[Music]
my name is Greg Rankin and I’m Jarrod
Hooper the two of us are high school
educators and Rockview schools and we
found a way to look at education a
little bit differently and I should
start off by saying that both of us
truly believe in public education if you
walk into any school in Alberta I
guarantee you that you’re gonna see
amazing educators working with kids to
lead them to success but if you ask any
one of those educators about school
working for all students they’d say the
same thing it doesn’t some students have
a hard time with high stake exams
curriculum content maybe the way it’s
delivered some students find a way to
just coast by with minimal effort and
well unfortunately some of them drop out
and as teachers we worry about this I
mean we don’t want a kid to sit idle in
the back of our room their brilliance
unknown other struggles for students in
school can be from trauma poverty major
learning disabilities however a lot of
the students well they’re just
interested in the things we have to
offer and anyone that knows teenagers
might immediately blame snapchat or
Instagram for that but really I think
sometimes kids just don’t see how school
connects to the world outside of the
classroom walls but if you ever get a
chance to speak to this disengaged
student they light up if you get an
opportunity to hear about their passions
such as art music even the latest
smartphone it becomes incredibly evident
that these students are driven to be
successful but in the things that
they’re interested in and like I was
mentioning schools probably not on that
list
so while schools for most kids it just
doesn’t work for all of them
I was one of those kids if I could
remind some of the audience members
about my typical high school path it was
nothing like a standard teacher I had a
social studies teacher that taught me
social against my will I mean she
literally drunky kicking and screaming
through the hallways I made every excuse
possible didn’t hand things in run away
from her in the halls but she persevered
and she got me to my high school diploma
and I probably had a
more typical highschool experience of
someone who combined to become a teacher
I liked school for the most part not not
so much but everything else yeah so as
you’ve heard Greg and I have taken very
different paths to becoming educators
and it was in 2011 when those pass
intersected now between me picking up
Greg for work because we carpooled and
him complaining about the coffee that I
had bought him we started to have this
kind of a conversation and this
reoccurring question kept coming up how
could we do education a little bit
differently so out of high school I
became a licensed mechanic and early on
in that career I realized that every job
I started I had to finish in order for
myself to find success and this was
something that Greg and I both noticed
that our students were maybe unable or
unwilling to do mm-hmm
and this notion of not being able to
finish something really led us to her
idea I want you to imagine that your
home only had 60% of the drywall up
would that be a pass or if 90% of your
roof didn’t leak would you give the home
builder an A it was these discussions
that led us to what we needed to do we
needed to teach our students how to
become better learners so we thought
we’d better show them what hard work
looks like and that’s when Greg and I
decided to build two houses building
futures is a program that takes a class
of grade 10 students of varying
socioeconomic backgrounds and academic
abilities and has them build two homes
from the ground up the whole time doing
their entire grade 10 curriculum and
with the help of the local home builder
McKey homes the program is completely
free of cost to students now Picher
students on the jobsite almost doing
every aspect of the build they pour the
concrete for the foundation they frame
the walls they install the windows they
put in all the mechanical systems they
even have an opportunity to work with
the interior design this notion of
working with the interior design is
truly what what led us to thinking that
these students could do anything
absolutely now parts of the
schooling is gonna be done really in a
typical manner I mean social studies or
math often you have to sit in a
classroom as an English teacher I know
you cannot teach Shakespeare while
holding a hammer but it would help with
classroom management I am sure but when
appropriate we wanted to bring that
real-world hands-on learning into the
class so if Jared was teaching about
measuring volume and math we wanted to
watch the excavator Daigle the
foundation of the home to sort of show
the kids what was really happening and
because the students were removed from
the high school they weren’t they
weren’t strapped to that typical Bell
schedule and with that being said they
become self-directed they became very
understanding that time management was a
little bit more important and this
release from the from the Bell schedule
worked really well for the teachers as
well I mean we were able to kind of
create interesting and creative projects
that we might not have been able to do
at the typical home we invited reporters
in to help us publish a magazine and
when those reporters came into the
classroom the learning became real and
because the learning was real the
students built numeracy literacy and
problem-solving skills but what’s really
important to remember is that it’s not
about the house
the kids don’t become carpenters or
electricians or Realtors the moment
they’re done the house is just the
vehicle in which each ages the kids and
because sometimes people confuse this
with a trade school I want to say it
again it’s not about the house but you
need to be building something and
something real and this is where Greg
and I disagree a little bit although the
vehicle may not have to be a house ours
was a house and that house is what
brought students to school each and
every day and willing to put in their
full effort so without the house they
wouldn’t have anything real to build but
how we’ve done something else like try
to restore old cars or operate a farm I
think we would have had similar results
possibly but we didn’t
we built a house and that house was big
enough and with enough moving parts that
allowed everyone to feel like we were
being challenged so if your vehicle
isn’t a house it definitely needs to be
big enough or complex enough in order
