The Last Meeting Place

First, let me welcome you to our website! We've heard feedback from our parents and community that sometimes newsletters and updates don't always make it home. You'll find all of those things here, including updates that don't always make it on our newsletters. This site is intended to give you a better look at our school and what we are doing here.

Part of that also allows me to communicate my thoughts and feelings and goals around our school. As the 'new guy', I'm sure many are interested in how I see things in terms of the present and future for our school. I'd like to share a few of those thoughts now.

A long time ago, when I was a student at UBC, I attended a lecture that I will never forget. The professor said that "the public school is the last meeting place of society".  If you think about it, that is a very true statement. Nowadays, not everyone can get together in large gatherings. Most of us are priced out of big events like concerts or an NHL game. Not many people attend church anymore. There just aren't many places or opportunities for all members of our society to get together and interact. Except the public school. Here we see people from every kind of background you can think of. Our kids get to experience a great cross section of our society in public schools. Perhaps at no other time in their lives, our students are expected to have a good understanding of other cultures, other points of view, and other people outside of their personal social networks.

 So we'd better do a good job of this. Like you, I want to see our youth get older and lead our province and country ahead by building and maintaining those good Canadian values like belonging and understanding and acceptance. 

I think about this a lot. None of this is really in the curriculum. There's no "how to get along in society' class. Yet if we think of the big picture, it's probably the most important thing we teach kids.

Next Time: Changing the Culture from "the school" to "our school".