A "Real" Educational Experience

Call it Fall Fever, or September Sickness, but since schools are starting up I have found myself being engaged in debate and conversation surrounding education and its ability to provide a "real" educational experience to students. In all the conversations three topics continually arose: social media, health, and creativity.

On social media, discussions usually had to do with ones ability to create a strong personal brand online. Students should be shown how to harness social media tools to develop their own personal brand and also deterred from particular activities that could destroy it. Whyhire.me is a leader in giving student's the practical skills and knowledge to develop their brand while also providing a cool platform for them to integrate a variety of social media tools. More colleges and universities should be taking this approach, but at the same time students should be taking responsibility for their online appearance and persona.

With regards to health, a co-worker of mine brought up a valid point, we teach physical education to make sure people know how to be physically active and yet we do not teach cooking to make sure people know how to eat healthy and nutritious meals.I realize some may think this is a parent's responsibility, but what if the parents don't know how to cook nutritious meals? Being a graduate of BSc. Kinesiology and Health Sciences program, I know that healthy living is a combination of physical activity and proper nutrition. This is something everyone must learn and should be instituted at least at the high school level.

Finally, CREATIVITY! I just received my NAC tickets for a variety of orchestra performances and every year I am shocked to see a limited number of youth filling the seats. Do you youth not appreciate the arts? If not, why not? Schools emphasize traditional subjects: math, science, English, history, and yet they neglect art, music, and drama. Check out Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk. This little talk really got me thinking about how important it is for students to have a well rounded education and how we need to feed creativity the way we feed the multiplication table to youth. I am so thankful that I have had the opportunity to explore all facets of education (arts, music, sciences, etc.). I think it gives a bit of an edge when solving problems.

With all that said I think it is also important to note that education is not just in public schools, universities or colleges. It can also be found in extra curricular activities and clubs.The responsibility has to be on the student to explore but the duty should be on the community to provide the opportunities.