School Structure

Current School Structure
As a school and ‘family’ organization, Happyland has historically cherished the importance of bringing in the interests, passions, ideals, intellect, knowledge, and experience of it’s directors, teachers, parents, interns, and volunteers. This has resulted in a strong pursuit towards and egalitarian and (relatively) horizontal operating ethos in which positionality and hierarchy are used in the service of betterment of the school community as opposed toserving as barriers to equity and access. Thus, we often use the term, ‘The Happyland Family’.

Evolution of Organizational Structure
As Happyland continues in its pathway, we are excited to share with you that one of our ideals, in building another‘sister’ or partner school requires us to ensure that each of the members of the Happyland Family or staff have anopportunity to continuously grow, to re-invent our ideals, to come back to our core foundation, and to beknowledgeable in all aspects of the school so that each of us can take on multiple, mutual, and shared roles distribute talents, passions, and responsibilities, and ensure that the children are enriched with an education as broad and deep as possible in the domains of peace education, interculturalism, democracy education, and the scope of skills and attributes requisite for them to bring utopia a little closer to fruition – the ideal of the world as a better place! Are we dreamers!? Yes, and the fact that dreams are possible, means that we should have the best of dreams; and hope for, and strive for, the best that we can. Can we achieve this now? Realistically, no. And, that’s why we are planning the next 70 years of Happyland.

Since Yasmyn and Aly took on the roles of Directors in the 2005-2006 school year, they have explored ideas of rotating and moving teachers, switching spaces, centralizing various materials, enriching curriculum exchanges, honing in on best practices, and ‘institutionalizing’ some of our systems and processes to bring out the best in our teachers and students. We are really pleased to share with you the current evolution phase or ‘changes’, which, realizably and simply, are, in how we schedule our teachers to form PODS which, ultimately, strengthens the knowledge base and experience individually and collectively of the teachers; and, for each child, provides the opportunity to learn that they have more than one teacher to ‘rely’ on, that they have more flexibility and choices in the activities they do, and that they have a ‘community of learners’ beyond their ‘core’ classroom unit.

What Does This Mean For Us – During The School Year:
Using PODS – semi-combined classes, and team teaching – in the simplest of terms; for many reasons – curriculum, instruction, child dynamics, teacher dynamics, parent dynamics, portfolio assessments, release time to do planning and documentation, school logistics, building on and around the three ‘pillars’ of Happyland – peace education, interculturalism, and democracy education, bringing in the ideas of Paulo Freire to Happyland, and working towards International Baccalaureate accreditation…. that’s all a mouthful! :>)

Is this all new? No. Part of this evolution has emerged this year with the extra rain, the role of Teacher Stephi in being a release time teacher and integrator of Happyland’s core foundation as a curriculum across all classes, and our natural processes and dynamics of the school. What is new, is that we are using the term ‘PODS’, and we are moving to a more formal integration of the ideas which have been used in multiple programs, from the young to universities, for multiple generations, with some schools using PODS for more than 20 years. What else is new? We are crystallizing what often occurs spontaneously and naturally; and as the therapists in us know, when one begins to ‘name’ ‘label’ or ‘dialogue’ about one’s life, is really when one gets to re-learn one’s life. How refreshing, exciting, and perhaps, even weird – to look at, and celebrate ‘change’ :>)
In reflecting on this set of ideas, we at Happyland are quite excited about a historic part of the school’s ethos -encouraging the children, families and teachers to weave their individual, familial, and cultural narrative into the framework of our classes. Stated another way, we celebrate and encourage people to explore and share as much as possible about the ingredients, which make up their identity.

The goal of this formation is for teachers to explore children dynamics, teacher-child dynamics, social, emotional, and cognitive domains, as well as peer relations. In addition, the patterns allow for children to participate in broader gender, experiential, peer, and scheduling diversity, with the balance of teaching responsibilities shared across the teachers collectively.

As we continue in our journeys of kindergarten readiness, class transitions, and preparation for all of life’s enriching adventures, the unfolding years of evolution promise to be fun-filled leaping points which help us further explore three concepts and one adage central to Peace Education, Interculturalism, and Democracy Building. Recognizing and accepting that the world of adults may shape the world of the child, and vice versa, helps us grapple with such concepts, experience them, and experiment with them – knowing that the process and journey lead to wonderful, enlivening opportunities. The adage, which you may have heard is as follows: “Seek to be nice, not just to be right”

And, the three concepts are outlined as follows:
1. Inviting, enticing and encouraging the notion of inclusion – What are the ways people include and exclude others? Does inclusion sacrifice the pursuit of ‘ego’? Is there a way for inclusionary practices to be celebrated? What can inclusion look like across space, time and place? Does inclusion need to be mediated?

2. Wiping out the use of the word ‘NO’ – How and why does such a simple word carry so much weight? Why is it that when one hears the word ‘no’, one’s defense mechanisms rise? What are other ways to re-direct energy, action, and outcomes? When does no mean yes?

3. Living with multiplicities – How do we move from a ‘simplistic’ one-way analysis to a ‘dualistic’ two-way analysis, to an ideal analysis grounded in ‘multiplicity’? Is it possible to live with and thrive with multiplicities? Can multiple ‘truths’ exist? How can multiple voices, experiences, and expressions relate to pluralism? Can we have multiple thoughts, actions, and reactions to the same content and context?

As we play with these ideas, we are reminded of how important language is as a symbol system. More importantly, we realize that children, and perhaps even adults, may have a sense of symbolic capacity (the ability and absorption of content) and still be grappling with symbolic faculty (the ability to locate and articulate nuanced and precise interpellations of social reality). Accordingly, we pause to reflect on ideas, statements, and meaning making. Thus, we welcome the sharing of any quotes or stories related to these and other concepts as children flourish and blossom.