Lily Naphan's PodcastBQ!!

The podcast "Beyond the Bell" features interviews with students from Eastside Secondary School. The first guest, Kendra Davidson, talks about how the school system prepared her for college and suggests adding a financial literacy course. She also discusses the importance of promoting mental health resources. The second guest, Haley Hill, agrees that the school system helped prepare her for the future but believes more classes on finances are needed. She also mentions the lack of promotion for mental health resources. The third guest, Christopher Wescott, feels that the school system has prepared him well for his future and appreciates the opportunities provided. He suggests allocating more budget to academic subjects rather than sports. Welcome to Beyond the Belt, the podcast where we dive into the voices of our students here at Eastside Secondary and explore their honest perspectives and opinions about our school system. I'm your host, Lily Nathan, and today we're diving into our students' experiences and challenges as they navigate their education journey here at Eastside. Today I'm excited to have a special guest here at ESS, a previous student, please introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Kendra Davidson. I graduated from Eastside in 2023. I currently attend Fleming College and I'm currently in the Social Service Worker and Mental Health and Addiction Worker dual diploma. After graduating, I hope to be a part of the social work field. Thank you very much for being here. Let's jump right in. From your time here at ESS, do you believe that our school system successfully prepared you for your future, such as your college course you are in now? I do think the school system has prepared me for college. The high school provided a fundamental foundation on basic knowledge and good time management. That's an interesting perspective. In your experience here, were there any clubs or classes you wish our school had or should add to better prepare students for adult life? One class I feel would benefit future students is financial literacy course, explaining all the possible expenses in life, like going into college for me. I had little to no knowledge on what loans or debt was. Now, switching up a bit, mental health is such an important topic these days. Do you feel our school had a good system for supporting students' mental health and were these resources promoted enough during your time here? Mental health awareness is very important to me as this is what I am studying. During my time here, I knew of the resources available, but I felt they weren't as promoted. Awareness is very important. Moving on to real life preparation, do you believe our school helped prepare you for real life and how to handle the struggles you face now that you are out of high school? I feel the school has equipped me well with essential skills like critical thinking, time management, and basic understanding of all subjects. Another very important aspect of education, especially here at ESS, is the cultural awareness. Do you think that we should have more classes or assignments focused specifically on different cultures? It is important to recognize all cultures that are part of this country. Having some classes or assignments focused specifically on different cultures could be incredibly beneficial. These types of learning experiences can promote cultural awareness, sensitivity, and empathy. Final questions before we wrap it up. Are there any specific improvements you think our school system should make or anything you disagree with within our school system? Some improvements to the education system I think would be beneficial is more mental health support. I feel schools lack the adequate mental health resources. More personal learning. Schools should follow a one-size-fits-all approach. Practical and practical life skills. Schools should focus on teaching practical life skills such as financial literacy, emotional intelligence, and critical thinking. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, Kendra Davidson. It's been amazing hearing your perspectives and opinions on these important issues within our education system. Today I'm excited to have another special guest here with us at ESS. Please introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Haley Hill, a grade 12 student here at Eastside. I'm involved with construction SHSM. Thanks for being here. Let's jump right in. Do you believe our school system has successfully prepared you for your future, particularly when it comes to your future job or career? Helped prepare me for my future. I have been a part of all the trades classes and the SHSM have taken a lot of dual credits to help me prepare myself for college. I believe those programs can be very helpful to a lot of our students. Are there specific clubs or classes you think our school should add to better prepare students for adult life? There should definitely be classes to help students prepare for future finances and benefits and money associated things because you don't really see a lot of that at our school. Okay, let's switch it up a bit. Let's talk about mental health. Do you believe our school has a good system in place for supporting students' mental health and do you think that we promote these resources enough? Well, as a student at ESS, I've never really seen any promoting of our mental health resources, so I think we could definitely do a better job at promoting those. Yes, awareness is very important and I think that we should definitely do a better job. Shifting gears a bit, do you feel our school prepares students for real life situations and struggles? I feel our school sugarcoats a lot of those situations and as an adult, I feel that we are just going to be humbled by the fact that it wasn't that nice and pretty about it. Absolutely, education should reflect the real world. Speaking of which, do you think we should have more classes or assignments that focus on different cultures? We definitely do have a lot of cultural knowledge, especially when it comes to Indigenous people because we are a part Indigenous school, but we should definitely have more education about other cultures as well, seeing how Canada is a very large cultural country. We have many cultures here, so we should learn about them more in school. Great points. Before finishing this up, are there any other specific improvements you think our school system should make or anything you strongly disagree with? One thing I disagree with this year is the way they changed the format of our prom. We're not allowed to have any staff support. It's all student-run, all student-fundraised this year. We're not even allowed to promote it at the school, which I don't agree with, but other than that, not really. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts today. It's been a pleasure hearing your insights. Finishing up with our final guest from ESS, please introduce yourself. Hello, I'm Christopher Wescott, grade 12 at Eastside. I'm involved in the senior badminton team here at Eastside. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. Let's start. Do you believe our school system has successfully prepared you for your future, particularly when it comes to your future job or career? Yeah, me personally, at Eastside, I've had a lot of opportunities pop up, specifically with job fairs and courses at Loyalist. I feel the school has rightfully prepared me for the rest of my life and my future in general. I'm very glad that our school could prepare that for you. Are there any specific clubs or classes you think our school should add to better prepare students for adult life? No, yeah, there's a lot of good programs already at Eastside. I feel it's not a very saturated environment. So, yeah, I know opportunities come to those who take them and there's a lot of already opportunities for the kids and I feel they're preparing very well for the adult life. That's great that you feel prepared. Shifting gears a bit, do you feel our school prepares students for real-life situations and struggles? Yeah, no, this school definitely prepares students for real-life situations, especially in a societal sense. This school is very diverse in its cultures and aspects and, you know, it's really good to meet new people and have great conversations with other students and learn about their lives. It's really good on that aspect. Now, for aspects like financial struggles and stuff like that, I feel the school is lacking in that department. However, nothing a good class can't change. Definitely. Education should reflect the real world. Speaking of which, do you think we should have more classes or assignments that focus on different cultures? No, I don't believe we should have more classes and assignments that focus on different cultures because I do not personally believe that culture should be the main focus of school. That should be left for the society and just having conversations. School, and especially classes and assignments, should focus on work and just figuring out things on paper and pen. That's an interesting perspective. Before we finish up, are there any other specific improvements you think our school system should make or anything you strongly disagree with? Yeah, some improvements we can make is allocating more of the school's budget towards the math, science, history, and economics side of school instead of allocating the majority of the budget to sports and equipment for the kids. I believe school should stay as a math and physics and all that good stuff oriented instead of sports. Thank you so much, Christopher Weskut, for coming in today. We really appreciate your honest perspectives and opinions surrounding the Eastside school system. Of course. Thank you so much for having me today. A little song from Christopher Weskut. And that's all for today's episode of Beyond the Bell. If you enjoyed our conversations or have thoughts of your own about our school system, be sure to reach out to us. Remember, your voice matters. Until next time, keep questioning, keep learning, and keep growing. You go Ravens!