Some days just remind you how lucky we are to be part of this school community. Today a Grade 10 student from SHS came back to spend time with our Grade 7s, and she gave them a real look at what Powerful Learning can look like outside of the classroom.
She didn’t come in to put on a show. She was honest with our students about what it actually takes to be a creator. She walked them through her world — slam poetry, songwriting, singing — and somehow it never felt like a lecture. It felt relevant, like something our kids could picture themselves doing.
A lot of our conversation kept circling back to the jitters: that nervous, stomach-flipping feeling you get right before you do something that matters. She shared the strategies she leans on to stay calm before she performs, and she pushed our Grade 7s to work through their own fears instead of around them.
She even wrote a brand-new poem just for our class. It was about something every one of us has felt — when the voice in your head gets so loud it talks you out of even trying.
So we dug into it together. Going through the poem line by line, students started noticing her word choices and the metaphors underneath them, and they got a feel for how you take a complicated emotion and actually put it into words.
Then she performed it. When she read the piece and played for us, the room went quiet in that good way — you could feel everyone leaning in. It stopped being a lesson and turned into something they’ll remember.
The questions afterward were the best part. Students asked where her ideas come from and what inspires her, and you could watch them connecting her answers back to their own lives and their own work.
That’s the kind of learning that sticks. Our students got to think hard and create, and they got to watch someone not much older than them turn ordinary school skills into a real passion. Our visitor left them with something simple and true: the what-ifs in your head can be loud and scary, but you can always find a way to push past them and share your voice anyway.
