KCS Student Leadership in the Classroom

Posted on December 7, 2022 by KCSMATTERS

KCS students in Grade 7 have been working on their leadership projects. They were inspired by Autumn Peltier, a clean water activist. Students designed projects of their choice. Here is a sample of just some of the projects that they have been working on at school.

Our group decided to make a presentation to tell the Grade 3 classes more about water pollution. We presented a slideshow, played a game of Kahoot, and did a little demonstration to show how much water we actually have to drink. We also told them about the ways we are polluting our water as well as helping it. We gave them a coloring sheet at the end of our presentation that had some messages about what is happening to fish in the ocean. Some of the messages were: “Less waste, more fish, better life” and “One ocean, one future.” We feel that it went pretty well and the Grade 3 students learned a lot about water pollution.

By: Zoe, Olivia, Abigail, Lauren

Our group decided to present what we learned to the Grade 2 students and teach them about water pollution. We started with a warm-up game because they just got back from their outdoor time, so they could be a little more active. After a few minutes, we started the presentation. We told them about plastic pollution and asked them if they knew about it. We also asked them if they could guess what else was in the water. After teaching them some ways to keep the water clean, we played a game. The purpose of this game was to simulate picking up garbage from the ocean. Each of the students got plastic bags, except for three of them. The three students were “it” and could tag those with bags. The students with the bags would collect dodgeballs, and put them in their bags. The winner was given a special sticker at the end of the game. Our presentation ended up going very well, and all of the students and presenters had fun.

By: Kate, Sara, Maggie, Amelia

Our group came up with the idea to send a letter to the Legislative Office of Ontario, more specifically Premier Ford. We decided to send this letter to raise awareness about the lack of clean water in Indigenous communities. We believe that it is poisoning the youth, and these marginalized people are at a loss for necessities. In the letter we explained why the government should divert funds towards clean water in Indigenous communities. From oil spills to diseases in the water, the Indigenous communities have been through enough. We recognized this is not right. We believe that the need for clean water, which is key toward our well-being, should be recognized and be a priority. Overall, the Canadian government has not been vigilant enough towards protecting the original inhabitants of this land.

By: Henry, Oscar, and Murad

A New Way for School Spirit

Posted on November 2, 2022 by KCSMATTERS

Four houses. Twenty new house captains. Add an original way to introduce them to the KCS community, and you’ve got a fantastic performance that launched the new school year!

The new, highly anticipated house captains of the 2022-2023 school year were recently announced at KCS’ annual Terry Fox Run assembly, and they are ready and eager to create games and challenges that will raise school spirit this year. In addition to the remarkable, eye-capturing spectacles put on by each house, an original, unique way to finish off the presentation was created, and it was a stupendous success!

All of the house captains performed a coherent rap together about each house to the tune of the popular television show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The house captains from each house sang one verse from the song with their respective houses. A highlight of the show was Ms. Griffin, who introduced the house captains with her enthusiastic verse in the rap. As the grand finale, Mr. Logan appeared to finish off the rap, and it indubitably got the whole crowd cheering. The house captain rap was a brilliant production and idea, and it clearly brought the students and faculty of KCS together to cheer for each of their houses.

Liesl K., Grade 8 student and house captain, had a pivotal role in the creation of the rap. She came up with the idea to showcase a rap to the school in the first place. Liesl was inspired with simply one thought: how can we, as house captains, generate school spirit, friendly competition between houses, but also unite the school as one? As we all know, the essential answer was to compose a rap! She had a variety of other ideas, like doing a dance or just singing a regular song, but in all, the rap checked off all of the boxes on her list. She chose a rap because it was fast-paced and energetic, and it was easy for all of the house captains to individually contribute their ideas. It was something fresh for the community, and even Mr. Logan said that the rap had never been done before at KCS. Liesl also chose a rap because she enjoys frequently writing raps herself, and knows how engaging and enticing it is to have the sensation of making the lyrics rhyme, or finishing a verse.

