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Opening of Term January 2022


First and foremost, I hope that you and your family have had a wonderful winter break.
 
We finished the end of last term impressively with a delicious Christmas dinner and a magical candlelit carol service – and with the proud and remarkable record of no student COVID cases on campus over four terms.
 
And then Omicron entered the picture.
 
The next month may well be one of the more challenging periods of the pandemic.
Our team here at Shawnigan has responded to the speed and intensity of its spread and a series of Public Health Orders. In these challenging times, with the need for important and swift decision-making, we know that not everyone will agree with BC’s or the School’s approach at times but we will continue to try to make the best decisions in uncertain territory for our boarding school context – with community members’ wellbeing at the heart of our decision making.
 
Thank you, as our students, for your patience, understanding and trust. This has been a time of unsettling news, a delayed start, rearranged travel and plans, hotel quarantine, testing, cancelled tournaments and different protocols on campus.
 
I am extremely proud and grateful for the staff team members who stepped forward over the break – sacrificing their own family time – to ensure we had the best plan for Shawnigan – and for you.
 
Welcome back – and a very special Shawnigan welcome to our three new students: Anna, Jake and Victor – and new members of staff, Mr. De Geyter and Ms Schmidt.
 
We also have two new members born into our community – Matilda Wren MacDonald (on 26th December) and Jordan Lily Venables (on 3rd January).
 
I have drawn great strength from news coming in of your achievements – university offers, scholarships, and adventures. And Ava F. take a bow….
 
 
Ava was selected as one of 30 Canadian athletes selected in RBC’s Training Ground out of 4500 entrants – evaluated on speed, power and endurance – for her potential to, one day, represent Team Canada. A first for Shawnigan, a reflection of our outstanding rugby program, and a remarkable individual achievement.
 
In the weeks ahead – as we yet again adapt in order to see out the Omicron spike – we need to look for these moments.
 
 
I felt quite inspired over the break when I read all the tributes across the world for South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu – known affectionately “The Arch,” much as we call our Rev “The Rev.”
 
He was one of the world’s leading human rights activists, a non-violent opponent to Apartheid, the conscience of his country, the voice of the voiceless, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
 
He displayed both a moral and a physical courage. His unwavering optimism against great odds and his boundless faith in humanity inspired many. His self-chosen epitaph reads: “He laughed, he cried and he loved.”
 
A man with a delightful sense of mischief, an outrageous and disarming sense of humour and an infectious laugh.
 
 
There are many here with Southern African backgrounds – both staff, students and parents – and this passing of a lion heart resonates in our Shawnigan community.
 
 
I taught at the school in Swaziland, now Eswatini, where Desmond and Leah Tutu chose to send their children – 10 kilometres across the border from Apartheid South Africa and where their children could receive a multi-cultural education. An educational phoenix from the ashes of apartheid.
 
At the outset of the pandemic, I walked into Shawnigan’s English Department and found that a teacher had put a Tutu quote for all to see on the whiteboard at the top of the steps. It read;
 
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”
 
As we step into January and a new term, this message strikes me as particularly important. We are stepping into the light. The Omicron variant will thwart us for a while. We will have Omicron on campus but I hope and know that we will take it in our stride.
 
If you know little of Desmond Tutu, I challenge you to be curious and explore about this global giant. His partnership with Canada was deeply appreciated – in particular, his efforts to support our country’s ongoing journey of truth and reconciliation with indigenous peoples.
 
Listen to the wisdom of this:
 
“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river.
We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”
 
From the indigenous context of Canada to health and wellness programming at Shawnigan, we need to listen to this advice – and go upstream.
 
As ever, you are probably thinking the Head is off on a red herring, a tangent…
 
If you remember one thing from this address, I would love it to be my introduction of you to the Zulu word Ubuntu (pronounced “oo-bun-tooo”). Tutu defined it as:
 
“Ubuntu [...] speaks of the very essence of being human. [We] say [...] "Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu." Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours." We belong in a bundle of life. We say, "A person is a person through other persons."
 
In essence, I am because you are, because we are. You can't be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships.
 
Tutu believed in Ubuntu. He believed in humour, humility and humanity.
 
 
I venture to say that South African Mrs. Grass is the embodiment of “Ubuntu” on our campus. Someone I look up to and I know that generations of Shawnigan students have drawn inspiration from her modest “Ubuntu.” The Rev guides us, in every message, to believe in humanity. And we have many members of staff who act in word and deed in the spirit of Ubuntu.
 
In the days and weeks ahead, we need to draw on Shawnigan’s distinctive sense of Ubuntu: we are defined by each other and our relationships. We are going to need – both individually and collectively – to be generous, friendly, caring and compassionate.
 
This is going to be a challenging period and views in our parental community may be even more divergent than before as we seek to respond to imperfect information – and to the best of our ability. Having spoken last week to boarding school heads in other provinces, I feel very fortunate that we live in a province where keeping the schools open remains a high priority.
 
At Shawnigan, empathy and kindness will be critical to our success.
 
We are all disappointed that Ski Week and its magic have been put off to next year but (I suspect) we all, deep down, know that it is a bridge too far at the moment. We need to draw on the spirit of Tutu’s boundless optimism.
 
And we have lots of exciting plans ahead of us – from Lunar New Year celebration to winter sports, from Mount Washington to Wild Play, from wilderness adventures to House outings, and more than anything I dream, after those Facebook photos of Lonsdale’s in December, of us having an inter-House curling competition! Our two co-Heads of School, MacKinley and Dom – along with the prefects – are planning lots of surprises, fun and mischief.
 
We will find the joy!
 
You need to be mature, responsible and vigilant to ensure that we don’t end up with an outbreak that disrupts our ability to keep campus up and running.
 
And you each need to fight the magnetic pull of touching the nose of Percy Lake for good luck. Students and alumni find the lure of this super spreader irresistible!
 
 
If we get our approach right, we can look forward to a wonderful time between now and the end of the academic year and to giving our Grade 12s an unforgettable final chapter at Shawnigan.
 
As ever, we will take everything in our stride.
 
And – after all – it is the Year of the Tiger – perhaps it’s the year of the “black and gold” tiger.
 


Character is destiny.
 
Good luck with the term ahead.
 
Richard D A Lamont
Head of School
January 2022
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We acknowledge with respect the Coast Salish Peoples on whose traditional lands and waterways we live, learn and play. We are grateful for the opportunity to share in this beautiful region, and we aspire to healthy and respectful relationships with those who have lived on and cared for these lands for millennia.