A HOPEFUL STORY: Framing a Vision for Our School

"The key to the future of the world is finding the hopeful stories and letting them be known."

Pete Seeger

There is much hope and energy present in the opening of a new school - it's a new slate, a new opportunity, a blank page - every metaphor possible for something yet to be determined!  There exists also the promise of the future with no baggage to tie what happens here to the past - positively no one can say 'But we've always done it this way...!" And ever present is the hopefulness of innovation - the opportunity to think a bit differently, embrace new research, try new approaches.  It is truly exciting and invigorating - and probably why I think I might be a 'new school junkie'!

For me, the most important thing about schools - new, old or in-between - are the stories told and re-told about the learning, the adventures, the relationships and the experiences that happen under the umbrella of 'school'.  When I was growing up in Nova Scotia, I recall those stories being very teacher-focused - I knew before I even began attending Kindergarten which teachers were 'nice', which ones were 'strict', which ones read stories aloud and which ones gave the most homework.  I knew my school was known as a 'good school' because students who graduated from our elementary/junior high went on to experience academic success, for the most part, in the regional high school that half the county attended. When I meet up with old friends who attended school with me, we exchange many stories full of laughter and sometimes tears about our school experiences. Most of us do not remember these times as hopeful but rather anxiety-filled and rule-laden. Collectively I think it is safe to say we left school with the marks that determined our next steps in life rather than believing life was an adventure we were prepared to sometimes navigate, sometimes lead.

As the staff, parents and students stand on the threshold of opening Eric Harvie School, we have a daunting and most exciting task we need to accomplish quite quickly - to frame a vision for our school that is hopeful, flexible enough to support every student who enters our doors and with enough room to embrace the future while honouring educational research and experiences of the past. Throughout the  month of September, we will be gathering in various places and groups - classrooms, our 'Peace Room' temporary staff room, on the school grounds of Tuscany, as a School Council - to reflect on our wishes, hopes and dreams for our new school.

We will begin with the end in mind (Wiggins). What skills, attitudes, knowledge, responsibilities do we want our Grade 4 graduates to have when they exit our doors? What experiences do we value the most? How will we hear and honour student voices? parent voices? teacher voices? Where will we focus our energies? How will we communicate with each other? Ask questions? Pose puzzles? Solve problems? Where will the hope live on the landscape of our new school? How will we know?

Always, of course, our decisions will be informed by the guidelines determined by Alberta Education and the Calgary Board of Education, but we have great room within these parameters to best meet the learning, social, emotional, physical and digital needs of our students as determined through the careful reflection and framing of a vision that is full of hope, energy, innovative thinking and deep care for children as human beings and learners.

The centre of our vision will be the child - each child - every child. Enveloping all our work with children will be peace education. It is the layers in between these two elements of our work that will be determined in the coming weeks through consultation, discussion, brainstorming, sharing of ideas, questions and research with our teachers, staff and our families.  Exciting work to be sure - and vitally important as we begin to create, write and share our hopeful story of Eric Harvie School.

Lorraine Kinsman
Principal