to offer problem-solving sessions outside of school hours. Between 150 and 200 students participate, paying a small fee to work with White. Each hour-long session focuses on 10 questions that a student might encounter in a math contest or in a math class (the sessions act as enrichment classes for students across the school board). For an international contest, students might practise for up to six hours a week. Recently, White added a Sunday morning session for gifted students, first at his home and then, when the group got too big, at the school.
In addition to honing their math skills, students are encouraged and learn to work together during these problem-solving sessions. This emphasis on co-operation may explain another successful extracurricular event that White launched 20 years ago and that is still going strong.
In 1978, White's school celebrated its 50th anniversary. White told the students that if they could find an event in old school yearbooks that they would like to hold again, he would help them organize it. A picture in the 1934 yearbook of a teacher handing a cup of tea to a poor child visiting the school prompted students to update the idea and hold a Christmas party for inner-city elementary students who would visit the school for the day.
Students immediately began fundraising to pay for the catered food (now the students cook everything they serve). They also plan all the activities for the more than 250 children that attend the party each year.
On a day early in the week of the party, the students go to the elementary schools and spend time getting to know their guests. On the Saturday morning of the party, they meet with the children and ride the buses to the high school with them for the day of fun. A highlight of the day is that each child has his or her picture taken with Santa.
For the student organizers, the day is an important learning experience - not only because they have to organize a big event, but also because they get to know people in the city who are different from them and how to treat them fairly.