For this weeks tech class, we decide to relocate our classroom to 808 Douglas Street in downtown Victoria. It was at this location where we found our classroom to be located at the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII) This school is not like your usual highschool, yes there are teenagers everywhere and teachers, however, the similarities stop at that. When we walked in our first sight was a large open area covered in desks each fitting around five students. On these desks, there were cute little plants each with their own names and sitting around the desks were students from early to late teens working. The working was what surprised me at first, now I know that sounds bad but it is not unusual to see a classroom filled with students distracted and barely working, that was not the case for PSII. These kids were hard at work doing all sorts of different learning from reading, computer programming, sewing, and even crocheting! Seeing all of this was very overwhelming for me, I kept thinking “where are the classes? “where are the teachers? “who is watching these kids? It wasn’t until we had a talk with principal Jeff Hopkins that it all the pieces started to fit together. PSII is an inquiry-based school, this means this school is almost 100% personalized learning whereas the students are able to pick their own interdisciplinary learning pathway that ends up meeting all the same curriculum competencies as the B.C curriculum. This form of learning allows the students the chance to truly learn about what they’re passionate about, allowing children to be more obliged to their learning.

Now I am not gonna lie walking around this school freaked me out quite a bit, but that is only because my generation has been conditioned to gear towards a certain kind of learning, one that is structured. Inquiry-based learning requires a lot of self-regulation when it comes to monitoring and continuing work. This requires self-made assessments, self check-list and in all a lot of determination. I think this school is a school of the future, one where specialized learning is looked up upon and not down, sadly there are still so many stereotypes when it comes to private schools alike PSII. “They’re alternative schools” and “It is those kids last option to graduate” however this is not the case, PSII is a school for the everyday student who wishes to explore their own learning and delve deeper into their subjects that summon them.