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HOLLAND
COLLEGE • April 29, 2003
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INSIDE |
FEATURES
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offers students an alternative  PHOTO: Mike
Trainor gives student Chris Mulligan help with his school work. By Vanessa Slaunwhite Surveyor Staff Mike Trainor leans over a desk to help one of his students with some math homework. The full-time teacher, who also runs his own dairy farm, is the alternative education teacher at Three Oaks Senior High. Trainor looks after Trainordale Farms, and its 25 cows, during the mornings, evenings and weekends. During the day he teaches an alternative education program, the first of its kind on P.E.I. "Sometimes I see farming and education alike. Some days I open the doors to the barn to go in and it could be complete chaos. Hell could have broken loose. It's the same way at school. There could be someone who had a bad day," said Trainor. The course handbook, which Three Oaks students are given when choosing courses, describes the alternative education program as a full credit course which focuses on both academic and personal issues. "It's to provide individual learning programs for students in an alternative learning environment," said Trainor. As the only teacher for the program, which is offered during all four of the school's 73-minute classes, Trainor is responsible for teaching many different courses, including English, biology, law, math and resource. Inside the yellow classroom where the course is held, there are no rows of desks. The room contains a kitchen table and a few desks. A pile of purple bean bag chairs sit in the corner and a line of computers that look like they've seen many years is against one wall. There's a fireplace half painted on the wall of Trainor's office tucked in a corner of the classroom and several boxes of pop bottles are piled in the back of the room. Three clocks, none of them working, line the back wall and in front of them a pop can is taped to the ceiling, a wire running down from it and out of view. It's hooked up to the radio, says one of the students. Since there is no windows in the classroom, and the radio doesn't have an antenna, they couldn't get a radio station to come in clearly. So two students wrapped the tin can in copper and attached an old networking wire, Trainor said. The alternative program started off as a two-year pilot. It began when a group of people identified a need for the program as schools were having trouble meeting the needs of some students. The class was taught in space rented from the Holland College Marine School for almost six years. Then the course moved to Slemon Park where Trainor taught junior high and high school students, and youth in custody. The course was designed to help the students re-integrate back into society and help students who had attendance issues and were struggling in school. The idea behind holding it at Slemon Park was to take the students out of the school environment, Trainor said. But after two years at Slemon Park, the course moved to Three Oaks, where it has been since the fall of 1995. Trainor said he's never had a behaviour problem with a student in 15 years. He said this is probably because he does not get in a student's face when the student is upset. Instead of letting their anger build, he suggests they go for a walk. It's not just the curriculum that's important, it's the interaction with students, he said. His students appreciate it too. "I'd have probably quit school until I met a good teacher like Trainor," said Grade 12 student Chris Milligan. "Nobody else gave me a chance." Milligan said he likes the class because it gives him the chance to get his work done. Trainor said one of the reasons the class works well is because the course is individualized to meet the each student's needs. "Students are successful because they rise to meet the challenge." Student Katie Harris describes the course as the best part of the school. "I wouldn't have gotten through math without it." "If you love what you're doing, then you do it well," said Trainor. "The day I don't want to be here anymore is the day I'm not effective for kids." The secret with alternative education is it's all about needs, he said. Not each school can use the same model, and neither can each student. Classes are 73 minutes, some with 40 students a class. That's less than two minutes per student. That's not enough air, and not enough time for some students, he said. Early philosophers said learning should be one on one, he added. Making that happen makes for a long day. Trainor has to get up before six a.m. each morning. "I get up, have a cup of coffee, do my farm chores, milk the Holsteins. then it's off to school, some mornings for meetings at quarter to eight, teach four periods, sometimes lunch meetings or extracurricular activities, sometimes meetings after school or case conferences (which involve students and parents), go home, do the evening farm chores, and get ready for school the next day. "Some night it's a midnight bedtime." Why do it? Trainor says the dairy farm has been in the family for 150 years and five generations. But he loves the human interaction teaching brings and loves working with students and the challenges it brings, and the sense of success he feels in seeing students graduate. "It's a lot like delivering baby calves. I assist them into the world. It may be the opportunity to turn someone's life around," he said. } |
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