Liesl was not the only person who wrote this rap, but rather, the comprehensive team of house captains were tasked to write the lyrics to the verse depending on what house they were in. They had to ensure that each verse blended with the one before, and that it related to their house and what their house stands for. Liesl motivated the house captains to partake in this added performance by creating “special lyrics meetings” that were dedicated to just brainstorming and writing. Some house captains mentioned that it was sometimes difficult to think of rhyming words and ingenious verses, but with ideas flowing like streams from their fellow leaders, they were rapidly able to come up with a solution. The creation of the rap was a beneficial way for the house captains to begin collaborating with each other.

As the audience was applauding the rap after it was finished, anyone would be able to recognize the flashes of satisfaction, delight and rapture dancing across Liesl and the house captains’ faces, joyous at the success that was a reward for their laborious work. They were clearly jubilant that the rap had achieved the level of triumph they had wanted. Mr. Logan affirmed that he had been nervous “backstage” before coming on to do his part, but the copious support and encouragement from the students and teachers alike helped him forget about that anxiety. The cheering and applause motivated everyone. Each student did not only belong to their house, but to the KCS community as a whole. They were part of something bigger than themselves which is a crucial factor for their future. This is a pioneering message to many students in the KCS community; the fact that no matter where or who you are, you will always belong at KCS.

As Liesl said, “Does the rap have school spirit? Does it involve all of the students and teachers? Does it challenge the house captains? Does it make everyone happy? Yes! It does!” The rap was a commendable way of providing students with a feeling of pride for their own house, but also a feeling of belonging to KCS as a whole.

Written by Vivian L, Student Leader

KCS Senior School Update #10 – Where We Were

Posted on February 17, 2021 by KCSMATTERS

The last blog in this series was dated Feb 11, 2020. “And So We Begin” shares the excitement of our January 2020 announcement: that we had secured a site for the Senior School and would be open for grade 9 in September 2021. After the effort of a generation, it was finally going to happen.

We had no idea that our largest obstacle was yet to come.

I’m willing to guess most adults have a vivid memory of where they were when the provincial lockdown announcement was made last March. I was in the middle of a quiet March Break. A trip my husband and I planned had already been cancelled and was replaced with a solo trip to Ottawa to visit my father. On the drive along the 401, I joined senior management and Board members on a call to discuss the implications for the Senior School. Though the ensuing ten months weren’t at all what we expected, they became part of the Senior School story.

Where have we been since the last update? Those in the KCS community know we launched a fully online K-8 program by the third day post-March Break. Then we redesigned anew to provide our In-School/At-Home program, including substantial commitment to pandemic mitigation, this past fall. What many don’t know is in the midst of these unprecedented transformations, some of us explored possible paths forward for the Senior School. Could we get construction done for 2021? Offer grade 9 at the Junior School until the Lake Shore site was complete? The unpredictability, and the need to focus on the Junior School, pushed these ideas aside.

By October, attention returned to include the Senior School. It was clear the Lake Shore site couldn’t be ready for 2021, so the updated construction timeline and financial modelling had September 2022 as our opening date.

That’s when our Senior School founding families entered this story.

They reminded us that we could make 2021 happen. They wanted our Senior School for their children currently in grade 8. The pandemic brought into focus what mattered most for them – the school they respected, offering the experience they believed in, and the attention to safety they expected. If nothing else, the pandemic had taught us all to be patient. They were willing to be patient when it came to the Lake Shore site. Their determination to help make 2021 happen reignited our own.

We figured out what a Bridge Year could be. The founding families re-registered, and external families are joining this founding group. A terrific new partnership with Centauri Arts meant we would have a compelling location for grade 9 in addition to some impressive expertise joining our program. On January 20^th, almost one year after that first major announcement, it was confirmed that we would indeed be offering our first grade 9 class in September 2021.

This was a lengthy detour, and a test of our mettle. The excitement marking our achievement in early 2020 is now fully returned at the imminent offering of grade 9. I will be teaching again, we have some great new KCS staff joining our team, and we’re securing Learning Partners to further enrich our program. Our story is far from over, but we’re back where we were, making this dream a reality.

Passion-Driven Learning at School and Home

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Andrea Fanjoy

The wisdom of the ages has taught us to strive for balance. To the extent that we practise it, we see the value it offers in health, happiness, and success.

Balance is also behind transformational learning.