for all the students to buy in so I
think you’re telling one that you agree
with me words you’ll never hear from me
yeah so whatever you do you need to
build something and as you can tell Greg
and I don’t always agree and but from
the start we did agree on one thing and
that was this it wasn’t about being
right it was about using our unique
perspectives and experiences to make
sure that we built something that worked
for all of our students so when people
ask me why building future seems to work
for students the answer is simple it’s
about student engagement the kids show
up each day and they’re excited to do
challenging tasks and an engaging
interesting work and that’s really why
it’s down by the notion it’s not about
the house right although I do really
really truly believe that the students
are more engaged for me the success of
building futures really stems from the
community involvement and the house is
at the center of it all it brings
tradespeople in teachers principals and
proprietors it brings students parents
and experts all to the same place and
that place was our classroom and that’s
where the student learning was really
enhanced and there’s no doubt that the
community engaged the kids I mean I can
think of one student when he was in
grade 9 in the regular classroom I mean
this kid was like a ping-pong ball
running down the hallways he was always
in trouble for the little stuff couldn’t
get his work done couldn’t get to class
on time but when he got to building
futures there was a shift if one of the
treats people asked him to do something
he was laser focused on that idea and
this work ethic and focused transferred
back into the classroom with improved
grades improved writing at the end of
the year what he was producing was so
much better than what he hadn’t been
able to do in grade 9 absolutely and to
be honest with you when these trades
people and experts came into the class
well ironically the kids listened
and they listened because what they were
being taught was real it was about a
real job well and the contractors I mean
they built the kids up as much as they
built you know the houses and I think
you need people like that in order to
make something like this work and the
first person that comes to my mind is
our site supervisor Cherie she’s
incredible the moment she gets to the
jobsite students fall in love with her
we had a contractor who his wife found
out that he was teaching a class for the
day so his wife baked all the students
cookies you need the people and
organizations that are willing to do the
right thing just like our school
division I mean I can only imagine what
a principal or the divisions lawyer
would have thought when we said can we
give a pile of teenagers power tools and
have them go to school at a construction
site but they found a way to make it
happen because they believed in the idea
and they work backwards to make this
possible and I’ll tell you the
investment has paid off the impact this
program’s had on our students it’s it’s
hard to explain I can remember a grade
10 student that got up in the middle of
class walked out of the out of the
garage which was our classroom he picks
up the phone and he cold calls a
business owner in Toronto without Greg
and I knowing just to get help on one of
the questions he was dealing with on his
project we had another student who
worked for hours and hours on a single
physics problem because she was
incorrect
after the third decimal place whether it
be putting up the drywall or working on
that physics problem these kids had
bought into the notion that they needed
to give a hundred percent and this idea
of giving a hundred percent I mean this
is what building futures is all about
empowering students to take control of
their learning the program works because
kids are engaged and the program works
because the community support education
and while you can do this in a vehicle
other than a house you need to build
something and something real for the
community and engagement intersect at
the end of the year when the houses are
all done his students invite the whole
community
everyone in anyone
and see what they’ve accomplished this
night we call our celebration of
learning and I promise you my
explanation will not do it any justice
but I’m gonna do my best as guests show
up to the house that’s now decorated
like a show home with artistically
covered walls from all of the students
projects they may immediately notice
that there’s a self-portrait of each
student and it’s framed and hung on the
wall to match the common theme of the
show home and below that there’s a QR
code while the guests in the audience
can take out their smartphone they can
scan the QR code and it links the
audience members directly to a personal
response that they wrote in English
class the TV’s they display social
essays that are professionally produced
and recorded and it’s a vote a social
issue that the students had to an you
know research in class and one of my
favorites there’s a hydroponics garden
in the garage where the guests can walk
by and sample a piece of mint
now this hydroponics garden it was used
for science experiments throughout the
whole entire year this night the
students I mean they’re absolutely so
proud to show all of the guests all of
the hard work they’ve done and it’s at
this moment that we have realized we
didn’t just build houses we actually
built homes and you should see the kids
standing in these beautiful homes and
they shake the mayor’s hand and the
superintendent’s hand and they’re
interviewed by reporters and the kids
just be and the community beans too
because at this point it’s theirs as
well and it was after this celebration
of learning during one of our early
morning drives Greg and I started to
have this discussion about the success
of building futures and we both came to
the same realization in order for
building futures to have continued
success somebody needs to take this idea
and they need to create or build
something that works for their students
we’ve had pre-service teachers from
University programs we’ve had high high
school educators from inside and outside
our school division do just that so we
think that the philosophy behind
building features can work in other
contexts because the idea is pretty
simple find a friend
find a community partner and build
something something real and something
you believe in thank you
[Applause]
my name is Greg Rankin and I’m Jarrod
