The Dragon Academy - Home - In House

Photos from the Winter Concert have been posted here. If there are any photos you would like to add, or video, please email Alex - alex@dragonacademy.org

Notice:

Due to a family emergency, the upcoming Open House of November 14th will be
postponed. The Dragon Academy will post the amended Open House date on
Thursday, November 9th. The Dragon Academy apologizes for any inconvenience
that this may cause.

soundaXis Projects Complete

In the past few months, a group of Dragon students have been working with Nick Osen and Barry Prophet to create projects using environmental sounds and images. These projects can be viewed in person at the MaRs Centre, at 101 College St, as well as on our student page. These projects are available in 3 formats each, AVI, MOV and WMV, and should be viewable on any operating system.

I was still basking in the afterglow of the Dragon forum on uniform and dress code, how socially responsible they were, how much pride they took in their community, when I was broadsided by an incident in which a student granted himself extraordinary artistic license. This raised all kinds of issues and perhaps needs to be set in context.

We were quite excited to have the opportunity of working with sound artist Barry Prophet. The intention was that the students produce pieces which combined found sounds and architectural/structural visuals in a multi-media format which could be stored and transmitted electronically. These pieces are also to form part of the exhibits for the forthcoming soundaXis festival in honour of the Greek-Canadian composer and architect Xenakis. The students have been working on the how-to with Mr. Prophet, and collecting and assembling visuals and audio with Mr. Osen. The work is now nearing completion, with a number of students playing their pieces for their classmates.

A few days ago, I was proudly invited into the Form II class in order to view and listen to the completed project of a 14 year-old boy. A component of the soundtrack quite perfectly replicated the sounds of the physical act of male masturbation, with the gasps and groans recognizably the voice of the boy-artist. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think that fast.

It was clear to me that everybody in the class, except for the boy who seemed to be asleep in the corner, recognized the sound-scape for what it was. It provoked some people to snickering, while others looked embarrassed or humiliated. The boy-artist himself took up a rather challenging stance. Sometime later, after recovering my breath, I took the opportunity to speak with the boy-artist who was no longer in a humorous mood, but articulated quite passionately an underlying moral purpose and social critique justifying the inclusion of the masturbation music, and reminding me that I myself had used the adjective “masturbatory” when critiquing mindless self-soothing activities forwarded by our modern world.

Well, I may not myself have been terribly shocked. I may have grasped the artist’s intent, both avowed and subconscious, and I must confess that in some part of myself I was simply amused. I excused these reactions as mere expressions of the strengths of character that allow me to persist in teaching and guiding high-school students decade after decade, and I’m entering my fourth one. However, a number of young girls, pre-pubescent boys, and frankly other staff were not comfortable with the project itself nor with its public airing. I decided, perhaps rashly, to raise this topic in a Dragon forum. This time not only all the children and all the staff participated, but even former graduates who were working at the school had something to say. The discussion itself was a model of free enquiry and critical attention, marred only by an emotional outburst. The boy-artist mounted the barricades and espoused the artist’s right, nay his duty, to shock and transform his society. The boy-critic cocked the big guns, decisively judging what is or what is not art, and pointedly suggesting that the boy-artist’s motives were not as lofty as he suggested. Various young ladies provided hugs and handkerchiefs.

There were several very important points which were raised, however. Should not the boy-artist have respected the right of his fellow students to abstain from listening to his piece? Might not his teacher have screened it first and issued a warning letter to parents and students about the content? Can we extend the same privileges and freedoms to the underage artist that we extend to the adult, and to art within the school that we extend to art in public places? Does this boy-artist intend to project all of the aspects of himself which his piece suggests? Is he perhaps unwittingly inviting others to invade his privacy? Or, is he forcing them to know things about him which they would rather not? Could someone experience this piece as a kind of sexual harassment? Is it appropriate to submit such work as a classroom assignment? Is it appropriate to submit such work as part of a school-wide project? Ought we to question the effect this might have on the Dragon’s face? Does his community want to be represented by this work?