For far too long, education has been designed with well-intended imbalance. The half of the equation most focused on – curriculum-driven learning – is absolutely valuable. For generations, students have shown up to school and worked their way through a long list of knowledge and skills. Learn the alphabet, count by tens, contemplate history, write with persuasion, dabble in science, and – of course – show what you know and can do with the content and skills adults choose.

This is a critical part of school. It helps students practise core skills as steps to mastery. But more is possible. Making room for students to bring their full selves – their passions, curiosity, and talents – makes for the full value in education that students deserve and we all need them to have. Balancing the school experience with time devoted to passion-driven learning means students not only learn in the area of their passions; if done right, it develops their core knowledge, skills, and habits of mind in precisely the directions we rightly seek in the curriculum.

Here’s how this works at KCS:

When students pursue their passions at school, they usually practise their research skills. Their curiosity is exercised and they develop their question-asking and problem-solving. Because they care, they read more (and read more complex text), they learn more, take more notes, and write with greater attention to quality. When expected to share their learning, which our teachers ask of their students, this information is synthesized and turned into a coherent written project or public presentation. In the case of some passions, sharing often means creating something to show their classmates. This might include building a model (real or virtual), coding a robot, drafting a business proposal, making a video game, creating works of art, composing music, or writing a book. The ownership and empowerment are palpable. While initial steps are often modest, robust seeds are planted that fuel intrinsic motivation, responsible risk-taking, persistence, and creativity.

Passion projects are a journey of self-discovery and determination. Animation, cooking, activism, architecture, and interior design are just a handful of topics currently being pursued and shared among our students. Infused with positive emotion, these are presentations that engage and move listeners, making what they’re hearing ‘stick’. They also inspire listeners, either to try their hand at what so excites the speaker or just to double-down on their own passions. In fact, there is copious scholarly research that demonstrates how passion is contagious. (For more on this, look no further than this TEDx Talk from the University of Waterloo.)

Our commitment to passion-driven learning is even stronger in this unusual time. From day one of our KCS At Home Learning Program, passion projects have been part of the Weekly Learning Plan (WLP) going home to every student. Encouraging students to devote part of their school week to pursuing their passions is as much about learning as it is about our other priority: well-being. Our facility closure and the physical distancing that has removed much of what used to bring happiness has also taken away much of our students’ healthy sense of control. A significant part of mental health is rooted in the feeling that we have control over important parts of our lives. Passion projects that are rooted in one’s own passion and pursued in a way of their choosing, at a pace that’s right for them, bring a powerful sense of control and source of joy back into our students’ lives.

Balance has always brought value to the KCS experience. Passion projects and “learning for the love of it” bring value to student learning. They also bring happiness, motivation, and inspiration at a troubling time. We’ll keep sharing internally and on our social media channels (#KCSPassionProjects) where those passions take our students. And we hope our sharing will inspire all in education to find the balance all students deserve.

Andrea Fanjoy
Head of Senior School

Dr. Matina Mosun
Assistant Head, Academics

Reconciliation and Land Acknowledgements in Grade 3

Posted on January 8, 2020 by mshurleykcs

In this blog, our KCS Grade 3 homeform teachers – Meghan Hurley and Kerrie Robins – talk about the ways in which they and their students are evolving the Grade 3 Social Studies curriculum to better reflect the ongoing dialogue around Indigenous peoples and reconciliation.

Social Studies is a wonderful subject to teach – because it’s all about learning how to explore our shared history and experiences in a thoughtful and meaningful way. In Grade 3, a large part of the Social Studies curriculum is built around the experiences of different communities in Canada between the late 1700s to the mid-1800s.

When we were kids, that mostly meant learning about European pioneers. But over the past number of years, schools have made a real effort to incorporate into the curriculum the experiences of Indigenous communities during this time period. Here at KCS, we’ve been making the same effort for many years. But this year, we decided to begin our Social Studies program by focusing on those Indigenous experiences, in order to help our students better understand the need for an active and engaged approach towards reconciliation.

We began with some introductory events around Indigenous peoples in Canada, during which the students developed their own initial questions and identified areas they wanted to learn more about. This was followed by lessons around the ideas of apologies and reconciliation, out of which came a few key questions. What does it mean to apologize? What does reconciliation mean? How do we make things right when we’ve made a mistake? These open-ended questions led us to one core driving question: Why should our government be apologizing to Indigenous people?

