Let’s face it: though we may think that what we do at school is purely attached academic and extra-curricular activities, there’s a lot more to it than that. Think about all that time when you’re in school before, after and in-between classes, at lunch, during sports games and performances and community events. That’s when the interaction of the hundreds of members of the school community is at its peak, and their interactions are the constant sharing of ideas in a greater community of like-minded people. Even during those classes, sports practices, rehearsals and tournaments, field trips and tutorials-interaction is occurring, and a culture is being built.
When you join a group, it is understood that you want to participate fully within it; the same goes for when you are admitted into a school community. Any community has a culture that ties them together – it is the nature of any large group of interacting human beings – and the more and more diverse people involved, the more interesting and fluid it is. Some school cultures are more caring, some more strict, some more creative, some more athletic. It’s certainly there; it just depends on how the people within the group perceive it. And culture is important – it is a product of interaction, and by nature, a school without interaction is impossible.
So, there’s such thing as a school culture. And when your school has a great one, you know it’s there for sure. It’s the kind of thing that makes you excited to go to school in the morning, knowing that there can be a thousand different people doing a thousand different interesting things. What they create together, other than academic excellence, are the things that occur outside the classroom. Student leadership is an excellent example of that.
At our school, Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School (STS) in Okotoks, Alberta (map), we have a ton of great events that are grassroots organized and emphasize the values of our school community. From Pennies for Peace to Rock Band Battle of the Bands to the Terry Fox Run and an elementary minimall, these are events that are organized by the teachers and students of and for our community to make the STS experience a great one all round. Everyone has something to bring to the table.
But we all know that life seems to move faster and faster every day and so much seems to be going on. How do we keep people informed about what’s happening? How do we keep things relevant especially to students and teachers in a laptop and Wi-Fi oriented school?
Blogging, of course!
The Prefects at STS, the elected group of twelve Grade 12s who act as role models and event organizers for the whole school, have created an openly accessible blog site to encourage students and teachers to be involved in their community. The hope, also, is to reinvest the time students spend online during school hours to STS related sites, thus helping to foster a heightened sense of cultural identity as a member of the community.
The blog acts as a message board that is designed to be relevant to the students, to be filled with content that makes the students want to become involved. Blogging is a very effective way of disseminating information and building community as it is a collaborative project; all twelve Prefects edit the blog and any students can comment on it.
Community and culture is an essential part of the private school experience, as smaller school environments makes for closer interaction. I encourage anyone who is enrolling their child into a new school to consider the culture of a school in their decisions, as it is an essential aspect of any education experience.
