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The Gordon School

Strategic vision

OUR VISION: a more just and sustainable world

Since 1910, we have sought to instill the true spirit of joyous work into each day of school, to fuel each child’s innate curiosity and idealistic spirit in the belief that mind and heart should be educated with equal care.

Today, at Gordon, we will create the just and sustainable world we want for the future.

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the work

Work on Gordon's strategic vision formally began in November 2018 with an invitation to the entire adult community: parents, faculty, staff, former faculty, and alumni and their parents. 

In the months that followed, a process unfolded that allowed hundreds of voices to engage in a variety of styles: anonymously and in person, in writing and in meetings, online and on paper.

The work was driven by a strength-based, participatory approach known as appreciative inquiry that drew on two basic postulates:

(1) What we look for, we find; and what we pay attention to grows. The more positive and affirmative (solution-seeking) the conversations are, the more positive and productive the follow-through and action will be.

(2) People commit to what they help to create. The more involved people are in planning the changes needed, the more committed they will be in seeing them through to success.

TO THE GORDON COMMUNITY

In 1910, Gordon’s founder Dr. Helen West Cooke opened a school grounded in the belief that the education of a child requires the development of mind, body, heart, and spirit. Almost one hundred and ten years later, that founding purpose still holds true, and the challenges we face as a human family compel us, the heirs of Dr. Cooke’s legacy, to consider how to carry that vision into the future.

As 2018 began, the Gordon School invited the entire community into an inclusive process of dreaming and designing our next chapter. Parents, students, alumni, faculty and staff, and parents of alumni answered the call and, together, built a vision of Gordon’s role in creating a more just and sustainable world. This vision is a declaration of an intention to strengthen and expand the gifts of Gordon and extend them beyond the schoolhouse doors.

We invite you to join us in the joyous work ahead!

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Read about the four guiding principles of Gordon School’s Strategic Vision:

April 2019
The assembled faculty, staff, parents, alumni, and parents of alumni who gathered for the Design, Dream Do! work session.

December 2018
Scenes from the first Design Team meeting.