Using techniques we learned during our professional development at the PBLWorks Institute this summer, we helped the students develop a series of questions that grew organically out of our driving question. We then used their questions to inform our planning for the remainder of the unit.

Throughout the unit, we explored this topic from a number of different angles. We talked about the legacy of residential schools and learned about the purpose behind the Orange Shirt Day initiative. We invited a guest speaker – Talitha Tolles from the TASSC (Toronto Aboriginal Support Services Council) – to come and speak about her culture and language. She shared stories about her own family’s experience with residential schools, and she worked with the students to build an Indigenous history timeline.

After that, the students took part in a group project where each group studied an Indigenous nation from a historical perspective. We also learned about treaties, what traditional land KCS is on, the Toronto Purchase/Treaty 13 (the treaty that governs the western half of Toronto), and the land acknowledgments that are currently taking place at other local schools.

Obviously, this was a significant amount of new information for our students to process. We gave them time to think about all they had learned, and we began to use this information to answer our driving question: Why should our government be apologizing to Indigenous peoples? Once we had some answers to this question, we asked the students, “What do you want to do?” After much discussion, the Grade 3s decided that they wanted to make a difference by starting a land acknowledgement at KCS.

Both classes sent letters to Mr. Logan and Dr. Mosun asking permission to create a land acknowledgement for KCS. These letters were received with enthusiasm, and they encouraged the students to work with our current artist-in-residence – Lindy Kinoshameg from Wiikwemkoong Unceded First Nation – to develop and write an acknowledgement. This process has begun and will continue to evolve over the next month or so. Our hope is that the students will be ready to present our KCS land acknowledgement during an assembly in January.

For us, the most powerful piece of this journey can be summed up with two of our Habits of Mind, Body and Action – “Lead to Make a Difference” and “Make the World Better”. When we began the year, some of the students felt like this was a problem that couldn’t be solved. As one student said in September, “We can’t do anything, we’re just a bunch of kids.” But now, that same student is saying, “We’re doing one thing, and it’s making a difference!”

We are so proud of this group of students and the ways in which they have opened their minds to new perspectives and taken on the challenge of making the world better. We look forward to sharing their land acknowledgement with the entire school community in the new year!

Meghan Hurley & Kerrie Robins

Success Redefined – Rethinking Motivation

Posted on November 14, 2019 by jomulvaney

We all have different reasons for getting up each morning and doing what we set out to do. Motivation is the reason why we do things and is a crucial component that inspires us to reach our goals.

There are two forces at play when it comes to motivation: intrinsic – which is doing something because it’s personally meaningful; and extrinsic – which is doing something for a reward or to avoid punishment. We rely on these forces to achieve our objectives – whether we are playing for a team, participating in the classroom, reading a book or simply helping out with chores at home.

As parents, educators, coaches and lifelong learners, we sometimes wonder which motivational approach is better in managing those relationships – to be more aggressive or to be more open and nurturing. This was the matter in question at the recent KCS Encouraging Dialogue event held in October.

“Break out of convention to prepare for your child’s performance, well-being and success” was the theme discussed by former Olympians, Jason Dorland and Robyn Meagher at the event, followed by powerful messages surrounding the importance of building relationships when it comes to coaching, teaching and parenting.

Jason and Robyn provided practical tips, based upon their shared experiences, on how we can best coach and teach our children through nurturing and encouraging. They both elaborated on their successes and failures, using motivation as a tool, resulting in greater acceptance, fulfillment and mutual respect.

Learning begins after a respectful relationship has been developed. Once the respect is there and the individual feels safe, cared for and empowered, then they are ready to engage and to learn. Before we engage with people, we often need to step back and consider where they are coming from, as well as understanding and respecting their intentions and goals. This may sound easier said than done, especially when one of the people in the relationship is in an authoritative position.

Throughout their athletic careers, Jason and Robyn were coached and trained from two very different perspectives and approaches. Jason experienced the ‘warrior, aggressive, win-at-all-costs’ approach, mixed with a bit of anger and extrinsic condemnation as the motivational tool. Jason sees this as not an effective or successful approach in the long run. Alternatively, Robyn’s coaching and training was based on mutual respect, support, serenity, intrinsic composure and appreciation. After getting to know Robyn and understanding her training history and coaching style, Jason saw and appreciated the benefits. Over time, they worked together to develop practical tips on how we can help children navigate through the success and failures of life.