I am not sure that we have clearly resolved the boundary issues. I certainly want to encourage free expression and exploration, even if it occasionally leads in rather strange directions, or produces uncomfortable results. I find censorship itself a vexed issue, and the innocence of children something to which we often pay saccharine lip service while failing to protect them in all the ways that count. All the same, what on earth was he thinking? What ought the responsible progressive educator to do? Perhaps you have a thought or two.

March break was a much needed and well used time for rest and renewal—the students and staff have all come back to us re-energised and re-focussed for the last stretch of a remarkable year. March break trips to Germany (Form 2) and to England (Form 4) have been reported at great and enthusiastic length, and to our gratification, students lovingly remember and detail their visits to great institutions and historical sites as well as the usual goofy adventures of adolescent travel. Our profoundest thanks to the organizers, the Marions and the Simpson-Hulls who made Germany a thrilling reality, to Ms. Beatty, Mr. Ferraro and Mr. Seegobin, whose heroic efforts pulled the England trip out of a hat, and to the parents who trusted and believed in the educational and social value of these trips. Plans are already underway for next year’s extravaganza, spear-headed by Ms. Sullivan, who is thinking about the riches of Spain, and who will present a first look at our forthcoming Parents’ Night on April 18.

Work on the Dragon project for the SoundaXis festival (take a look at their website at www.soundaxis.ca) continues apace, with students following Mr. Osen in documenting sights and sounds for our own installation pieces, and further work with sound sculptor Barry Prophet in animating their ideas, sounds and sights.

The new term, the more hospitable weather, and the re-opening of sections of the Toronto museums which have been closed during the super-build projects will take us out again into the institutional communities, and we look forward to further exploration of the R.O. M and the A.G.O. particularly, along with the Textile Museum (bugs becoming wallpaper?). Students will find further field trips in the offing, including one to the forthcoming Dragon Tales’ (no affiliation to our school) student production of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The Senior English class was honoured by a visit from Professor John Stape, a renowned Conrad scholar, who came to talk with them about Joseph Conrad’s life and work. Professor Stape, long a friend of the Dragon project, was intrigued and impressed by Dr. Vervaeke’s incorporation of Conrad’s novels into their philosophical and literary studies, and took advantage of a trip which brought him into Toronto from Vancouver to visit the school and talk with us about his life’s work.

Sharon Irving, who curated our quilt project last year, having completed her practicum for her O.I.S.E. teacher’s certificate, will be returning to The Dragon in May to spearhead the costume and set design and creation for our year-end play (Shakespeare’s dark comedy Measure for Measure). We are now editing down the Bard’s text, and assigning roles (on stage and off) to all students. They are talking about setting Lord Angelo’s Viennese regency in a dystopian Brave New World, where the Duke’s agents are spying on all the citizens, both noble and corrupt.

Susan Thompson, Native artist, has begun her work with Dragon students in all forms on her project in Spiritual Journaling. Ms. Thompson, noted for her remarkable and visionary pen and ink drawings, which connect Native and European artistic traditions, will be visiting us along with her grey wolf, Silken, to share her unique perspective on the connection between the life of the imagination and the work of the writer, and to encourage our children to understand the Native way of being in both the physical and the imaginative worlds. All Dragon students will work with Ms. Thompson in school, but she is also offering extracurricular classes. If you are wondering about the experience of blindfold finger painting, or about creating and maintaining an illustrated journal to help you on your path, get in touch with us, and we’ll put you in touch with her.

Working with Ms. Bronwyn Graves, the students continue enthusiastically engaged in work on their first published yearbook, and on launching a Dragon e-zine. From their close association, a political discussion club has been taking place. We are so pleased to see our students engaged in the larger issues of our day, and on that topic, we were very gratified that our own Dr. Berns-McGown, best known to the Dragon community as the mother of Taryn and Gavin, led us in considering the value and direction of education for political awareness at our most recent Parents’ Evening.

