Patrick Watson has essentially turned a one-semester high school program into a career.
Forever grateful for the opportunity and those who have followed, the now father of two returns to a classroom at Barrie' Innisdale Secondary School every year to share his experience during and after attending its global studies program.
“It’s truly remarkable to be able to spend every day with passionate, bright people,” said the international policy expert of his experience with the program when it first started 22 years ago.
When he goes back every year he fields questions in hopes of contributing to the students’ own professional experience and he shares his own experience of being with “a wonderful group of people, many of which I’m still in contact with.”
In the more than 20 years since, he said the program has evolved with the world, pointing at the ease with which the students can connect with municipal, provincial and federal leaders no matter where they are.
Dave Morrison, a former city councillor, started the global perspectives program during the 1999-2000 school year when he was a teacher at the Allandale high school and very involved in the city’s international relations committee and its twin cities, which also has a youth ambassadors program.
“It combines the cultural immersion that the city is interested in with our sister cities and the academic realities from the school board. The board then extended it basically to any student in any system,” said Morrison.
It is run during the second semester of Grade 11. Applications for next year are currently being accepted from Grade 10 academic students until Feb. 18. Details for the program are available through the city and the school board and the application can be done online.
While they attend the semester at Innisdale, students can continue to play sports or in the band of their home school.
Global perspectives is designed as a five-credit, high-end academic program including four Grade 11 courses and one Grade 12 university-level course. Generally, it includes two trips — a month-long exchange with students in Zweibrücken, Germany and two weeks in Cuba — with travel and course work and lectures at the University of Matanzas, where local students are paired with university students.
“It’s certainly a huge experience to people in the lives they choose to lead after that,” said Morrison, who retired in 2013 and has handed the baton over to Innisdale’s Jeff Toole.
Even though travel has been suspended during the pandemic, the program still runs strong and remains a one-of-a-kind, to Morrison’s knowledge.
While the program has been tweaked over the years, the biggest change Watson has noticed over the years is the students’ ability to reach out to people, no matter their role and where they are..
“The students have been able to leverage technology,” said Watson, who participated in the inaugural class in 1999-2000. “Since 2002 I’ve had the pleasure to return to Innisdale.”
Through the wonders of video conferencing, the students now connect with an array of leaders including the city’s mayor or the speaker of the house in parliament.
After global studies and high school graduation, Watson went to university in Ottawa, earning a master’s degree in international affairs at Carleton University. He then landed a job at Global Affairs Canada in U.S. relations, trade negotiations and security issues, drawing on the lessons learned through his education, including the high school program.
He then travelled to Paris for another government department to head up a delegation at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
“It was really through global (perspectives) where I was first able to read OECD reports, understand what OECD is,” said Watson. “It’s so remarkable then to sit at that table and give the intervention on behalf of the government of Canada on policy work that is going to be used, hopefully, across the world.”
In his work he interacts with the 38 member states of the OECD — what he describes as being the major league of policy research and development.
Barrie’s international relations committee started more than two decades ago with a partnership with Zweibrücken, Germany under the leadership of former city councillor Rob Warman, who recently passed away. With Jean Maurice Pigeon, he developed the city’s relationship with the German city.
“The emphasis has always been on building international relationships based on a concept that came out right after World War Two” supported by Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower, explained Morrison. “If you develop friendships on an interpersonal level with people in another country, it doesn’t matter what governments do, you’ll never be able to hate that country.
“Our first two relationships were with Zweibrücken, Germany and Murayama, Japan because they were the historic enemies, if you will, after World War Two.”
Harrowgate, England and Arras, France have since been added as sister cities, representing Barrie’s earlier foundational years.
Youth is considered the most important component of the committee’s efforts, Morrison said. The youth ambassadors program allows for an exchange between Barrie students and those in the twin cities; the global perspectives program is considered an academic extension of that.
“We attempt to do exchanges and interchanges with all of these different groups,” said Morrison, adding that letter writing and other forms of communication have temporarily replaced the trips during the pandemic. “We have not allowed the pandemic to destroy our commitment to this concept.”
Students from any school board anywhere from Simcoe County can apply https://www.barrietoday.com/local-news/former-city-councillor-mourned-4962401 although those attending the program must make their own travel arrangements to Innisdale.