A few helpful tips from the evening were:

To find out what you are capable of is a journey. Intrinsic motivation is not the chase. Intrinsic motivation is powered by love and high performance is the by-product.
Ego driven motivation is powered by reputation, reward and fear, whereas spirit driven motivation is powered by service, mastery and joy.
Coaching is built around three questions:
- What went well?
- What was tricky?
- What do you want to change moving forward?
The journey of life is the gift. Celebrate and enjoy it!

In coaching, parenting and teaching, motivation is used and can be delivered aggressively, by instilling fear, or softly by imparting love. Both approaches impact behavior in a variety of ways.

The benefits are evident when there is mutual respect in a relationship; the results can be positive and boundless. Investing and working on the connection in order to cultivate mutual respect, feelings of trust, and support is always well worth the time and energy. There is value in nurturing a strong sense of connection between the coach and the athlete, the teacher and the student, the parent and the child.

We all grow and learn through our trials and our errors. The relationships between success and failure is fluid; they are linked in the process of growth, learning and change. And communication and motivation are vital components in this process. When the lines of communication are open, and the right form of motivation is applied, there is synergy – collaboration and cohesiveness – like Canadian geese – we fly together.

We were happy to host Jason and Robyn back in October. Our staff will continue to work closely with them in the two four-day professional workshops in the summer of 2020 and 2021.

Putting the “Home” in Homework

Posted on October 30, 2019 by Kirsten Tenebaum

Homework is often seen as a thankless job, but when it’s approached in the right way, homework can be an amazing opportunity to build relationships, make connections, develop healthy routines, and cultivate a positive sense of ownership over one’s own learning. Because it’s not about getting homework done. It’s about how you get it done.

Teamwork & Support

While we want our students to be independent, that doesn’t mean homework should be a solitary endeavour. Start by sitting down with your child and have them pull out their agenda or log on to Edmodo. Ask them to walk you through their upcoming assignments and projects, and then have them explain their homework timeline for the next few days or week. This ensures that your child is learning to plan and manage their own responsibilities, but in a way that allows you to provide them with advice and feedback before the work piles up and becomes unmanageable.

Making Connections

One of the benefits of homework is that it can help you learn a bit more about what your child is working on in school. Once you know what they are discussing and exploring in class, you can help them make connections between their learning at school and the wider world. If you are aware of what your child is working on at home, you can use that as a jumping-off point to initiate and extend conversations that will help them take their learning to the next level. Parents who do this often tell me that a quick homework chat can end up sparking deep and wide-ranging family conversations over dinner.

Healthy Routines

Homework will be a part of your child’s life for many years, so now is the time to develop a consistent set of homework routines and habits. Start by having them block off time that is just for homework – the earlier in the evening, the better! Adjust the schedule to accommodate personal and family commitments such as sports teams or activities. Have them set up a space where they will always do their homework. They may want to retreat to their bedroom, but you should encourage them to work in an area that has fewer distractions and better access to help. While the dining room table may be a slightly noisier workspace, it is a location that ensures you can keep an eye on them and redirect their attention as necessary. Sticking to a consistent time and space will help make homework a more calm and focused experience.

Staying Positive

Helping your child develop a positive attitude towards their homework is probably the single most important piece of this puzzle. If you stay positive in the way you talk about homework, you can help your child understand that there is value in the experience. If you talk about homework as a way to develop and improve upon their skills, then you help your child create and foster a growth mindset. If you talk about homework as a way to become more independent, then they learn to have confidence in their abilities. And if you talk about the ways in which you can use homework as a way to learn from each other, then they learn to both share their knowledge and seek out help when needed.

The School’s Role

Of course, teachers have a big role to play in making homework a positive and healthy experience. Faculty at KCS follow a set of homework guidelines to ensure that homework expectations are clearly communicated, flexible, relevant, and motivating. Of course, they also strive to ensure that the amount of homework given is appropriate and reasonable. For more information on KCS’s homework policies and guidelines, please consult the Parent Handbook and the Homework at KCS document.

