Kate Tilliczek drops a printed report on her desk with a thud. It's three centimetres thick, and covers the first two years of a three-year research project she's working on for the Ontario Ministry of Education.
“The final report will be twice as thick,” explains Tilleczek with a sly grin. She’s the Canada Research Chair in Child/Youth Cultures and Transitions and an associate professor of education at UPEI. Tilleczek and her team of researchers based at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and at Laurentian University are following a group of students from across Ontario as they make the often bumpy transition from elementary to secondary school.
“There’s something that happens in that time that can have a negative effect on the lives of some kids,” she says. “The Ministry of Education asked us to try to figure out what that something is. And what may also be working well for others.”
Tilleczek’s group, which includes respected Canadian psychologist Dr. Bruce Ferguson at the Hospital for Sick Children, began three years ago with a review of the international research that had already been done about students in this age group.
“Often, the elementary school experience is portrayed as idyllic, gentle, and nurturing, while high school is painted as cruel and harsh,” says Tilleczek. “And for some students, that’s the case. Schools are not facilitating the jump from one to another.”
Her group then formed focus groups of grade eight students who were about to make the transition, as well as their parents and educators.
“These kids are a real cross-section of the province. We have kids in downtown Toronto, and kids from fly-in, remote communities in the far North.”
From the focus groups, Tillezcek’s group selected individual students for in-depth, one-on-one interviews about what was happening in their lives emotionally, socially, and in academics. They followed those same kids as they moved two years ago to high school, and last year as they entered grade ten. While the results of the research won’t be released until the final report comes out, there were some surprises to Tilleczek.
“In many cases, the image of the nurturing elementary schools and harsh high schools is just a myth. Many kids can’t wait to get out of elementary school and escape some of the false stigmas that have followed them since kindergarten. For these kids, high school is a chance to start again and build a new reputation. Some of them thrive on that change.”
Tilleczek points out this isn’t the case for all students, and the transition can also be a difficult one – which is partially why her group is calling their final report, Fresh Starts/False Starts: Mapping the Pathways and Processes of Transition from Elementary to Secondary School.
The photos in this post are taken by some of the students involved in Tilleczek’s research. Her group asked them to photograph images that could capture the idea of transitions.
“The results are amazing, don’t you think?” says Tilleczek. “We’ll include these images in the final report. I think they’re perfect illustrations.”
