As a parent, securing my children's future through a commitment to personal financial planning – by drawing up a will, buying life insurance, educating them well, and hopefully, investing wisely – is a top priority. Lately I recognize that those efforts are less meaningful if I am not also ensuring that they end up in a world worth living in. So I try to teach my children about the decisions we make individually and collectively so that my grandchildren will have a world worth inheriting. Understanding that modeling is an effective way to teach, I look for ways, with colleagues, to model what a sustainable school and world would look like.
As Anthony Robbins observes, “Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.” We have a broad and ambitious vision for students. Our goal is to develop in learners their full potential - social/emotional, intellectual, creative and physical. This reflects our commitment to the development of the whole child. Learning is cumulative, an integrated process, rather than fragmented. We are forging frontiers that will sustain and perpetuate this shared vision
As children reach a fuller understanding of the world around them, they begin to recognize the needs of others and want to help when the occasion arises. Each classroom community nurtures an ethic of caring. Generosity becomes unconscious—it is the connection that exists between all members of the group. It’s not a set of rules, but of everyday living. All are encouraged to notice who needs help and to deliver it in a supportive and humble manner. S/he does not need nor ask for praise or thanks—his/her internal satisfaction is clear; s/he is confident that s/he is capable of helping another person We are committed to enlightening our students to their responsibility to the planet and its inhabitants. Our work calls for children to help children, for families to help families. This altruism is an important part of what school teaches and how we all live in the community. Author, educator and psychologist Alfie Kohn writes in Altruism and Empathy in Everyday Life that "one learns more from personal involvement with pro-social action than from either hearing about it or watching someone else." He continues that "what we believe to be true about ourselves and others affects how we behave, which in turn affects our assumptions about human nature."
It is reassuring, then, that at the heart of our educational philosophy is a simple, but powerful notion engendering sustainability, compassion, empathy, and learning: I take and I give back. In this balance we find the great value and benefit – to ourselves and to our world, to our present and to our future – of our individual nurtured and nurturing lives.
