SASKATOON – Students turned the tables on teachers at the three-day National Congress on Rural Education in Canada.
A dozen student journalists from Fort Qu’Appelle, Lumsden and Wolseley in Saskatchewan’s Prairie Valley School Division used cameras and computers to record speakers and events at the congress. The reports were then posted in a daily newsletter and a regularly updated website.
Grade 11 student Lucas Sabrish said he made a lot of new friends at the congress.
He said he preferred learning about the technology more than the journalism, but he did get the opportunity to edit an article that a fellow student wrote about a speech presented by songwriter Connie Kaldor.
A Saskatchewan school division is asked to provide the student staff for the eJournalism project, which is a regular feature of the 16-year-old congress.
One of the articles in this year’s Rural Rambler listed ways to tell you’re in a rural school:
- “half of the school is somehow related;”
- “most of the kids can find their parents and grandparents in the grad pictures on the walls;”
- “you stay with the same group of people K-12;”
- “one teacher teaches three of your classes, coaches both the basketball and volleyball teams and is the SLC adviser.”
