Waking up to a New Year on January 1st, 2008, I couldn’t help but reflect that we are living in an era where change is happening so fast that projecting forward, even for 365 days, is a challenging task. As educators, we have to prepare young people for their lives ahead in an era when we have difficulty  seeing how our world will evolve in just one year!  The explosion of digital-technology advances during the past fifteen years and the way this has opened-up and changed our world will constantly require educators to reflect on what we teach and revise how our students learn.  By its very nature, education is conservative and accordingly prudent in approach. In the past educators have been slow to embrace change.  By force of circumstance, teachers today must be life-long learners as they work to keep-up with and embrace new techniques and strategies and engage in training young people to become global citizens in an ever more complex world.

In the words of Thomas Friedman, in order to flourish in today’s world, it takes the right imagination and the right motivation. “The world needs us to be the generation of strategic optimists, the generation with more dreams than memories, the generation that wakes up each morning and not only imagines that things can be better but also acts on that imagination every day.” Mulgrave is a young school with strong ambitions and a very talented and motivated staff.  Ideas abound in our community as to how we can become even better; how we can prepare our young people for the changing global world they will inherit.  Friedman, in his book “The World is Flat”, sees that the most important ability people need today to develop is the ability “to learn how to learn” – to constantly absorb, and teach yourself, new ways of doing old things or new ways of doing new things. “It is not only what you know but how you learn that will set you apart. Because what you know today will be out-of-date sooner than you think.”  So it is our task as educators to make sure that our young people are excited about learning. Teachers have to teach facts but it is not the facts they impart but the excitement about learning they inspire that has the greatest impact and will carry our young people forward into their future.

At the dawn of 2008, we know that we live in a fast changing and challenging society. Technology is creating opportunities for people around the world to compete and prosper. As this African proverb so well describes, there is no place for complacency; spectators will be passed-by.

                                Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
                                It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
                                Every morning a lion wakes up.
                                It knows it must out run the slowest gazelle or it will starve.
                                It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
                                When the sun comes up, you had better start running.

My resolution for this new year is clear:  “To look forward with ambition and determination to ensure that our young people are being prepared to be competitive in the world they will inherit.”

As we “look forward”, I am today posting the School Calendar for 2008/ 2009 on the school’s Web Site for your information. (READ MORE)  Because we will be having to make significant changes the following year (2009/2010) since we will be closed during the Winter Olympics, I will shortly also be publishing our dates for the following school year.

Sincerely,

Tony Macoun
tmacoun@mulgrave.com