Jun. 20, 2018
During the month of March, students at Stanley Jones School embarked on an artistic endeavor to visually represent what their school means to them. Members of our student advisory council, parent community and teachers came together last November to envision a mural that would celebrate the wonderful diversity in our building, visually express our strong sense of community and to recognize the 45 years the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) program has been at the school.
Stanley Jones School has had the distinct privilege of working with three different programs from kindergarten to Grade 9: the community program of Stanley Jones School, the auditory/oral Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) program and the all girls’ program under the name of Alice Jamieson Girls’ Academy.
With funding support from our School Advisory Council we commissioned artist in residence Stan Phelps to help us bring our mural to life. Students K-6 worked with Stan on art outcomes related to portraits and landscapes to provide inspiration for the mural and to include key words that students believed represented our school best. These are depicted in words and sign language on the mural. Our Grade 5 and 6 students from Stanley Jones, the DHH and Alice Jamieson programs as well as art students from Grades 7-9 then drew on student inspirations to bring forth the masterpiece you see in the photograph.
Mustaan and his classmates from the DHH Grade 5 and 6 class captured the essence of what the mural means to our school:
Our Grade 5 and 6 DHH students were happy that we got to help plan, and paint, the mural. We all enjoyed participating in this project! It was fun painting the mural and learning about the steps involved in painting the different layers and details.
We appreciated that the mural shows our school’s history and included memories of our DHH program, which has been here for almost 45 years. Our DHH students felt respected because the mural includes depictions of our DHH students. Our school has students and staff that come from many different cultures. We are happy that we can see this in the mural too.
When new students and adults come to our school, they will feel welcomed because they will see that they will make new friends. They will feel like they belong in our school community.
