Page 4 - Harare International School

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Message
from
the Director
Being Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable?
The first year at a school is both exciting and unnerving. It?s being a newbie no matter what age you are. In our first year, we take time to learn about the community and the culture, at moments being in awe and wonder, and at other moments finding surprises around corners.
The start of the school year is a bit like gift giving. Not the un-wrappable type of gift, but the type of gift that expresses an experience, a mindset, a wish. This year, as a newbie, I wished our students and community members a year of being uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable for its own sake; rather, we benefit from feeling comfortable being slightly uncomfortable because this is where the learning and growth happens. Each year we face new challenges in classes, in artistic interpretation, in personal excellence in sport, in friendships, in opportunities for leadership, and more. When we remain in our comfort zone, we tend to remain stagnant. When we are stretched, we experience tension, and when done purposefully, a positive tension. We embrace the discomfort that enables us to figure out how to understand better, how to push ourselves to experiences that enrich us as individuals and as a community. Funnily enough, I find that often our younger learners embrace this approach naturally. How do we as adults work together to cherish this mindset throughout our lives?
By the end of the school year, in spite of some rather unexpected economic challenges, I believe that HIScommunity members embraced the challenges. We persevered, emerging stronger, honouring the vitality of student learning.
For the School Year 2018-19 my goals as Director were:
1. Get to know the HISCommunity.
2. Develop and implement a teacher growth and appraisal process grounded in student learning
and implemented in a comprehensive and transparent manner.
3. Devise and implement a community-wide process for reviewing the HISMission and Vision (joint
Board Goal).
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