Last week, as the city of SSM experienced an unthinkable tragedy, the reverberations of the incident were felt not only across the Algoma District School Board and the communities we represent, but across the country. The loss of three children – our students – and community members is a weight we all carry.
During the darkest days, I watched, in awe, as inside our schools and office buildings, people, raw with sorrow, anger, perplexity and disbelief, dug deeper than they knew was humanly possible to find the courage to support students, families, colleagues, co-workers and the community. I could not be prouder of our ADSB staff. Outside our walls, people in communities everywhere felt our pain and reached out to provide condolences, support and comfort – and for that, we are deeply grateful. I found myself most often reminding people that we cannot make sense of senseless acts.
As so many have said, moving forward, we must find the strength and the courage to take action. I have listened to the many messages, and asked myself the question I ask most often: What did I learn today? Collectively, I hope we have all learned some things over the past week.
• I hope that we have learned that as an education system, our focus is on teaching and learning; as education personnel, we offer programming that supports and promotes positive mental health, overall well-being and healthy, respectful relationships; and while our staff are not treatment providers, we can and do help connect children and families to services; however, we cannot undertake this work alone, so let the learning be a call to action – a call to ensure that all of our community organizations increase our collective advocacy to government and to Ministries, to find ways to support children and families who need our help or who may be in crisis; let us bring forth thinking and proposals that break down barriers to accessing services; together, let’s stand shoulder to shoulder, as community partners to examine what we can do to advocate further and to remain relentless in our efforts to ensure our communities have the resources we need to make a positive impact; the adage, “it takes an entire village to raise a child” has never been more relevant;
• I also hope we have learned that, as we work, as a village, to support children, we recognize, as others have said, that we must take care of one another … most notably, that we need to RESPECT one another; in ADSB, we are very proud of our character education work, and live our belief that, “we model, we teach, we practise, we become”; as community members, we must all remember that children emulate our actions and our words, so let’s choose our words and actions thoughtfully, so that we are the best role models possible for them.
From crisis comes opportunity. Let us all find the strength and courage to see what we can learn from the past week and let us be driven by Margaret Mead’s words to:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has."
Thank you/Miigwetch
