Community Building From Day One
A new school year always brings changes. For us, that change is the fact that we’ve been released to work on the Shift full time for this year. For the past year and a half we’ve been teaching two classes in the morning and then working on sharing innovative HDSB stories for one period each in the afternoon. This was a great set up for us, as it allowed us to keep a foot in the classroom and field test some of the interesting things we’ve been hearing about. It was also challenging, as our ability to travel and meet with other innovators was somewhat limited. On Tuesday, the first day of class, we used our extra time to visit two schools to see how they start building a community with their students from day one. We know that a safe and inclusive community is key to creating a school where innovation can thrive. We’ve also learned that community is something that needs to be built continuously. Iroquois Ridge High School invited us in to see how the first few hours of th