Next week, we will be holding our annual Celebration of Cultural Diversity. Every student from JK to Grade 12 will get the opportunity to travel around the world by travelling around the Main Campus gyms and viewing the various pavilions hosted by high school students. Many of the students have a direct connection to their pavilion (eg: it is their home country or that of their parents) but others just took it upon themselves to learn more about a part of the world that they have never visited.

While I wouldn’t trade my youth in small-town Ontario for anything, it was a pretty homogenous upbringing. In my high school of about 800 kids, there was one Chinese family and one Indian family. I don’t remember any in-class conversations where students talked about their belief in Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam. When I heard the word “culture”, I thought of yogurt (food first!) or people who listened to classical music.

This is why I am so grateful that I have my experience here at Mentor/TEAM and that my kids have also been raised with much more knowledge about the world around them than I was. The Celebration of Cultural Diversity will show how truly international our school is and in many ways, Mentor/TEAM is like Canada. Newcomers are attracted to us for a better (educational) life and the core value of respect allows everyone to be proud of their past while being part of our (present and) future.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College/TEAM School