The last of the 2005-06 Open Houses will be hosted at The Dragon on TUESDAY, MAY 16, from 6-8 p.m. We will be talking about Discussion Based Teaching (the implementation of the Socratic method growing out of best practices from Harvard and the Rotman School), and rather than lecture you about it, we invite you to experience and participate in it, learning through doing what our students find everyday in their Dragon classes, under the leadership of Dr. Fox, Dr. Vervaeke, and our wonderful staff.

Interest in for-credit summer courses at The Dragon has been gratifying—if you’re wondering, or worrying, about your child’s summer plans, take a look under “Summer” on our website.

On Tuesday, May 16^th, businesses and schools across the country will be celebrating National Denim Day in support of breast cancer research. The Dragon Academy would like to contribute to this important cause by participating in this fundraiser. For a minimum $5 donation, students will receive a pink ribbon and will be able to wear their best ‘denim gear’ for one day only. For more information, please refer to www.curefoundation.com. We thank you in advance for your contributions!

SAVE THE DAY! The Dragon Academy’s annual year-end, full scale production of a play by The Bard will be held at The Robert Gill Theatre on Thursday night, June 22nd. This year we are realizing Measure for Measure, one of the most engaging of his “problem plays”. We will also share our students’ success, give awards, and initiate members into The Order of the Dragon. All friends of The Dragon Academy are more than welcome. Look for further details as they unfold.…

A selection of the photos from the Winter Concert of 2005 are now available on our website.

This fall of our fifth year, The Dragon has engaged in a whirlwind of special projects and museum based excursions.

In September, we set out for Stratford, expecting to see the great William Hutt play Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. We found ourselves one of several school groups booked for a pre-performance interactive workshop, and a few of our students, including Gavin and Robin, got up on stage. We discovered, to our dismay, that Mr. Hutt did not perform at the school matinees, but we swallowed our disappointment, and thoroughly enjoyed being out at an exciting performance.

Our first major integrative study unit was “The Kingdom of Heaven,” examining the complex history of the peoples for whom Jerusalem is a holy city through the lenses of history, geography, sociology and philosophy, as well as music, visual arts and drama. We built this unit around Opera Atelier’s lush production of Lully’s Armide. (Our last project with Opera Atelier was “Transformations”, linking The Dragon with a Toronto- wide festival of transformation and the arts, connecting metamorphosis stories with psychology, chemistry, shifts in the scientific model of the world, and with the students’ own work in drama and art.)

In the words of Marshall Pynkoski, OA’s artistic director, “Armide has an extraordinary resonance for us today as it deals with the conflict between the Christian world (represented by the knight Renauld) and its perception of the Muslim world as the ‘axis of evil’ (represented by the Muslim sorceress, Armide). The action takes place in 1099 just prior to the conquest of Jerusalem during the first Crusade. The drama between Armide and Renauld is explored spiritually, politically and sexually with neither Christian nor Muslim emerging as the clear victor.”

From the perspective of Torquato Tasso, the Italian renaissance poet whose epic, Jerusalem Delivered, is the source of Lully’s story, the holy city needed to be freed from its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants. Armide’s renunciation of her Islamic allegiances because of her love for the Crusader knight Renauld is seen as a happy romantic ending. Examining these beliefs, questioning them, relating them to contemporary geo-political problems, our students approached the opera with a new sense of its import.

This in turn set us investigating the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV, baroque arts, Opera Atelier’s extraordinary project of reviving authentic period performance practices, such key historical concepts as European expansionism, and such psychological topics as personal identity. We took advantage of a set of educational workshops covering elements from fight choreography to costume design with artists of Opera Atelier, where Dragon students shone with insightful questions and informed answers, and displayed their willingness to engage in a variety of activities. Instead of a single field trip to a baffling performance, our students found relevance and challenge, considering propaganda around race, religion, nationalism, in different historical contexts, from the first millennium, through the Renaissance, to our own day.