At the end of the day, homework is something that kids need to learn to manage. And if they learn to manage it in a positive and proactive way, it will end up being a rich and rewarding experience. Homework is like most things in life – the more you put into it, the more you get back.

Redefining Success

Posted on October 15, 2019 by Derek Logan

On October 24,2019, we will be hosting the next installment in our ongoing Encouraging Dialogue speaker series. This time, we’re fortunate to have the chance to hear from Robyn Meagher and Jason Dorland, two former Canadian Olympians who will share their powerful message about the importance of relationships when it comes to coaching, teaching, parenting, and life in general.

Jason’s sport is rowing. For many years, he subscribed to the “warrior” approach to coaching and training. He was driven by aggression and winning at all costs. His coaches yelled, belittled, and used anger as a tool for motivation. But when he finally made it to the 1988 Olympics, his team’s devastating failure made him reassess his entire attitude towards competition and coaching.

Another huge factor in this reassessment was meeting Robyn Meagher, a middle-distance runner who represented Canada at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics. She came from a very different tradition of coaching – one grounded in serenity, calmness, and an understanding that each athlete is an individual with their own complex emotional needs and history.

At first, he was skeptical of this seemingly wishy-washy approach to training for elite athletes. But over time, he came to realize that this style of coaching actually led to better results, even at the highest level of competition. Now the two of them work together to provide practical tips on how parents and teachers can coach children through their successes and failures, with greater acceptance and fulfillment.

I personally have found Robyn and Jason’s message to be a profoundly transformative one. After hearing about their work through former KCS Head of School, David Richards, and learning about their work with both the Conference of Independent Schools of Ontario (CIS) and the Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS), I decided to bring them in and have them work with our entire faculty to help us learn how to better understand our students. A third of our faculty took part in a four-day high performance training session this past summer. Over the next two years, the rest of our faculty will also take part in this training. I know this will help us to not only better tailor our teaching and coaching to our students, but also help us remember to “push the pause button” in all our relationships.

Relationships are like icebergs – we know what’s on the surface, but we may not know what’s going on underneath. Which means we need to stop and take a moment to understand where people are coming from. Twenty-five years ago, I would walk into a class and teach a lesson. And if a kid didn’t get it, that was their problem. Now, we know that we must take the time to understand where each student is at, and then meet them where they are.

That means learning how to build our relationships with students, coaches, teachers, parents – everyone. It means pausing and not jumping to conclusions. Once upon a time, we would say, “I’m the coach, I’m going tell you what to do, and there’s no room for questions.” But as Jason and Robyn have discovered, that approach just doesn’t work.

Kids can’t learn until they are ready to learn. And being ready to learn means feeling safe, empowered, mindful, and cared for. But you can’t make a child feel all those things unless you’ve taken the time to build a relationship. You have to realize that you are bringing your perceptions and biases to every interaction you have with another person – whether it’s your spouse, your colleague, your student, or your child. You have to pause, think about that person’s intentions, and then give them the benefit of the doubt as you move forward to help them grow and learn. That can be hard to do, but that’s exactly what Robyn and Jason are here to remind us to do.

I hope many of you can take the time to join us at this wonderful event. We all deal with complex relationships every day, and I believe that Robyn and Jason’s message can help all of us to better manage those relationships and understand the people in our lives. I really feel that you will find the ninety minutes worthwhile. I hope to see you there!

Encouraging Dialogue: Success Redefined will take place on Thursday, October 24 at 6:30 PM in Canada Hall. This is a free event, but we ask you to please register here so we can plan appropriately.

19-103 KCS Speaker Series Poster_v2_HIRES Proof

Connecting KCS with the World

Posted on October 11, 2019 by Andrea Fanjoy

How do you connect elementary students with the world?

You rethink elementary school.

At least that’s how we’re doing it at KCS, and it has led to relationships with experts from an unlimited array of fields, many of whom with a global reach, including journalists, artists, social entrepreneurs, edtech developers, and many more. Rethinking school includes stepping outside our walls (literally and figuratively), welcoming external experts in, and seizing opportunities when they appear to enrich student learning. Here’s a current example.