Hooper the two of us are high school
educators and Rockview schools and we
found a way to look at education a
little bit differently and I should
start off by saying that both of us
truly believe in public education if you
walk into any school in Alberta I
guarantee you that you’re gonna see
amazing educators working with kids to
lead them to success but if you ask any
one of those educators about school
working for all students they’d say the
same thing it doesn’t some students have
a hard time with high stake exams
curriculum content maybe the way it’s
delivered some students find a way to
just coast by with minimal effort and
well unfortunately some of them drop out
and as teachers we worry about this I
mean we don’t want a kid to sit idle in
the back of our room their brilliance
unknown other struggles for students in
school can be from trauma poverty major
learning disabilities however a lot of
the students well they’re just
interested in the things we have to
offer and anyone that knows teenagers
might immediately blame snapchat or
Instagram for that but really I think
sometimes kids just don’t see how school
connects to the world outside of the
classroom walls but if you ever get a
chance to speak to this disengaged
student they light up if you get an
opportunity to hear about their passions
such as art music even the latest
smartphone it becomes incredibly evident
that these students are driven to be
successful but in the things that
they’re interested in and like I was
mentioning schools probably not on that
list
so while schools for most kids it just
doesn’t work for all of them
I was one of those kids if I could
remind some of the audience members
about my typical high school path it was
nothing like a standard teacher I had a
social studies teacher that taught me
social against my will I mean she
literally drunky kicking and screaming
through the hallways I made every excuse
possible didn’t hand things in run away
from her in the halls but she persevered
and she got me to my high school diploma
and I probably had a
more typical highschool experience of
someone who combined to become a teacher
I liked school for the most part not not
so much but everything else yeah so as
you’ve heard Greg and I have taken very
different paths to becoming educators
and it was in 2011 when those pass
intersected now between me picking up
Greg for work because we carpooled and
him complaining about the coffee that I
had bought him we started to have this
kind of a conversation and this
reoccurring question kept coming up how
could we do education a little bit
differently so out of high school I
became a licensed mechanic and early on
in that career I realized that every job
I started I had to finish in order for
myself to find success and this was
something that Greg and I both noticed
that our students were maybe unable or
unwilling to do mm-hmm
and this notion of not being able to
finish something really led us to her
idea I want you to imagine that your
home only had 60% of the drywall up
would that be a pass or if 90% of your
roof didn’t leak would you give the home
builder an A it was these discussions
that led us to what we needed to do we
needed to teach our students how to
become better learners so we thought
we’d better show them what hard work
looks like and that’s when Greg and I
decided to build two houses building
futures is a program that takes a class
of grade 10 students of varying
socioeconomic backgrounds and academic
abilities and has them build two homes
from the ground up the whole time doing
their entire grade 10 curriculum and
with the help of the local home builder
McKey homes the program is completely
free of cost to students now Picher
students on the jobsite almost doing
every aspect of the build they pour the
concrete for the foundation they frame
the walls they install the windows they
put in all the mechanical systems they
even have an opportunity to work with
the interior design this notion of
working with the interior design is
truly what what led us to thinking that
these students could do anything
absolutely now parts of the
schooling is gonna be done really in a
typical manner I mean social studies or
math often you have to sit in a
classroom as an English teacher I know
you cannot teach Shakespeare while
holding a hammer but it would help with
classroom management I am sure but when
appropriate we wanted to bring that
real-world hands-on learning into the
class so if Jared was teaching about
measuring volume and math we wanted to
watch the excavator Daigle the
foundation of the home to sort of show
the kids what was really happening and
because the students were removed from
the high school they weren’t they
weren’t strapped to that typical Bell
schedule and with that being said they
become self-directed they became very
understanding that time management was a
little bit more important and this
release from the from the Bell schedule
worked really well for the teachers as
well I mean we were able to kind of
create interesting and creative projects
that we might not have been able to do
at the typical home we invited reporters
in to help us publish a magazine and
when those reporters came into the
classroom the learning became real and
because the learning was real the
students built numeracy literacy and
problem-solving skills but what’s really
important to remember is that it’s not
about the house
the kids don’t become carpenters or
electricians or Realtors the moment
they’re done the house is just the
vehicle in which each ages the kids and
because sometimes people confuse this
with a trade school I want to say it
again it’s not about the house but you
need to be building something and
something real and this is where Greg
and I disagree a little bit although the
vehicle may not have to be a house ours
was a house and that house is what
brought students to school each and
every day and willing to put in their
full effort so without the house they
wouldn’t have anything real to build but
how we’ve done something else like try
to restore old cars or operate a farm I
think we would have had similar results
possibly but we didn’t
we built a house and that house was big
enough and with enough moving parts that
allowed everyone to feel like we were
being challenged so if your vehicle
isn’t a house it definitely needs to be
big enough or complex enough in order
for all the students to buy in so I
