Reflections of Havergal: 1994-2019

SCHOOL LIFE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COMMUNI T Y ENGAGEMENT

The Excursion Program

Those who were part of the Havergal community when Dr. Winn Barlow was principal know how often she urged students to be travellers, not tourists. The distinction, she maintained, was simple: the tourist observed, but the traveller engaged. It is through engagement, she believed, that we truly become citizens of the world. Those who also know the history of Havergal know that students have long been able to venture beyond the ivy-covered walls on school excursions planned for grade or course groups or cocurricular activities. In the Senior School, for example, there were, for a long period, annual grade trips to Stratford, Ont., and every few years, the Senior Choir travelled to the United Kingdom. The trip to Saint-Donat, Que., was for many years designed for Grade 11 students, but has recently been enjoyed by those in Grade 8. In the Junior School, there are day trips to places like the Kortright Centre in Woodbridge, Ont., as well as overnight excursions. Over time, these excursions have focused more and more on an immersive experience that challenges students’ assumptions. In 2000, the Fall Torch reported that eight Havergal students travelled to two orphanages in the Dominican Republic … with students from UCC and Bayview Glen. The volunteer opportunity was organized and supervised by Judy Warrington of

Alex Medline volunteering in South Africa, as part of the Havergal Global Experience Program, 2010.

Bayview Glen. As well as repairing the school house and sanding and painting walls and benches at one orphanage, the students built a washroom … Havergal’s participation in the program was initiated by Jessica Abramson ’00, who had wanted to volunteer in a developing country for a long time. “While you have an awareness of what goes on in other countries,” she explains, “you don’t know what it’s really like until you must push yourself outside of the ivy walls … ” The Fall 2010 Torch article, “In the Spirit of Ubuntu” by Alex Medline, encapsulated just that kind of learning experience, setting out observations and insights she shared in Prayers on September 10, 2010.

“In the Spirit of Ubuntu” Torch, Fall 2010

Middle School excursion, 2005.

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