Good Morning!

Last week, Evergreen Catholic administrators from

Division Office, Devon, Westlock, Spruce Grove, and Stony Plain
travelled to Hinton for our Catholic administrators meeting and to tour
St. Gregory and Gerard Redmond Schools. The picture on the left is a
cute little cherub at St. Gregory who held the door as we were leaving.
Today my message will focus on the
new early learning center at St.
Gregory called HAPPY CREEK! Four
classrooms were converted to early
learning rooms for students in their
Junior Kindergarten and Kindergarten classes. We happened to tour the
facility while sixty students were doing a wide range of activities in these
spaces. This is not my first visit to these amazing rooms, but every time I go I
notice how immersed the students are in what they are doing. Simon
Breakspear, a leading thinker on educational reform, says that when students
are engaged in their learning, visitors to a classroom are a distraction and not
a focus of attention. That has been
true every time I visit these
classrooms. The students are so
absorbed in what they are doing that
when I ask if I can take a picture, they usually say yes but dont even
look up. What I like about what is happening at St. Gregory is that
they took inflexible teaching spaces (boxed classrooms) and converted
them to flexible learning areas where students seamlessly move
around and direct part of their own learning. In fact, the first time I
visited Happy Creek a few months back, I asked one student what he
was doing and he told me, I am writing music!. When I asked, For
whom are you writing the
music? he pointed to three of his classmates that were lined up
with classroom instruments. This was astonishing to me that a
five year old was telling me he was creating music! As Dave
Dempsey says, St Gregory has the best early learning center in
the province. People need to come out and see what they are
doing.
I included one picture of St. Peter the Apostle Principal Mark
McCrudden joining in an activity. [I am wondering whether Mark
is doing a self-portrait]. Notice how the little girl beside him has
no interest in what he is drawing because she is engrossed in her
own work!
Thank you to the staff and students of St. Gregory and Gerard
Redmond for being great hosts. I know that visiting
administrators left with ideas which they want to incorporate in
their own buildings.

SENT AS AGENTS OF HOPE AND MERCY

Adults are just outdated children.
Dr. Seuss