think you’re telling one that you agree
with me words you’ll never hear from me
yeah so whatever you do you need to
build something and as you can tell Greg
and I don’t always agree and but from
the start we did agree on one thing and
that was this it wasn’t about being
right it was about using our unique
perspectives and experiences to make
sure that we built something that worked
for all of our students so when people
ask me why building future seems to work
for students the answer is simple it’s
about student engagement the kids show
up each day and they’re excited to do
challenging tasks and an engaging
interesting work and that’s really why
it’s down by the notion it’s not about
the house right although I do really
really truly believe that the students
are more engaged for me the success of
building futures really stems from the
community involvement and the house is
at the center of it all it brings
tradespeople in teachers principals and
proprietors it brings students parents
and experts all to the same place and
that place was our classroom and that’s
where the student learning was really
enhanced and there’s no doubt that the
community engaged the kids I mean I can
think of one student when he was in
grade 9 in the regular classroom I mean
this kid was like a ping-pong ball
running down the hallways he was always
in trouble for the little stuff couldn’t
get his work done couldn’t get to class
on time but when he got to building
futures there was a shift if one of the
treats people asked him to do something
he was laser focused on that idea and
this work ethic and focused transferred
back into the classroom with improved
grades improved writing at the end of
the year what he was producing was so
much better than what he hadn’t been
able to do in grade 9 absolutely and to
be honest with you when these trades
people and experts came into the class
well ironically the kids listened
and they listened because what they were
being taught was real it was about a
real job well and the contractors I mean
they built the kids up as much as they
built you know the houses and I think
you need people like that in order to
make something like this work and the
first person that comes to my mind is
our site supervisor Cherie she’s
incredible the moment she gets to the
jobsite students fall in love with her
we had a contractor who his wife found
out that he was teaching a class for the
day so his wife baked all the students
cookies you need the people and
organizations that are willing to do the
right thing just like our school
division I mean I can only imagine what
a principal or the divisions lawyer
would have thought when we said can we
give a pile of teenagers power tools and
have them go to school at a construction
site but they found a way to make it
happen because they believed in the idea
and they work backwards to make this
possible and I’ll tell you the
investment has paid off the impact this
program’s had on our students it’s it’s
hard to explain I can remember a grade
10 student that got up in the middle of
class walked out of the out of the
garage which was our classroom he picks
up the phone and he cold calls a
business owner in Toronto without Greg
and I knowing just to get help on one of
the questions he was dealing with on his
project we had another student who
worked for hours and hours on a single
physics problem because she was
incorrect
after the third decimal place whether it
be putting up the drywall or working on
that physics problem these kids had
bought into the notion that they needed
to give a hundred percent and this idea
of giving a hundred percent I mean this
is what building futures is all about
empowering students to take control of
their learning the program works because
kids are engaged and the program works
because the community support education
and while you can do this in a vehicle
other than a house you need to build
something and something real for the
community and engagement intersect at
the end of the year when the houses are
all done his students invite the whole
community
everyone in anyone
and see what they’ve accomplished this
night we call our celebration of
learning and I promise you my
explanation will not do it any justice
but I’m gonna do my best as guests show
up to the house that’s now decorated
like a show home with artistically
covered walls from all of the students
projects they may immediately notice
that there’s a self-portrait of each
student and it’s framed and hung on the
wall to match the common theme of the
show home and below that there’s a QR
code while the guests in the audience
can take out their smartphone they can
scan the QR code and it links the
audience members directly to a personal
response that they wrote in English
class the TV’s they display social
essays that are professionally produced
and recorded and it’s a vote a social
issue that the students had to an you
know research in class and one of my
favorites there’s a hydroponics garden
in the garage where the guests can walk
by and sample a piece of mint
now this hydroponics garden it was used
for science experiments throughout the
whole entire year this night the
students I mean they’re absolutely so
proud to show all of the guests all of
the hard work they’ve done and it’s at
this moment that we have realized we
didn’t just build houses we actually
built homes and you should see the kids
standing in these beautiful homes and
they shake the mayor’s hand and the
superintendent’s hand and they’re
interviewed by reporters and the kids
just be and the community beans too
because at this point it’s theirs as
well and it was after this celebration
of learning during one of our early
morning drives Greg and I started to
have this discussion about the success
of building futures and we both came to
the same realization in order for
building futures to have continued
success somebody needs to take this idea
and they need to create or build
something that works for their students
we’ve had pre-service teachers from
University programs we’ve had high high
school educators from inside and outside
our school division do just that so we
think that the philosophy behind
building features can work in other
contexts because the idea is pretty
simple find a friend
find a community partner and build
something something real and something
you believe in thank you
[Applause]
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