In October, we began drumming and percussive improvisation with guest artist Dan Morphy. Mr. Morphy is an advanced percussion performance major at the University of Toronto, and has established a collection of Dragon percussion instruments. The sounds of fascinating rhythms are beginning to fill the school. The first public display of the sophistication and mastery of their work will be at our mid-winter concert, December 22^nd from 6 p.m. on, at The Heliconian Club on Hazelton.

Barry Prophet, sound sculptor and composer, has begun to work with our students on a whole school project for the SoundaXis festival (take a look at their website at www.soundaxis.ca). Created to honour the architect and composer Xenakis, this festival will explore the connection between music and the built environment. Our students will work with Mr. Prophet, and with Dragon teachers Ms. Carolina and Mr. Osen, to create a piece which is both visual and aural, to be installed (and viewed during the festival) in our echoing stairwell, using found sounds and images, manipulated electronically. To get some idea of how exciting such work can be, look at Mr. Prophet’s own website www.pomer-prophet.com.

German anatomist Dr. Gunther von Hagens, inventor of “plastination”, a process allowing the preservation of human specimens in order to dramatically display how our bodies work. Dragon students went to see Body Worlds 2, the exhibition of plastinated bodies now on display at the Ontario Science Centre (visit www.OntarioScienceCentre.ca for more information). We used this exhibition to link important thematic questions in visual art with those in science and philosophy, including:

· Is it morally justifiable to use the bodies of people who have willed their remains to science for an exhibit like Body Worlds?

· Ought we to display human remains at all, or, as many museums now do with mummies, ought we to leave them in peace?

· Is it right or responsible of us to expose our children to things which may disturb or upset them?

The study of Commedia dell’Arte, the great Italian tradition in improvised comedy built around stock characters, is an integral part of our drama programme. In November, Dragon students were privileged to attend Pleiades Theatre’s production of Carlo Goldoni’s The Amourous Servant, in which the 18^th century master of the farce transforms Commedia traditions into a surprisingly subtle and astute examination of human nature. John Van Burek directed this English language premiere with verve and insight, and invited Dragon students for a wonderfully intimate and open “talk-back” with his actors, where our students displayed their real knowledge of the form, and asked thought-provoking questions.

Sharon Irving, who curated our quilt project last year, is now enrolled at O.I.S.E., and with two of her colleagues is doing research on progressive education, which has brought her back to The Dragon. Their first presentation, on viable alternatives in high school education, included two Dragon students, Robin (grade 8) and Gavin (grade 9), who spoke eloquently about their experiences here, and impressed even Professor Mary Beattie with their understanding of how they learn, and why they are being taught as they are.

Plans for the January ski trip, under the leadership of Dragon parent Mr. Keri Humber, are underway. Do email him at k.humber@sympatica.ca. And the students are enthusiastically engaged in work on their first published yearbook, and on launching a Dragon e-zine.

There is now an RSS feed for this page. If you are on Apple's Safari RSS, there is a blue button in the menu bar. In Firefox, there is a small radio-type button on the bottom status bar. If you need a hand, feel free to contact Alex.

We are pleased to announce that we have been listed on OurKids.net. We are shown here.

Message boards are now up and running. There are sections for homework and for discussions. Please see the link at the top of the page.

We now have an Announcements Archive, for news not pertaining to the current school year.

Please join us for our production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth on June 16th, 2005 at 7 P.M. From acting to lighting and makeup, all of our students will take part in this performance of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies.

The evening will take place at the Robert Gill Theatre, located at 314 College Street, at the corner of St George St.

In order for The Dragon to be aligned with the Public School calendar, winter vacation has been rescheduled:

Instead of occuring from December 16th, 2005 to January 2nd 2006, it will now occur from December 22nd, 2005 to January 9th, 2006.

