A proud moment in our history

Whether you're a fan of the Olympic Games or not, you have to admit that was some special time.  There were so many hi-lites it's hard to know where to begin.  For me, the greatest thing is the outpouring of Canadian pride and unified feeling that we are a special and unique place to live in this world.  At the start of the games there were many who were quick to jump on the "I told you so" bandwagon about the negative aspects of the Games, and yet, as the emotion surged and the athletes competed, something miraculous happened.  The negative voices were drowned out in a sea of appreciation.

There are times in our small school community when the "nay-sayers" threaten to drown out the positives that we have worked so hard to build.  And yet, there is this constant and consistent murmur that continues to overwhelm the negativity and continues to carry us to greater successes for our students and our children.  We continue to work towards every success and advantage for our students and while there will be some things that don't go quite right there are certainly more that do.

With the completion of our second term, we hit the home stretch for this school year.  This does not mean that we can sit back and relax, it is a time to continue to push and grow as much as we can as a community of learners in support of our children.  I encourage, parents, staff, students and other school community members to help us strengthen the great aspects of our school.  We have something great here, let's keep building it.

Developing Social Responsibility

On Sunday, my family and I braved the Olympic crowds in Vancouver to get a first hand look at some of the images we have been seeing on TV.  One of the things that struck me as we wandered through the mass of humanity was how responsible everyone was.  It is said that patience is a virtue and it was certainly shown during our time in Vancouver and in particular with the more than 1000 walk-on passengers at the ferry.

This got me thinking about the monthly virtue focus we have here at David Cameron.  There has been much research about the ineffectiveness of specific, focused, anti-bullying and character education programs.  I tend to agree with the research to the extent that teaching a particular program is not very effective.  I do think however, that raising the awareness and providing a focus for how we want to live together in our social context is important.  These ideas and values are translated into action everyday on our school playground (and in the streets of Vancouver).  At David Cameron it is more than learning about the virtues it is an expectation from everyone; students, parents, and staff, that this is how we behave together.

The other day we were having a conversation with our staff about respect at our school.  We were talking about the many examples of it that we see on a daily basis, but the most compelling evidence was that we can have over 340 students go out to play at recess and lunch and behave respectfully and responsibly towards each other.  This is our focus in action and is demonstrated not in completing worksheets from a program binder, but in our daily interactions and use of our many virtues.

The Planning Process

Sorry to the few of you that follow my blog for missing last week, however, the ski hill called and I answered.

"Appreciative Inquiry" is a process of looking at things from a positive mindset, that is, what's going right and how do we get more of it.  This is in contrast to the traditional planning model that comes at things from a deficit perspective, ie what are we not doing well and therefore what do we need to do to improve.  While it is important to know where deficiencies exist, it is more important to know what is going well within those areas and amplify them.  It has been said that "we show value by what we pay attention to".  As a school we need to pay attention to the great things that are happening in our work so that this attitude becomes pervasive in our school and we focus on the good, not the negative.

Appreciative Inquiry is not a sort of Pollyanna process where we only look at good things.  It allows us to tease out of issues the parts that are going right and then focus on getting more of it.  Even in areas of weakness there are examples of positives, these are the ideas that we seize on and use as the foundation to continue to build excellence for our school.

As we head into our annual planning cycle and begin to examine goal areas for the 2010/2011 school year, we will look at what's right with our school and how to continue on that path, rather than focusing on what's wrong and the downward spiral that brings.