Canadian Secondary Education

This morning I visited the ‘Hugh Boyd secondary school’ here in Richmond. Deborah (from the golf tournament, remember?) managed to put me into contact with the school’s principal, Ms. McFadyen and she kindly agreed to give me a tour!

Ms. McFadyen explained the Canadian secondary educational system to me in great detail, so let me try to break it down;

First off, there are two basic systems upon which the schools base their curricula: the linear- and semester system. The former works as following:

Eight subjects are to be taken in grade eight, namely: English, Social Studies, Mathematics, Science, Physical Education, French, Home Education/Technology Education and a Fine Arts elective (for which pupils can choose Art, Band, Drama, Drumming, Guitar).

Each subject is assigned a letter (English is A, for example) and implemented in the timetable. The eight mandatory subjects are divided over two ‘days’. On day 1, subjects A, B,C and D are scheduled. Day2: E,F,G and H. A regular week in Hugh Boyd would mean:

Monday: Day 1 i.e. A – B – C – D
Tuesday: Day 2 i.e. E – F – G – H
….
Friday: Day 1 i.e. A – B – C – D
Monday: Day 2 i.e. E – F – G – H

All subjects are taught throughout the entire year and all the exams take place in June (much like the Dutch educational system). The linear system uses a different approach; although teaching similar subjects, their year schedule differs greatly. Classes from subjects A, B, C and D are scheduled from September to January, E, F, G and H take place from February to June. Exams are held in respectively January and September. The workload for students in the linear system would seem less high, as their exams are spread out over the year, but research proves this theory wrong; there is no considerable difference in grades and exam results between the two systems.

Noticeable differences between Canadian and Dutch education:

In Canada, the choice for a secondary school is not yours to make, you’re assigned the school closest to your house. If the assigned school doesn’t provide the desired curricula, There is, through enormous paperwork, the possibility to apply for another school. Both schools have to degree on this transfer.

There is in Canada no difference in levels of secondary education. To put this in Dutch terms; VMBO and VWO students are basically taking the same classes. This is of course debatable. On one hand, it’s a good thing that less-capable students (some pupils even required full-time attention and assistance from counselors) participate in regular education as much as possible. On the other hand, more academically skilled pupils might not be proportionally challenged and therefore get bored.

Languages such as Spanish, Japanese and Mandarin although maybe not too uncommon in the Netherlands, are provided by the school.

Sport is, of course, considered to be very important. The school football team, ‘the Trojans’ supposedly does very well in the local league. Physical Education is an extensive course, which even provides classes to teach students how to design programs for personal strength and muscle training, cardiovascular endurance and flexibility.

From grade nine onwards, students can choose ‘Hairdressing’ and ‘Woodworking’ as subjects to replace the three required electives.

All in all, I think Canadian education is a system comparable to a combination of the Dutch MBO and a secondary school. Students can, from early on, choose specific courses and classes which determines their direction in school and even in further education. Their approach may not be challenging enough for brighter students, but certainly makes less-capable feel as accepted as possible.

Victoria and Seattle

Monday evening, Victoria day in Canada, and I'm here revising my report of my weekend because no-one has commented yet. I’m apparently also being evicted from my Richmond home if I fail to re-update my blog before 7 PM tomorrow. So, without feeling at all compelled, I present to you; my weekend.


These flowers read out 'Victoria'. Being the capital of BC, the city appeals to many tourists (almost four million a year!) On Friday morning, Leon dropped me off at the Ferry terminal, which is the only way to travel (except a plane, of course) as Victoria is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. For those of you who hadn’t guessed, the city was dubbed Victoria in honour of the English Queen … (<- you work that one out)



Victoria’s inner harbour with the Empress Hotel in the background. This was also the spot where my whale watching tour embarked, the main reason I went to Victoria. As you can see in the clip, they made you put an official wet-vest-life-suit on and optional caps and mittens. The tour was scheduled for three and a half hours, during which we travelled more than 100 miles. The guide and sailor, Sean, has been working in or around the sea his entire life and was able to tell amazing stories about the whales (which were actually a large species of dolphin – who knew KILLER WHALES were actually dolphins?)



We got a decent glimpse of the whales, which were extremely difficult to photograph! The rocking of the boat in combination with the fact that the whales would only show themselves for two seconds at a time was horrible. I had been waiting long to get decent pictures of these animals and they didn’t make it easy on me. These were the best ones!


After eating dinner (some sort of enormous taco-roll, absolutely revolting) I went back to the bus and ferry (the view of twilight on a ship is mind-blowing, see below) and made my way home. Nice day!


Next up was Seattle, the Emerald city, and I had to get up early to catch my bus over there. The crossing of the US border and clearing with customs was awful. It was a lousy start of my visit to America, to be honest. After having waited in line for over an hour, they made me fill in form after form, take a mugshot and even scan my fingerprints? I even had to pay six dollars afterwards, which was the icing on the cake of my immediate annoyance with American customs routines.