On Friday April 29th, nurses from Toronto PUblic Health will be conducting a Meningitis clinic for student in grade 7 and grades 9 through 12. Parents of grade 7s need to complete the consent form sent home with your child's most recent report card and return it to the office. Parents of high school students should review the information package (also included with report cards) with their children and discuss the vaccine. High school students will be signing their own consent form. Grade 8 students are not included in the program this year; for more information about this please call Toronto Public Health at 416.392.7405.

Students who received the first dose of Hepatitis B vaccine in the fall, will also receive their second dose on that day.

On the day of the vaccinations, students should remember to eat a full lunch and wear shirts with short sleeves.

On Thursday April 21st, 7:30 P.M., students will be attending Opera Atelier's production of Dido and Aeneas and Acteon at the Elgin Theatre. Students may stay at the school after classes and travel down with teachers, or they can go home and meet up with everyone at 7:00 P.M. in the foyer of the theatre. Students staying at the school should either bring food for dinner or money to purchase some. The operas will be over by 9:30 P.M. and students can be picked up from the front of the theatre. Tickets for this event are $18 and payment should be sent into the office as soon as possible.

We are delighted to announce that Charitable Status has been granted to the arms-length foundation which we envisaged to promote the vision of The Dragon Academy. Friends of Progressive Education will support research, teacher training and professional development, joint projects with academic, musuem and arts institutions, outreach programs to other progressive schools, fund-raising and galas, and special educational projects such as performances and commissioned works. This wonderful news is due to the creativity, commitment and plain hard work of our Board of Advisors, Daniel Cooper, Gail Lord, Gerry Mabin, David McGown, Rowley Mossop, Dan Rahimi and John Roberts. We would like to especially thank Mr. Cooper who worked so tirelessly on the application process.

Parents and friends who are interested in taking part in these public-minded works are invited to contact us. There will be wonderful things to do.

We are honoured to be nominated for the Da Vinci Award for Creativity and Innovation in Education, to be presented at the Royal Ontario Musuem April 15th, 2005. In nominating the Dragon Academy, Franca Leeson wrote:

"A lot of schools talk about 'integrated curriculum', but this school really delivers. Our son Max (grade 8) is learning about Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism in English class to support his understanding of the books he is reading. He's reading Lysistata in History to support his understanding of the history of ancient Athens. He's written a spreadsheet program calculating the odds for various genetic combinations for science class. The school is small and the faculty really work together so that what he learns in one class is supported by the others, and so that skills learned in that class, in turn, support the others. Moreover, they truly use the Socratic method: the kids sit, not at desks with the teacher hierarchically at the head of the class, but rather around a conference table with all participants, (including the teacher, in a truly peer relationship) discussing the subjects. Questions are invited an encouraged. Our son is a feisty curious guy, and his questioning, exploring, playful attitude was not welcome in the public system. At Dragon they value and encourage it. He comes home from school every day excited by whar he has learned and happy to do his homework."

To view more information about the awards, please go to www.creativityday.ca and look to the right hand side for information on the Leonardo Da Vinci Awards for Creativity and Innovation.

Dr Fox was asked to appear on the TVO program, More to Life, as part of a three-person panel on Arts in Education. She was joined by experts from OISE and The Royal Conservatory of Music. The three panelists had a lively conversation about integrating the arts into the academic curriculum, about Dragon Academy, OISE and Conservatory experiences of using arts as a bonding medium for the school community across grade levels, and about artistic cognition. The program was aired on TVO on Wednesday, February 9th at 1pm.

Throughout the Spring, Dragon Academy students will be making their own quilt under the guidance of our guest artist, Sharon Irving. Students will be studying the history of quilts and the various techniques involved in their production. They will then have a chance to apply that knowledge to make their own squares which will be joined together by Ms. Irving, and some of our nimble-fingered parents, creating a unique heirloom to commemorate this year at The Dragon.

