Awareness Walk
Mountain Discovery Charter School believes in ten Design Principles: The Primacy of Self Discovery, The Having of Wonderful Ideas, Responsibility for Learning, Intimacy and Caring, Success and Failure, Collaboration and Competition, Diversity and Inclusion, The Natural World, Solitude and Reflection, and Service and Compassion. Each month one design principle is choosen and focused on. Student discuss and learn what each one is and why it is important. At the end of each month one class decides on a whole school activity to demonstrate what that month's Design Principle means to them.
This month's Design Principle was Diversity and Inclusion, presented by Ms. Brook Stillman's 7th grade. As a class they brainstormed ways to present it to the school. Some ideas included, posters, skits, songs, a personal stories, and an Awareness Walk. As a class they decided on the Awareness Walk because it would have a chance to impact more people than just our school community. While discussing what the Awareness Walk might look like and working out some details, they decided in order to get more people even more involved each class would create a poster to describe what Diversity and Inclusion meant to them as a class and encouraged individuals to make their own small poster to hold while walking.
MDCS met at the administration building in downtown Bryson City and as a whole school they walked the block sharing their posters with passing cars, businesses, and people walking by. The idea is that people start becoming aware that we are all different and all important.