I made a picture of this hobo, because he was holding a sign which read: 'My dad was killed by ninjas, please give me money to take karate lessons' which I thought was hilarious.


The friggin' space needle! Built for the 1962's world fair and attracts, on its own, about 2.5 million visitors a year) 185 metres tall, and of course I had to go up there. The view was absolutely amazing and being able to walk all around you could every little corner of Seattle.



When I was waiting for the bus to downtown, I met a guy from Los Angeles (whose name I've forgotten) who worked as a set/prop designer for films - for example, Captivity. We started talking and decided to do a little sight-seeying together. He took me to the first ever Starbucks establishment and he tagged along with me when I wanted to go to the Space Needle. Nice guy, very talk-active and outgoing. It was good to find someone to spend some time with.


I visited a motel on saturday evening, of which me report can be viewed in the following two clips:



The whole night actually a disasterous experience, though quite exciting. When I got off the bus, there was actually a sign which said something along the lines of: 'This area is under constant police patrol due to a high crime and prostitution rate'. A drive-by shooting or streetwalker banging at my motel door wouldn't have surprised at all, if that's an indication of my sense of safety up there.

On a more positive note, this was my lunch at Johhny Rockets, a traditional American hamburger joint. The food was A-MA-ZING. I had American fries, an Oreo-sorbet (!!) and a Smoke house hamburger (which had thick pieces of bacon on it - GODLIKE) An impression of the atmosphere of the restaurant:




A nice picture of a fountain near the Space needle. When I walked back to the inn from where my bus was to leave, as a way to getting rid of my American dollars (4.5 left) I entered a donut-shop and asked what the guy behind the counter could recommend me. I gave him the 4.5 dollars and he passed me a HUGE donut (with apple-cinnamon flavour, and it was baked in the 'traditional' way - YUMMY) and a large cup of coffee. I put the change in his tip jar and got on my bus.

BY THE WAY, I found a great record store in Seattle, as few actually, where I bought: 'Yesterday was dramatic, today is okay' by Mum, Gui Boratto's 'Chromophobia', the 37-minute long track Fizheuer, Ziheuer from Ricardo Villalobos AND a Thin White Duke remix of a Fischerspooner track. Good stuff :)

Right, hope this post is satisfactory now, so I can get some comments and no be kicked out of the house :o

r x

Grouse Mountain

Today I went to Grouse Mountain - one of the mountains you surely have seen when you looked at my pictures of Stanley park photos - and it was quite impressive! Check out the pictures and clip :D
The lift (which in the clip I mistakingly refer to as train?) which took me up the mountain (over 3000 feet)

Bears that just got out of hibernation! Huge, majestic animals. Could literally slap you to death.


These wolves were horrifying. Looking like a combination of dogs and hyenas. Bloodthirsty creeps!

Photo-report Capilano Suspension Bridge

In the comments on my Scienceworld postings, Kirsten was enthusiastically mentioning an attraction that I should definitely go to during my stay. The Capilano Suspension Bridge. As I always behave and listen to what Kirsten tells me, a trip to the wobbly bridge (as Irene named it) was scheduled on saturday. A photoreport:

A small theme-park was built around the bridge, mainly providing information on the history of the bridge, the owners and surrounding nature. The totem-poles were actually a way of representing native-Canadian peoples, or in this case: the entrance of the park.

Alex and Irene, two little monkies posing for a picture!

The famous bridge. A lot of people were horrified to even look at the thing; I almost talked a lady into crossing it, helping her to collect the will power, but she eventually backed out. The bridge looks very stable from a distance (or in these pictures) but when you're making your way over there it's VERY wobbly (:D)

I also recorder a video when I was crossing the bridge, but so far I've been unable to upload it to youtube. It's a cool piece of footage, showing the bridge and all the surroundings. Four minutes long and 70 mb in size and it can be downloaded HERE

You musn't think I have an obsession with large trees, it's just that I run into them all the time. This big boy was over 60 metres tall and would grow up to 90 metres (!!) It would most likely also out-live anyone who reads this blog.

A nice family picture which I insisted on making when we walking the 'Treetop adventure' Everyone look up and see cheeeeeeeeeeeeeese!

Well, as I realised there were hardly any pictures of me on this blog, I decided to photograph my mug and stick it on here. MSR!



A better glimpse of the treetop adventure. As you can we actually walked from tree-trop to tree-top at great heights, risking out very lives doing so. You should have seen us up there, true dare devils!

A picture that I made from the wobbly bridge down, showing what I could crash into when I'd lose my balance (or be pushed by someone). Appearantly, in 1999, a woman dropped her 18-month year old, disabled baby from the bridge. The child was seriously injured (how in the?) but was taken from its mother, as she lost legal custody.

You're in for a treat! Another picture of me, on Prospect Point in Stanley Park. In the background you can see the bridge that connects down-town Vancouver with North- and West Vancouver.

Although this picture wasn't taken at the Capilano bridge but in the back yard, I thought it would fit here very well! Monkey business! Picture taking credits go to Leon.

r x