Sharon Irving is a textile and costume historian and educator. She received her BA from the University of Toronto and her MA in the History of the Decorative Arts from Parsons School of design in conjunction with the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institute, in New York. Her Masters thesis: "African-Canadian Quilts of Southern Ontario, 1840-1920", examined traditional craft within the dynamic contexts of decorative arts history, Canadian history and African Diaspora migration. She has lectured and participated in symposiums that cover diverse topics including, North American quilts, European eighteenth-century printed cotton, and contemporary design. She has also taught at The International Academy of Design, Toronto, and Sheridan College, Oakville.

This spring all of the Toronto arts scene has been transformed by the Metamorphosis Festival, created and realized by some of Toronto's leading artists and creators. This is of special interest to us because the study of Ovid's wonderful tales and their dramatic and transformative influence on all literature (as well as visual and performing arts) since in an integral part of our curriculum. Just as Ovid transformed these various myths into extraordinary poems that speak of human nature and its creative and destructive potential, which have changed how we tell stories and how we see ourselves, so the study of these stories, and their many avatars, transforms how our students see themselves and their relationship to the world. The festival too is part of the ongoing transformation of our city itself through the many cultures and many events found here.

The Dragon Academy had a most-thought provoking experience last year when many of our music students attended Opera Atelier's stunning production of Iphigenie en Tauride. The study of baroque performance practices is an excellent fit with our curriculum, particularly when it is as sumptuously and historically presented as the production of Toronto's gem of a company: history, art, music, French, drama, dance, literature, and the whole field of how artistic vision can be realized, all play their parts. We are pleased that the whole school will attend Opera Atelier's forthcoming production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and of Charpentier's Acteon on April 12.

In connection with this event, we were particularly honoured when the company's co-founder, Marshall Pynkoski, came and spent several hours with us on March 2nd. Mr. Pynkoski was able to walk us throgh every aspect of Opera Atelier's work, from the nature of baroque opera and dance, to the inspiration and vision of the company's founders and collaborators. It was a truly inspiring opportunity for our students to begin to discover how a driving vision can be made into a suistainable reality, and how a pair of young dancers with an esoteric interest can come to have a world wide impact on contemporary performance. We will be working further with the artists of Opera Atelier in the year to come, and participating in intensive workshops in everything from fencing to wig-making under the generous aegis of the company.

To compliment our current unit "Parsing Good and Evil", The Dragon Academy will be attending the Canadian Opera Company's performance of Siegfried by Richard Wagner on February 8th, 2005. Due to the length of the the opera, which runs from 6:30 - 11:30pm, school will start later than unusal on February 9th. The school will open at 12:15 on that day and third period will begin at 1pm. Additional tickets for the performance are available to the families of Dragon students. If you are interested in attending this performance, please let us know as soon as possible.

To prepare for this performance, students will be attending a workshop with the Canadian Opera Company on February 2nd, from 2 - 5pm. The students will work with the COC's education department, singers, orchestra members and the assistant director to examine all of the components of Siegfried. The conflict between Wagner's politics and his musical genius provide fertile ground for the exploration of the most important ideas.

It appears that there was some confusion regarding our date of return to school. While the date of January 4th was announced at our Mid-Winter Concert and was also communicated via mass e-mail, it appears that the date was not adjusted on the web-page and that furthermore, not everyone received their e-mails.

The rest of the School Calendar has been double-checked and verified as correct. Moreover, all further changes will be communicated by a dual system. We will continue to use e-mail; please ensure that Ms. McGown has your up-to-date e-mail. We will also sent written notices via the students if standard post is not viable. Time sensitive issues will be communicated by telephone. Any further changes to the Calendar will be noted on the web and will have a corresponding announcement both here and in the In House section.

Hello, All:

Please note that we've updated the Calendar page to reflect the P.D. day next Tuesday. We are having an all-day staff conference and briefing on student files. We want to go over them individually and make sure that the faculty are fully briefed and up to date on all of our students' circumstances and needs.

