PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
VWS faculty and staff attended two professional development days on February 18 and 19. We began by singing a sample of choral pieces brought by Lorna Fortin, Principal. It was so nice to sing together! After this, we attended an anti-racism workshop delivered by Cicely Blain, which was a wonderful exploration of how privilege and bias can lead to prejudice and uphold systems of oppression. We discussed our own experiences and Cicely helped to put them into the broader context with statistics around discrimination. This highlighted the need and many benefits of “counter-stereotype techniques.” The rest of the day was focused on emergency preparedness as we worked through different scenarios getting familiar with our new emergency manuals.
On the second day, teachers divided into their separate departments to work through specific tasks relevant to their groups. Early Childhood and Grade School worked with Andrea Lymon, a Waldorf teacher from Idaho who lead beautiful songs and gave a fascinating lecture on the Waldorf music curriculum from kindergarten through Grade 8. Meanwhile, High School faculty focused on important core competencies in the BC curriculum. Our second day closed with presentations about the development realm, community-building, and fundraising.
We enjoyed plenty of learning while enjoying valuable time together!
Chris Henley
French Gr 1 -6
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