As I was printing out our mission statement to read at our
upcoming Board planning retreat I thought to myself, “After 10 years, I really
should have this memorized. Perhaps if I
don’t have it memorized it’s too long.”
After all, whenever I read articles about fundraising or marketing, they
talk about being able to get across your organization’s mission quickly and
succinctly. But I love our mission
statement. Every word of it was
thoughtfully crafted, and represents a vital component of what we strive to
be.
What we do here at CFMS is modeled around being
intentional. Nothing here is done
without a purpose, from how children use classroom materials to how we speak to
one another. And in order to be so
purposeful and intentional, we need to slow down. The way a teacher moves a material when
giving a primary child a lesson is slow and deliberate, so the child can absorb
what she is doing. The way adults move
through the classrooms and atrium is unhurried so that the children see how to
walk around mats and move without disturbing classmates engrossed in work. We do not rush children through one work so
that they can move on to the next; we allow them the time and space to work
with a material and a concept as much as they need or want. The words a teacher uses during lessons are
carefully chosen to offer the child the richness of our language yet
communicate precisely what the child needs to grasp the lesson’s concepts.
So too, the words of our mission statement were carefully
chosen. Though it may be a little
lengthy for this era where communications are reduced to 140 characters and
words are not even written out (LOL), I am confident that we would lose something if we were to
reduce who we are to some pithy, Twitter-esque, buzz phrase. Just as we ask our students to walk, not run,
we can slow down and embrace the richness of our mission statement, giving
thanks for all it represents.
"Christian
Family Montessori
School is a diverse
community of parents, children, and staff working together to provide an
affordable Montessori school where children will be prepared to meet the
academic, social, and moral challenges ahead of them, and grow in a loving
relationship with God through the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd."
----Wendy
