Enhancing Curriculum, Embracing Technology in the Next Decade
St. Augustine High School is everchanging. Just ten years ago, Villanova and Mendel hall had not been built, the block schedule had not been implemented, and we did not yet have Intersession. Over these last few years, Saints has improved, and when considering the future, one can confidently say that it will continue to do so – the question is how.
Much of the focus of the past decade has been on the development of buildings, and the renovation of our 93 year old campus. But after the forthcoming “Phase II,” the school’s renovations will be completely finished. Accordingly, the administration is shifting its focus from bettering our campus to bettering our curriculum.
A major component of the future Saints is technology. In the past, St. Augustine has focused on infrastructure, most impressively the server upgrades which boosted the school’s Wi-Fi capabilities. Previously, the network could only support a few hundred simultaneous connections; today it can support several thousand. Having established a stable network, the administration is now turning towards using that infrastructure efficiently.
One of the first steps is the school’s embracing of Canvas, the learning management system designed as a central hub through which students can check grades and upcoming assignments, communicate with teachers, and much more. The move aims to eliminate the current patchwork of websites Saintsmen must use in order to complete assignments. Some Saintsmen, especially those who’ve taken classes from Mr. Igelman or Coach Kamp, are already familiar with Canvas. But those who are not surely will get up to speed over the next few years.
“The idea is not to go systemwide just yet, but to get feedback from parents and students so that when we do a schoolwide launch, we’ve ironed out the bugs,” Mr. Hecht said.
With so many competing programs, some Saintsmen might be wondering why Saints has decided on Canvas. An important part of the answer lies not in what Canvas has the potential to do, but what it’s already doing nationwide. Canvas has already been adopted by colleges across the country, including Gonzaga, Villanova, Harvard, Princeton, and the Juilliard School of Music. This collegiate ubiquity is a clear incentive for St. Augustine’s adoption. Students who learn how to navigate Canvas now will be even better prepared for the next level of education. For a college prep school like St. Augustine, that’s the name of the game.
But the school will do more than introduce new web tools. One of the most important aspects of a future Saints will be the introduction of a new type of curriculum that will build on the success of Intersession. In the next few years, Saints will begin to introduce new, more hands on classes as part of the regular terms.
“Learning ought to be fun,” Mr. Horne said. “I don’t see a lot of guys running around saying give me more AP classes, though they are important, but I do see guys saying I really love that aquatic sports class. This is our opportunity to create fun in the learning environment. It’s the starting point.”
To kick off this move, Saints will be bringing a woodworking Intersession class into the curriculum next year. If it goes well, we just might see a regular term woodworking class. Additionally, the administration is considering bringing in a choir class.
“We don’t have the class, but we’ve got a choir, and for years we’ve never really had to rely on a class because the talent has just surfaced,” Mr. Horne said. “The truth is that we can a help a guy discover that he’s a great singer, we could be breeding talent.”
These additions are part of what makes Saints so special. While so many other schools are moving more towards the common core, or otherwise restrictive guidelines, Saints is staying true to its roots, without sacrificing academics.
“Sometimes people misunderstand; just because it’s fun doesn’t mean you’re not getting phenomenal content,” Mr. Horne said. “We believe you should get to be a teenage boy.”
The results speak for themselves. Since the institution of Intersession in 2008, AP scores have actually risen across the board – despite one month less instruction. It seems that letting boys be boys has worked out fine so far, and in the coming few years, Saints should continue churning out some fine men.
By Ian Harkness (’15)
This article was originally published in The Augustinian, the student-run newspaper of St. Augustine High School. Read The Augustinian here: http://www.sahs.org/campus-life/the-augustinian/