KCS has recently partnered with engineering.com, a GTA-based business that shares a newsfeed for “the global community of engineering minds who make a difference” (modelling the KCS Habits!). How big is this community? The site enjoys 2.6 million unique visitors each month, and its social media following includes 1.4 million on Facebook and 44,000 on Twitter. Eight thousand have gone one step further to embrace their newest initiative, ProjectBoard, where they can share the problems they’re solving and get feedback in return.

How did we meet?

Part of my role as Head of Senior School is to notably increase our KCS community of learning partners – individuals and organisations who bring learning to our students, in ways beyond what field trips and guest speakers usually provide. A significant learning partner we established over a year ago is the Centre for Social Innovation, a multi-thousand strong community of entrepreneurs, agencies, and charities sharing coworking and co-learning space in Toronto, New York, and London, Ontario. Engineering.com, like KCS, is a member.

The problem-solvers engaging with ProjectBoard form a community where we believe students belong. KCS is now the first school to join this global network of engineers who are using the online platform. This beautiful tool allows our StEP and Makerspace students to share their creative work, engage in dialogue in our KCS “Makerchat”, and receive comments on their creative process. As a desirable feature, ProjectBoard also allows us to share our student initiatives with the global engineering.com community and through our social media.

KCS is an amazing place to be. The world outside KCS is also amazing. Rethinking school is bringing the two together. What follows, we’re finding, is the unlimited learning students deserve.

The World That We Design

Posted on June 3, 2019 by Andrea Fanjoy

Last week, we were treated to our annual spring concert – a wonderful showcase of our extracurricular bands and choirs. The arts do so much to make the world better. In fact, beyond the pleasure of listening to beautiful music, this concert included a message from our primary choir that struck a particular chord:

We can live in a world that we design.
A million dreams for the world we’re gonna make.
(“Million Dreams” by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul)

Part of educating students (and raising children) is preparing them for the world they will eventually face, independent of us. Much of that world is what it is, for better or for worse (sigh). Of course, we’re getting them ready for that. But the world is also what we collectively make it. At KCS, we’re teaching our students how to design the world they face for the better. Here’s one recent responsible risk where we did just that.

In May, Ms. Hooper, Ms. Gaudet and I joined our grade 8s on a trip to the WE Global Learning Centre downtown. This was the culminating event of a year spent learning about human geography, including forces shaping the human experience and our relationship with the planet. Against a backdrop of global challenges, they also learned about the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs were where our grade 8 students would both demonstrate and leverage their learning for the better.

At the WE Centre, our grade 8s pitched social enterprises to experts from the WE community, enterprises that they created from scratch to help address one or more of the U.N. goals.

They created enterprises to help address illiteracy, pollution, access to clean water, gender equality, health and wellness, climate change, poverty, education, plus life below and above water. One enterprise, Hakuna Njaa (meaning ‘No hunger’ in Swahili), was a proposed restaurant that would allow hungry Torontonians to help fund food and nutrition programs in areas facing a food crisis. “At our restaurant, people won’t just be paying for food, they are paying to make a difference.” Their pitch wrapped up with:

“We’re hungry for change. You should be too.”

We don’t know if our grade 8s will go on to further pursue their social enterprise plans. Their time at KCS is soon over and our Student Entrepreneurship Program (StEP) won’t follow them to their high schools. What they will take with them, however, is something that will follow them wherever they go. Here’s how one parent described her son’s reflection on the day:

“Listening to [my son] describe how inspired he was to be at the office yesterday and how meaningful it made it for the kids to have the “experts in the field” vote on the projects…the whole experience from start to finish has absolutely made an impact and a difference already. It made [him] think more deeply for example about believing he could actually make a difference, which I feel is an enormously empowering thing for kids to feel in this era of knowing so much about problems that affect the world, and yet not feeling like they can always help…or make an impact.”

Part of preparing students for the future is preparing them to design it, and instilling the knowledge and confidence that they can. We’re heeding the message. Our students are dreaming. And it’s music to our ears.

(Note – This partnership with WE, including an introduction to social entrepreneurship, instruction in making a strong pitch, and expert feedback and judging through the day, was supported by the KCS StEP Fund, thanks to the generosity of KCS parents and 30^th Anniversary Diamond Gala sponsors)