Thursday, July 2, 2009
Minneapolis Southwest High School Mission Statement
"Southwest High School is committed to promoting academic excellence, creativity, critical thinking, lifetime learning skills, and physical well being for all students in a safe learning environment. Southwest recognizes cultural diversity and global interdependence and nurtures a respect of the environment. Southwest functions in a collaborative relationship of staff, students, parents, administrators, and community members."
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I've got to admit that I think mission statements are overrated, yet I've spent more than my fair share of time hashing over every single word that goes into these things. My two cents (as a community member and past student, and potentially future parent): do you think it's too safe? It does talk about critical thinking, I know, but I'd like to think that a good educational experience will push students out of their comfort zone from time to time. I'm not sure how to address that in a mission statement, though.
ReplyDeleteAnd cultural diversity is addressed; what about economic diversity? Of course in an ideal world (well, my ideal world) there wouldn't be as much economic diversity, or at least not as much poverty, but I wonder if it would be at all useful to acknowledge that students and their families come from all different cultural, ethnic, and economic backgrounds, but all are part of the community.
Finally, I might be in the minority on this one, but I don't know that the school needs to be worried about promoting physical well being of its students. I guess I'm not sure exactly what that means. Keeping them safe while in school, yes, but I don't know that out of school falls within mission goals. And if this means keeping kids active and healthy, well, that's great, but I'm old-school and don't put that on the same level of importance (as a function of school) as academic excellence or lifetime learning skills.