Our staff core value, “encouraging wonder and creativity in the learning journey” flows from a desire to have students be in awe of God, our creative Creator, and all that He has made.
Creation is teeming with evidence of His creativity – in fact there are about 400,000 described species of beetles – with more being discovered all the time. In a world with such diversity there is no end of things to explore and discover.
We want students to be engaged and to be driven by curiosity to go deeper and farther in their learning. We don’t simply want students to be focused on the destination – a completed project, a good mark, or a successful school year – but to find joy and also meaning in the journey along the way.
The late, British educationist, author, and speaker, Sir Ken Robinson, gave a TED talk back in 2006 entitled, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”
In that speech he shared that sadly most often schools by their structure and especially in the move towards more standardized testing have done exactly that.
He also shared that schools do this by stigmatizing mistakes and fueling a fear of failure – which encourages students to play it safe in their learning, seek easy answers, and also to do the minimal required.
In his book, The Element: How finding your passion changes everything, Robinson wrote, “One size does not fit all. Some of the most brilliant, creative people I know did not do well at school. Many of them didn’t really discover what they could do—and who they really were—until they’d left school and recovered from their education.”
We don’t want that to be the experience of students here at GCCS. We want to inspire our students to bring their whole self to school, to be creative, take risks, and to know that failure is a necessary part of learning.
Most of all, we want to direct students to God and to encourage them to have a relationship with Him through which they will find the path He has called them to take in their learning and ultimately in their life.