Reflections of Havergal: 1994-2019

SCHOOL LIFE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COMMUNI T Y ENGAGEMENT

teacher in the Social Sciences department who later became its head and ultimately Director of Student Life. Ms. Macintosh devoted the time allotted by the award to a study of leadership and community engagement and the form it took—and could take—at Havergal. Her findings were impressive.

Rethinking Community Service Leadership Barb Macintosh, former teacher

By the end of the 1990s, Havergal had further refined its program to ensure students would meet the new criteria for the Ontario Secondary School Diploma. The Ontario Ministry of Education had mandated that every student starting high school in the 1999–2000 academic year and thereafter would be required to undertake 40 hours of community service in order to receive a graduation diploma. As the ministry explained in its document Ontario Secondary Schools, Grades 9 to 12: Program and Diploma Requirements, 1999 , [t]he purpose of the community involvement requirement is to encourage students to develop awareness and understanding of civic responsibility and of the role they can play and the contributions they can make in supporting and strengthening their communities. There was, of course, considerable debate at Havergal and throughout the province about the value of “mandated volunteerism,” but, of course, the school instituted the policy and set about assisting students as they searched for appropriate opportunities.

More than a dozen students participated in the Run for the Cure to support breast cancer research,1999.

Community service at Havergal this school year is very different from in the past. The main difference is that as a school community, we are trying to move away from task-oriented community service efforts and toward more goal-oriented endeavours. What this means is that we want to distance ourselves from participation in one-time events and develop a genuine awareness and desire in every member of the Havergal community, so that each student participates knowledgeably in long-term and maybe even life-long community service efforts. She illustrates her key points with a telling reference to her own experience: For example, in the case of the CIBC Run for the Cure, no one stopped me to ask, “What are the issues surrounding breast cancer? Who’s at risk? How can I learn more about the topic? How can I help make a real difference?” Therefore, this year we essentially want to (as Ms. Robson says) ‘Empower,’ ‘Enable,’ and ‘Educate.’ Two ways in which we are trying to achieve this are through the new and improved grade eleven Community Council and the community service house activities block. In her article, she explains the expanded role of the Community Council: each week a block of time once

“The Spirit of Giving” Kayan Poon and Katie Beadon, 1999–2000, Community Service Prefects, Torch , Spring 2000

The evolution of the school’s philosophy and this change in ministry policy resulted in an even more vigorous community service program. The exciting change in focus was outlined by Caroline Chua in the December 6, 2000, issue of The Leaf , an “offshoot” of BTI .

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