While a week off for reading week was a much-appreciated break for recharging, it was also nice to get back into the class to keep things moving along to the end of this semester.

Our guest speaker this past week was Simone Littledale, Principal of the Vancouver Island School of Innovation and Inquiry (VISII). This was our first in-person guest speaker, and I didn’t realize how much I had longed for in-person guest speaker until it was the reality.

Although we did not receive any unsolicited bird facts, we did receive an informative and passionate talk about Simone’s process of starting the school, the mission of the school, and the inquiry approach that is paramount to the philosophy of VISII, an inquiry school for middle school-aged students. Especially given that my inquiry project is on the inquiry process, it was reaffirming to know that inquiry is gaining enough traction that independent schools based on the inquiry approach can begin to survive.

I felt a lot of admiration for Simone as she talked about the struggles with funding and licensing, and I appreciate her fortitude in making this type of school a reality. I can almost empathize with Simone’s process of starting a school with my own project in Japan, Education Beyond English (webpage no longer exists). But I wasn’t creating an alternative to day school; I was offering a supplement to regular school, and I can’t imagine how much red tape there must be for VISII to exist. Kudos to Simone, and I hope to visit VISII at some point in the near future.