Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

The Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry

This week we had guest speaker Jeff Hopkins, founder and co-principal of the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII) in Victoria, BC. Jeff is a former school counsellor and superintendent of Gulf Island School District, who founded PSII with a mission to prove that a different organizational and educational model was possible, and a hope that seeing his work in-action would incourage BC Public Schools to adopt his model.

PSII is not like other schools. It’s located in an office building downtown Victoria. Students arrive at 9:30 a.m. because teenage brains need more sleep. During the day students are able to sign up for activities that they choose. This could be anything from a strength training class at the YMCA, Pre-Calculus 11, a novel writing workshop, or self-study in either an open group space or silent room.

Courses are not organized around rigid subjects and schedules. Instead, students organize their learning around an inquiry question. As they explore this question, teachers help “nudge” students towards different ways to explore their interests, making sure that the student covers the curricular competencies and content in the BC Curriculum. For example a student interested in figure skating may use math and physics to explore the mechanics of jumps.

Inquiry: Trendy or Practical?

There is a significant focus on Inquiry based learning in our Teacher Education program at UVic. First off, I’ll say that I would have loved to attend a school like PSII, however I think there are some pitfalls for inquiry based learning, at least if it’s not done well.

Inspiring curiosity and skills like critical thinking are important, but the way these are being presented in our program one might walk away thinking they are the only important thing. The predominate narrative is that AI will replace lower-level jobs so if children want to succeed in the world of the future, they will need a different set of skills than their parents and grandparent. Mainly inquiry and innovation, creativity, and critical thinking.

I believe that schools should provide room for students to explore their own interests. Why not let a kid who loves video games dive into programming and design for video games instead forcing them to work on projects for a different technology topic they are less interested in? Being a social studies teacher however, I also think that school is about shaping responsible citizens. In a democracy we all have a part in and responsibility for shaping the direction of policy. I don’t think we can do this without certain content knowledge. We can’t think critically about say, vaccines if we don’t have a basic understanding of the scientific method and how scientific knowledge is acquired and refined. We can’t think critically about Indigenous rights if we don’t know anything about the history of Canadian colonization and treaty agreements. I am not saying this is a shortfall of PSII in particular – I’m not knowledgable about their process, however I do think that in some cases teachers jumping on the inquiry based model for education are putting the cart before the horse.

Implications for Practice

I would love to see more flexibility within the public school system. One of the most striking things Jeff mentioned about PSII was that they had a low-stimulation room students could go to at any time in order to decompress. The room had low light lamps, silence, and a bean bag chair. Being able to set up your day in a way that works for individual students is also a fantastic idea. Students are all so different, and trying to fit everyone into one rigid model will inevitably leave some behind, while others aren’t challenged at all. We also all have differences in how we function, some may need quiet and others more collaboration, some may like to tackle harder work in the morning while others want to ease into the day with something creative. We also all have bad days where we aren’t up for our usual work, and days where we feel fired up and able to accomplish a lot. While inquiry based learning models are the main topic being pushed, it’s actually the flexibility, and therefore the accessibility to reach learners with diverse needs, that I find the most compelling part of PSII’s model.