Youth Zone
It’s a hot question these days, because girls have been pulling ahead of boys in terms of academic achievement for several years.
Looking back on nearly five years in high school, Alex Badia could tell you how it quickly it all came to pass.
“It’s gone by really fast if you look back on it,” said the Grade 11 student at Loyola High School.
This 17-year-old realizes that the time is coming to decide what to do for the rest of his life. But like many – perhaps even most – high-school students his age, Badia doesn’t know what he wants to do after CEGEP and university.
With more than 476,000 English words in Webster’s dictionary, it would be difficult to read them all, let alone spell each one correctly.
But if you really had to get the job done, you might want to call on Christopher Scarvelis.
A Grade 8 student at Loyola High School, Scarvelis is the 2010 regional champion of the Canwest Canspell National Spelling Bee for Montreal and the surrounding area.
TalkBack
Youth in Haiti: Recovering from disaster
Photographer John Kenney came across signs of hope while in Haiti.
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The boarding school life
Some students walk to school five days a week. Others take the bus, grab a lift or ride a bike. Not so for Carlos Camarena. He goes to a boarding school. Every school-day morning, the Grade 9 student wakes up in his bed in a stately school residence. Instead of planning for his morning commute, he just has to whip on his uniform, grab a hot breakfast and stroll across campus to attend his classes. It’s as simple as that. This is Camarena’s first year at Stanstead College. He’s never attended a boarding school before – and he’s loving every minute of it.
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Visiting Hiroshima on spring break changed the way students see the world
Some kids spent it at home. Others went south for a few days. But for a group of students from West Island College, spring break 2010 was spent halfway around the world in Japan. And for a good number of them, the way they see the world will never be quite the same.
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Students learn how to make fitness part of their lives
“I used to be more athletic than I am now,” said the 16-year-old. “I used to dive and I used to swim. I only play soccer now.” But with her academic future in mind, West decided to spend more time studying and less in the pool. “My last two years, I’ve been focusing more on my grades,” explained the Grade 11 student at Lakeside Academy in Lachine. But if there’s one thing competitive sports have taught her in the past, it’s that it not only feels great to be physically active, it’s also great for you. “I think a fitness routine is very important for your health,” she said. “It’s a good thing to be healthy.” And fitness is something her school wants to encourage among students. So recently, they organized a workout session at a state-of-the-art fitness centre. In all, 80 students in Grade 10 and 11 were bused to the Mansfield Athletic Club, where they enjoyed a three-hour workout.
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All that jazz and more
If there’s one thing you can count on experiencing in high school, it’s turning points. Turning points can catch you by surprise: things like your first day in high school, when your world changed forever. Or maybe it was the time you scored your first point or goal for the team. Perhaps it was the time you first met your best friend. Or maybe it was the day you started volunteering for a great cause and never looked back. For 16-year-old David Berardo, who has been studying music since Grade 7, one of those turning points occurred two years ago, when he decided to sign up for jazz band at his school.
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School curriculum adapts to Internet age
As more Canadians turn off their televisions and switch to the Web -- where they work, play, communicate and collaborate online, schools like Royal West are taking notice and offering instruction. As a result, more and more students are learning the tools of the Internet trade.
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Dropping out of school: It's an option that some "at-risk" students face and then reject
Three months and counting. That’s about how long Marvin Johnson (not his real last name) has to wait before he can take home his high-school diploma. And after 12 years of schooling, it’s so close he can practically touch it. “It actually does feel good,” said the 16-year-old, who is enrolled in an innovative program at Laurier Macdonald High School. But this Grade 11 student, who asked that his real last name not be used in this article, wasn’t always so confident about succeeding in high school.
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