SCHOOL just got quite a bit more interesting for some students at St Edmunds College in Canberra.
While mainstream learning still makes up the bulk of the education at the school, some ambitious and innovative teachers have developed a program that’s intended to offer students an insight and career opportunities in fisheries, tourism, aquaculture, meteorology or even sporting fields.
The Recreational Fishing and Outdoor Education Program will be open to St Edmunds College students from years four to 12. While still very much a work in progress and therefore in the development and pilot stages, interest at a recent information night held at the school suggests that it will certainly be popular.
Some 50 parents and potential students attended the night and listened intently to the program coordinators Dean Parkes and Carlo Sorrentino explain what the program involves.
The range of subjects to be covered is simply too extensive to list here but there will be a heavy recreational fishing focus, so topics like casting, knot tying, fish behaviour, etc, will be a given. Students can expect to learn in a variety of environments including the classroom, workshops and out in the field. Field trips and excursions will certainly be an important highlight for students.
Mindful that the program could be viewed as an “easy” option for some students, the teachers have ensured that, as a co-curricular program, it will not just be about fishing but will have a broader educational and vocational aspect to it. To this end the guest speaker for the evening and program advocate, Rob Paxevanos, gave the audience an insight into how recreational fishing has shaped his life and ultimately led him down the path of making a living from fishing, perhaps whetting the appetite of a budding fishing identity in the audience?
Rec fishing identity and program advocate Rob Paxevanos addresses interested students and parents.
To ensure students remain focused on learning and vocation, the following subjects add significant credibility to the program:
- Stream Rehabilitation and Noxious Weed Removal
- Outdoor Safety and Survival
- Marine Electronics
- Meteorology
- Camp Cooking
- Industry Bureaucracy – Dept. of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
It is probably important to note that this is not the first program of its kind in Canberra. In the 1980s, local fishing guru and then college teacher, Alan Perry, ran a fishing course that Parkes himself attended and states was part of his inspiration for the development of this program. Then in the mid 1990s the Canberra Institute of Technology developed and delivered a vocationally focused industry course that delivered a trade certificate at the end of it.
I doubt that students will be able to drop their English, maths or science text books just yet, but hopefully programs like this may go some way to overcoming what I personally believe to be one of the greatest challenges facing parents and teachers of today – getting kids outdoors into the environment and learning.
This program is a credit to the school administrators who have approved it as much as it is to the teachers involved in its development.
