From the Desk of PVC
"Our vision is to offer an articulated pedagogy that empowers students to be independent critical thinkers and responsible global leaders"
Learning is driven by vision. Too many organizations including schools, ignore this precept, but it may be the most critical to their success.It can provide for people to learn and grow even when their situations or environments are disempowering.
Most of the rapid learning of very young children is tied to purpose and vision. Children learn to ride a bike because they want to play with their friends who have bike. They learn to drive because they want independence and mobility. They learn new skills because they want them.
But when children enter school, the system often present them with new purposes unrelated to their own desires and aspirations-to please teachers, to get good marks on assignments, to receive awards and honours, to be ranked high. These new purposes are strengthened over the years by the incresing importance of grades, test scores and other external motivators that have the effect of disconnecting the students from their own visions. Listen to what children tell you!
While preschoolers may articulate their visions for "when I get bigger" quite clearly, older children complain about the irrelevance of school work in their lives and their futures. They say they learn more outside the school than in. What they don't, or can't, communicate in words, students often communicate through disruptive or disengaged behavior.
Some may fear that the idea of 'vision'in schools means letting people do whatever they want, abandoning vigor and lower educational standards.Nothing could be further from the truth.When administrators and teachers focus on narrow and pragmatic questions, such as classroom management,increasing attendance and graduation rates, and improving test scores then may internalize those diminished visions and live with unnecessarily low horizons.Improving the numbers and providing safe learning spaces are legitimate goals, but they can't replace the power of a larger vision,personal and shared, as the driving force behind improving school.
This almanac is a shared vision, between school, students and parents. Each printed words reflect our schedule, each word filled by students reflect their focus and goal, each words filled by parents reflect their faith and trust.
So read it carefully, fill it deliberately, ponder over it thoughtfully. This is just a capsule of a vision …ONLY FOR THE CHILDREN!!!!
