Day 32: Community

Our Learning Community Goes Beyond the School Walls

Tonight, our school held it's Fall Fun Night.  It was a huge success and a great chance to have the whole community come together to hang out, play games and bounce around in some inflatable bounce-houses.

Earlier today, I was at another school building and a teacher there asked how everything was going at Horizon.  "Awesome" was the first word out of my mouth.  

The strange thing was that it was too hard to explain why it's "awesome".  I told the teacher about the enrichment session before school that are new this year, how the media center is always buzzing with learning, how teachers are working hard to stay on the cutting edge of students' learning.  But all of that doesn't quite explain why my first thought was "awesome".

The awesomeness goes beyond the building and comes from the community.  It comes from the supportive PTO, the parent volunteers, and the local business who go out of their way to support us.

All of this made me think of an explanation from Daniel Fink of what a successful school culture is, and I think it sounds a lot like our learning community:

"It's not necessarily that something is different about the school.  They don't have different curriculum that they teach—no, it's just that it's more integrated and inclusive. You can walk down the hallway and you're not afraid of talking to anyone because of their race or their background, or anything like that. ... You walk in and there's just a smile on your face—and you don't necessarily know why—and you want to know more about why [the school culture] is that way."