Last week I was asked to open with a few words one of our district administration meetings with all of the Principals and Vice-Principals from across North Van.  I thought it would be a good opportunity to speak about our Handsworth school theme this year – “Gratitude and Resiliency” – its ties to indigenous ways of knowing and how, while these past 7 months have been challenging, there are things to be thankful for and opportunities for us as school leaders, through relationships and reflection, to make an even greater positive impact on our school communities.

And, of course, it was also a great excuse for me to share another set of photos of my baby boy, Asher.  Asher is easily the piece of my life right now that I have the most gratitude for.  And for him to arrive in the middle of a pandemic has brought such light to my family and those close to us.  He is the ongoing conversation starter for me with my staff, and because of that I get to start every conversation with a smile and an update on him.  It’s also hard to send an upset email reply or Teams message to me when my profile pic is me with a cute baby.  Imagine how every difficult conversation in your building would go if there was also a baby in the room – it’s very disarming!  So, I have a lot to be thankful for, and am grateful to be able to share my joy with staff.

At Handsworth we’ve been focusing on gratitude with our staff because, obviously, we are experiencing a time of disproportionate loss.  And while we don’t want to look past the sadness, we also want to try and balance it with some hope and happiness.  In the last 2 weeks alone a number of my staff have experienced profound loss, be it a family member lost to COVID, an ill parent or grandparent in hospital or hospice, or the loss of a beloved family pet.  I’m grateful for the opportunity to be able to support my staff through their personal challenges.  I think in particular of my staff member who shared a personal story and photos with me last week about a family member recently passed.  We know that memory, history and story are not only important indigenous principles of learning, but also important ways to connect on a personal level with people.  Those brief moments in your day to connect, face-to-face and to lend a supportive ear are so important for building a sense of team among your staff – and it’s something we have the privilege of doing every day.  In terms of an indigenous perspective, I also feel like this is nourishing those spiritual and emotional elements of the medicine wheel that are so vital to the work we do.

The other aspect of our school theme is resiliency.  And I think sometimes there are notions associated with being resilient, that shouldn’t necessarily be.  For example, taking on challenges alone.  Being resilient is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties – but it doesn’t have to be in isolation.  I think our ability to pull together, and support each other in being resilient will be key in coming out of this on the other side better for it, with a better idea of what we want to keep from this systemic transformation and, conversely, what we want to discard or return to.

I read an interesting article in National Geographic recently about what we’ve lost by moving so much into the virtual world for our interactions – and I learned a new word: ‘Qualia’.  It’s a philosophy term to describe our perception of experience, and represents all the things we miss by not living in the physical world.  Everything from how we see faces to the feel of bark on a tree.  And we know that qualia are much richer in face to face interaction, or as indigenous ways of knowing teach us – that deeper understanding occurs when its experiential.  I think, despite our move to have many meetings virtually, that we want to embrace opportunities to have more meaningful interactions with people.  And I’d argue that speaking from 6 feet away from each other is still better than speaking 2 screens away from each other.

So, my hope is that we come out of this school year more resilient, and it will be thanks to the mutual support of and for the people around us.  And to keep in mind all the positives we are grateful for, like family, friends and colleagues, along way.  And, finally, to think as we move forward what aspects of this temporary state we want to hold on to, and what elements of qualia we went to be able to restore afterwards, or even maintain now in all of its rich fullness.