My grade 11 son has been involved in the Senior Outdoor Education course that is currently being taught at Nakusp Secondary School. I cannot say enough about the value of this experience for him.
The curriculum is very challenging and the students will be coming out of this course with lots of real-world experience and tickets. So far they have acquired a food safe certificate, flagging certification, occupational first aide with travel endorsement, WHIMIS and they are working towards their Ground Search and Rescue ticket.
But the value is far beyond what they are learning in this class. In 12 years I have never seen my son so excited about school. He gets up in the morning and wants to go to school, he has even passed up an opportunity to travel out of town because he didn’t want to miss any school. His other grades have come up in response to this positive experience.
I feel that the school experience should be tailored to all students not just the ones who are academic and want to go on to university or college. This course has gone a long way to making “hands on kids” have a chance to excel.
I really hope the school board continues to build on this pilot year. We have a chance here to be on the cutting edge of education. This is a bright light for this school district in what has been a dark year.
My congratulations go out to the teacher Mr. Dorian Boswell for all his hard work in developing this course and his continued efforts to keep it running. I know he puts many extra hours in every day to keep everything going.
The mission statement of our school board is “to provide all students with an equal opportunity to achieve excellence to the utmost of their abilities, to learn to manage change, to learn to live and work in harmony with others and their environment and thus grow into caring, intelligent and productive citizens.”
If the board really believes in this, they will do their best to make sure that this very innovative course continues.
I am sending copy of this letter to the Principal of NSS, the superintendent of SD10 and each of our elected School Board members because I want everyone to know that what NSS is doing here needs to be celebrated and built on, and not make this a one-year experiment that doesn’t continue
Lorna Henschke (Proud Parent)
Nakusp, B.C.