Ground control to Major Tom…Ground control to Major Tom…

Hopefully by now, as a reader, you have started to hum the 1969 pop hit, “Space Oddity” by David Bowie and if you really enjoyed that genre and type of music you are well into the second verse in your mind by now…

This is the song that as entire staff community, we were blessed to have been sung to by, quite possibly, the most famous Canadian of our time: Colonel Chris Hadfield, at the Federation of Independent Schools Association (FISA) Conference in early February.

Inspired 

While many school families were enjoying the extended Family Day weekend, our staff attended a two day conference at the Vancouver Convention Centre (a treat unto itself) with 5,100 other Independent school faculty to hear from leaders in education and be inspired by people like Chris Hadfield. From everything that I could tell, the staff came away inspired and appreciative of the conference. But the highlight was definitely Chris Hadfield—he stole the show!

We spent the better part of two days:

  • listening and engaging in debates about the future of education
  • arguing with other educators on the most efficient way to enable new types of learning
  • hearing from experts about multiple ideas on what the future may or may not look like and what effects this would have on education
  • celebrating with other organizations some of our graduates and the impact that they are having in this world
  • selling and pitching our own brand of Christian education by displaying a Project Based Learning (PBL) Residency booth at the conference

But when Chris Hadfield took out his guitar and started to sing “Ground Control to Major Tom”, and shared with us the experiences of needing to play the guitar when he would witness the beauty of the galaxy at his fingertips, all of us took a collective breath and became inspired at a whole new level.

Glimpses of His Handiwork

At that moment, we realized that the Lord was giving us a gift: a gift of appreciating what excellence could look like, a gift of witnessing a transcendence of art and science coming together in beautiful harmony, a gift of realizing that the work that educators of all walks of life and faiths could realize and appreciate together—that we are seeking to reach new heights, explore new worlds, and be the front runners in Shaping God’s World. 

In our context, we believe it starts and ends with a creator, God who designed a universe so amazing, so incredible, and so intricate. And every now and then, we humans get to experience a few tangible glimpses of His handiwork. The FISA conference was one of these for our staff…ask them about it—I’m sure they’d love to share.

…Commencing countdown,
engines on
Check ignition
and may God’s love be with you…