Editor’s note: This story appeared in the May edition of the South Cowichan Connector, a publication for and about the South Cowichan Valley. Look for our June edition starting June 6.
It was Aristotle who said that educating the mind without educating the heart, is no education at all.
Cobble Hill’s Evergreen Independent School was first established in 1983, by a group of families who were in search of an alternate learning environment for their children.
“What is wonderfully unique about our school is the connection that staff have with students,” said principal Lucien Power. “I know all of the families and students really well, I think the depth of those relationships is foundational to the education that they get here.”
The school has five teachers and nine educational assistants who currently mould the minds of their 45 students with an exceptional education that speaks straight to heart through some core and vital values such as creating confident, curious learners.
“One of the strengths of this school is fostering emotional literacy,” said Power. “This involves helping students become confident in who they are, how they’re feeling, how they’re learning as well as having them beginning to understand themselves.”
Another two values that are instilled at Evergreen are the importance of respect for self, and responsible stewardship.
“The value of responsible stewardship came from this movement of caring for our land, our property, our belongings whether that pertains to inside our classroom, our campus, or the community,” said Power.
For years Evergreen students have displayed this virtue by doing a community clean up the day after Halloween. They also give their older students the opportunity to hike up Cobble Hill Mountain every Thursday afternoon for outdoor learning which also incorporates responsible stewardship and getting to know the land.
“Community clean up is very important,” said Power. “I think there is a lot of value in helping students regulate while being and learning outdoors, so it’s a really great program.”
The fifth and final value that Power is particularly keen on is the importance of building community. The school has begun to form connections with Sacred Cedar Centre at Cowichan Tribes and had a school wide field trip to the centre on April 11. Students rotated through four activities that included weaving cedar roses, learning the names of local animals in the Hul’q’umi’num language, learning about and planting native species, as well as singing and drumming.
“It was amazing to spend some time with Cowichan Tribes and learn more about their language, skills and about the land,” said Power.
Students were treated to a tasty salmon feast this past December as Cowichan Tribe member Fred Rolland (Hwiemtun) who runs the Sacred Cedar Centre cooked three whole salmon for the school and also brought smoked and candied salmon so students could learn about that process as well.
“It was a really unique experience for our students, they haven’t had a lot of this before,” said Power. “Part of building community value is reaching out to Indigenous educators who generationally speaking have been here for thousands of years. They know the animals, and the fauna and flora better than anyone. Finding those connections of language, people, history, and place also ties into our value of respect for self.”
Evergreen also builds community through their annual Camp Creina that is held in September as a way for the new students, their families, and sometimes even new staff to get to know one another. Students from Grades K to 7 get to experience a day of programming, a community meal hosted by parents, and music around a campfire.
“We arrive on Thursday morning and do various activities and programs throughout the day led by staff, we’ve even had Bear Aware to come out to teach us about good bear practices,” said Power. “It is about building community in a really beautiful setting down by the Koksilah River, regulating in nature, and getting to know each other in a really beautiful way before we start the school year.”
Evergreen also unites community in the spring with their annual fair fundraiser that started in 1984 and was formerly called CHAPP, which stood for Children and Apple Pie. Students, their families and the community made copious amounts of apple pie to sell off in addition to the other fun happenings. Power said COVID provided the school a chance to reflect on how they host their community events and in recent years they’ve worked towards a community oriented fun fair with a different theme each year that is decided by the Parent Action Committee. This year’s event Teddy Bears, Treats, and Treasures will take place at Evergreen on May 4 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. It will be a day of fun for the whole community with community sellers, tasty treats, teddy bear themed activities through the forested part of their campus, a bouncy castle and inflatable slide, plus other activities like mini golf and croquet on the field.
“It’s just a day of fun and games, for us it’s just about having fun together and welcoming in the broader community,” said Power. “It still raises some money for the school, but one of the driving factors is just community.”
The money from the Evergreen spring fair goes into the PAC budget to support things such as non-curricular field trips and supplies, the school’s connections to Cowichan Tribes, and even sports gear, and PE equipment when needed.
Aside from how they now plan their annual fair, EIS had another silver lining come out of COVID — their four day school week which presented an opportunity for them to slightly lengthen their schools days from 8:30 to 3:15 Monday through Thursday.
“We were looking for opportunities to give young children more time to rest between days of learning as well as more time to connect with family,” said Power. “Switching to the four day week out of COVID was a great opportunity for that. We recognize this may be challenging for some working families, but overall the vast majority of our families here appreciate the shorter week.
“In terms of staff, it’s a big benefit too, to have that extra day of rest. Staff well-being, particularly through the cold and flu season has improved, staff retention has also improved plus it’s an added bonus with working here for staff to have their three day weekends. Life is busy, so to consciously build in opportunities to rest, regenerate, recuperate is really important for us.”
This is not the only area where Evergreen consciously builds in opportunities for success. The students are divided into what are called family groupings every June to decide on five themes for the upcoming school year — younger and older grades are blended together giving all students in the school the chance to know each other.
“I think it’s really a beautiful thing because children get to develop socially, and emotionally in a much broader range of childhood,” said Power. “When we just have children playing within their age group, there are a lot of opportunities and learning that are missed. To have students learn in multi-age groups regularly is very impactful. The older ones get to learn leadership and mentoring skills while developing empathy for younger students, and the young ones look up to the older students and can see what is coming which motivates them, too. It helps us really develop strong relationships within our student body.”
Power said that one of this year’s themes was mental wellness and the brain and the school uses every opportunity to teach around this theme.
“The goal is, that as they go through school here they become more confident at self regulation and are choosing when they need to have a break or even eat something,” said Power. “Learning is really a celebration here, we did Greece for our geography theme this year, and our food literacy day was a celebration of Greek food. It was supported by the parents and students learned food literacy skills and prepared it, and the whole school ate lunch together.”
When Evergreen is not instilling values in the students they are embedding virtues from the virtue project but instead of just teaching it the virtue is noticed, named, and nurtured. Different virtues are paired with each theme so for this year’s theme on mental wellness and the brain the virtues mindfulness and peacefulness were chosen.
Teachers end off every day with a closing circle where students share where they witnessed a particular virtue throughout their day.
The school year starts with important themes such as kindness and respect which is complimented with a kindness jar in each classroom, and is ended with virtues such as reflection, joyfulness and gratitude which are aimed to be incorporated into every theme. Power says that one teacher used stick, leaf, rock to get their students to share something from their day that sticks with them, something they’d like to ‘leaf’ behind and something that rocked.
What really rocks is that Evergreen received a grant from the federal government to go forward on a significant access ramp project this summer which will provide wheelchair access to the main building. The project will begin in July and will be completed in September for the following school year. The bulk of the work will be done by Timber Framers Guild, then parents, volunteers, and community members will finish it off.
“What’s really wonderful about this, is that it’s a ramp that will incorporate playful play spaces,” said Power. “The idea is that ramp and wheelchair users will have access up the ramp, and in the back corner there will be a little tree fort and a platform for them to have that tree-house experience, there will be various playful play spaces underneath the ramp as well.”
One thing for certain, the staff at Evergreen are continuously ramping up their efforts to grow, and nurture good humans.
“I really appreciate how students are learning to be kind to each other and discovering who they are as learners and allowing that to guide them,” said Power. “I also appreciate the inner confidence of the students who go on to high school from here. There is something so unique, and beautiful about the graduates from this school.”
