A Reflective Learning Journal

fam·i·ly  

I have been thinking about family a lot lately.  Not your typical notion of family though.  I have been thinking about a “work family”.  You know, the people that we spend 75% of our daylight hours with during a work week.  When I checked my concept of work family against the definition of family found at Wikipedia above I found:

1.  A group of parents and children together –

The Education Act of Ontario is clear: when at school, it is my role to act as a “firm, judicious parent”.  That means I am “parent” to 120 lively Grade 7 and 8 students every day – not to mention the students in Grades 9-12.  It is this relationship that fuels my passion for the work that I do.  I enjoy discovering new things about the unique children in our building every day.  I am not the only “parent” in the building however.  There are a group of parents cleverly disguised as teachers, secretaries, technical resource assistants, educational assistants and custodians.  A group of parents and children together indeed!

2. Adjective: designed to be suitable for children as well as adults –

Are we a PG building?  Yes!  Everything we do is designed to be the best possible thing, task, event, place for young adults.  It is the role of the parents in the building to establish the “Moral Tone of the School”.  Once we know what the expectations are for both children and adults in our building we record the details in the school code of conduct.  When I was growing up, it was common for my Mom to ask me “Jenn, what would Gram think or say about that?”  You see, my grandmother was a “Proper-Yorkshire-Woman” (self-defined of course!).  She held firmly to a moral code of high expectations and manners.  When my Mom would ask me to judge my actions against my grandmother’s she knew that I might fall short.  Gram was my litmus test for behaviour.   The ultimate PG challenge in fact.   Our School Code of Conduct is the ultimate PG challenge for our work family.  When behaviour brushes up against the code of conduct then we need to take a deep breath and determine a way to restore a sense of PG in the building.  Not always an easy task, but certainly a positive one!

3. Synonyms: house, tribe –

I think that I actually prefer “tribe”.  The word instills a sense that we are bound to one another by a common culture.  We are a culture of learning at GDCI.  Our Principal, Ms. Salmon, reminds us often that one of our core priorities is our collective commitment to learning.   The parents and the children learn alongside each other in our work family.  GDCI ES is a house where mistakes are learning opportunities. 

My work family is GDCI Elementary.  I am proud to be a member of this Viking family!