Dear Parents and Students

Welcome to an exciting new school year! We have so much that we would like to celebrate as a community, in this our fourth year: our beautiful, airy, spacious new home in the Alexander MacDonald house, our remarkable staff, our integrated curriculum, our best student body ever, our plans for special events, school trips and projects.

We can’t think of a better way than to plan a house-warming for all staff, students, parents and friends in our new premises at 35 Prince Arthur Avenue. Please climb the stairs to the second floor on Monday night, October 25, at 6 p.m. and participate in our first community event of the new school year.

You will have an opportunity to meet new members of our staff, known to the students from their guest appearances, Mr. Seth Seegobin (Botanist, math and senior sciences), and Ms. Claudia Carolina (music and dance), Ms. Katie McGown (administrative deity), and to reconnect with our visionary core staff, Mr. Leonardo Ferraro (Vice Principal, junior sciences and physical education), Dr. John Vervaeke (Academic Chair, philosophy, English and history), Ms. Ana Ferraro (creator of our graphic designs, visual arts and math), Mr. Nicholas Osen (resident Egyptologist, geography, history, English), and myself (Principal and Founder, Drama, French, English). Dr, Vervaeke, Mr. Ferraro and I will present an overview of The Dragon’s philosophy, its basis in research, and our integrated curriculum, along with news of what our extraordinary graduates have been accomplishing.

We’ll tour the building, which we and the students have so happily been setting to rights since our move on September 2nd. As you know, the sale of 15 Prince Arthur gave us the not entirely welcome impetus to relocate, and through the kinds of mysterious connections that serendipity brings, space was suddenly available in a building, both historic and ingeniously renovated by the Wolf Advertising Agency, that we had been eying with envy since before the school opened its doors. Dragon banners will soon be flying from its turrets and crenellations. Though we were sorry to have to leave our first home behind, there is no doubt that our new space is better suited to us, roomier, brighter, and completely functional and up to date.

This evening will also be an opportunity to meet the students and their parents. Our school population has stabilized at the same numbers as last year, but we have a stronger group of students who are all a good fit with The Dragon’s philosophy and Socratic methods. Recognising that we had reached a turning point in the school’s development, we have made some tough decisions, turning away prospective and previously enrolled students whose behaviour, academic interest, and social responsibility were not at the level The Dragon requires.

The Dragon is a special and experimental school. The right student will be kind, collaborative, engaged in learning, and willing to form a profound attachment to the teachers and the school community. That we have made the right choice is evident at every turn, from the students who take time at break to order the books on the library shelves, to the strong out of school friendships which have been fostered and maintained. It has become a daily occurrence for one student or another to confide in me the pleasure he or she takes in the classes, and classmates. The staff is unanimous in finding this year’s constellation works together productively, happily, and co-operatively. There is a degree of trust and affection between staff and students which I have never experienced in any other school, and I’ve been teaching for 27 years. And the stability of our enrolment gives us confidence for the future, for a controlled and fruitful growth, realizing our vision of creative innovation, of academic and moral excellence.

We want to welcome your contribution to the school. You can certainly be of help on the 25th by bringing food or drink, helping in the set up and break down of the event, and by letting us know if you have any particular questions or proposals you would like to see raised. Rona Abramovitch (Jake’s mum), chair of the Dragon Parents’ Guild, will be contacting you by email to invite your active participation in this dynamic force in our community.

We appreciate your patience as we struggle with the joys of moving, from locating carefully packed texts and getting out our paperwork to fighting to upload our beautifully revised website. We look forward to seeing you here and sharing the excitement of our best year ever.

Yours truly,

Meg Fox, Ph.D.
Principal

I just want to thank you all for your patience regarding our website. While the details would be tedious to relate, suffice to say that if I had hair, I would have torn it all out by now. After dealing with a host of technical issues, here we are. The message boards will be up soon (I simply could not do anything with them until we secured our new host and dealt with the migration issues). Our e-mail is restored. Any questions or comments, you know how to reach me.