The Big Brain Collective

The Big Brain Collective
Posted on 01/25/2022
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Leadership 30 is an opportunity for the students to culminate all of their learning from previous leadership classes into an opportunity to make a difference and be a change agent in the world.  The class is designed to be student led and directed while they determine a project that allows them to problem solve and use communication and relationship skills to, ultimately, bring about change. Covid has brought some challenges and some new opportunities to consider, through lack of in person connection in the school community which FFCA prides itself on.  My leadership 30 class this semester decided to undertake the task of bringing some positivity and joy to the school.  Please read their post below about the process.-Taira Anten

Our Leadership 30 class, or as we call ourselves, The Big Brain Collective, set out to create our final projects, projects that would not only affect our marks but our entire school. This project could either go down as just a simple leadership assignment: forgotten immediately after being executed with no real impact being made. Or, it could create a legacy and initiate something new. As grade twelves, we had an interesting perspective that the other grades don’t have - we experienced high school before the pandemic, and before the school split.

As we discussed, we knew what we missed about grades nine and ten. We missed link crew, school dances, field trips, and being able to comfortably be around our classmates.

We missed the school community as a whole.

With this in mind, we knew that our main goal had to revolve around rebuilding this sense of community, working around the restrictions that the pandemic had forced us to put up with. We wanted to reignite the spark that students had before. So, we came up with the idea of WinterFest, which would take place over two weeks (the last week before winter break and the first week back to school). WinterFest was similar to Spirit Week, except based around the holidays.

Our activities for WinterFest included Candy Grams, Dodgeball, Anything but a Backpack Day, Pajama Day, Lunchtime Movies, and a video presentation to sum it all up! Each of these activities had a very specific impact that none of us could have predicted. Candy Grams brought positivity among everyone. It served as a boost of confidence and self-esteem, as students showed their appreciation for one another and the staff through buying Candy grams. With the semester ending so quickly, and with final assessments fogging up the minds of the student body, dodgeball was a fantastic way to unwind. It brought different grades together since intergrade communication had greatly decreased since the start of the pandemic. The divide had seemed to diminish as the games went on, one being between the grade nines and tens, and the other between the grade elevens and twelves. The movies, which took place before the winter break, brought in the joy of the holidays. We all had the opportunity to get into the winter spirit as a school community, which was a memorable experience. Anything but a Backpack Day and Pajama Day enhanced student creativity and self-expression. Coming together as individuals somehow brought everyone together as a group, as being able to celebrate each other's styles and ideas inspired everyone to branch out. The activities helped students bond with each other and interact with those who they may not know well.

After hearing about the devastating loss of an FFCA student due to cancer, the entire school was deeply affected and in grief. The class wanted to highlight their support as a community and honour this student. So, we decided that all proceeds from our Candy Gram sales would go to Kids with Cancer Society. One of the greatest achievements we had with this WinterFest was raising 680 dollars from Candy grams and parent donations. This not only reaffirmed FFCA’s identity as a character school but exemplified the commonalities within the student body: our generosity, empathy, and integrity are our strengths.

Our video, which can be found on the NHS School Talk page on edsby, summarized all of these events in a scrapbook theme. We hope that people go back to this video slideshow, like they would a photo album, reminiscing about the joyful moments they had. Except this time, with excitement for the FFCA student community’s future, rather than sentimentality for the past. Our WinterFest served as a gateway for students to see the potential in the future of this community. Our display of togetherness and compassion gives students the confidence and motivation to work towards rebuilding a sense of community. We as a class were honoured to be able to leave our mark by fostering unity and giving back to the school.

Sincerely,

The Big Brain Collective

Students Pictured:

  • Abhijeet Dhaliwal
  • Aniqa Virk
  • Chloe Chiu
  • Gurmann Basran
  • Jasmine Lam
  • Jenna Jivraj
  • Maxim Klyukanov
  • Qasim Chaudhary
  • Ravdeep Chahal
  • Riya Minhas
  • Ronil Kumar
  • Samantha Wilson
  • Saaqib Fagbenro
  • Shahzaib Kamran
  • Vani Patel
 

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