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It had taken them literally centuries of experience for them to learn these routes. In order for them not to have to relearn from generation to generation they built Inukshuk guideposts; as permanent maps to show the way for the next traveler across the shapeless terrain of the north. Some of these Inukshuks are estimated to be over four thousand years old. (Dr. W. E. Taylor, Chief Archaeologist, National Museum of Canada.) There they stood in all their grand magnificence, yet the new explorers could only see strange piles of worthless rock. In a sense these explorers were incompetent. They had not been taught how to observe their surrounding environment. To be fair they did not have a community of experience from which to draw such knowledge. They were new travelers in a new land; not unlike our children who are new travelers in todays new global village. It is the duty of the village to increase the travelling competence of our children, giving them the ability not just to look and see, but to perceive and to understand. They need the skills to navigate their way to success through a world of complex and multiple choices.

The Village Academy logo represents the formation of a literacy community that is prepared to show the way to a new generation. Our society requires the mastery of Academic skills and the mastery of Academic skills requires a literacy community. In the brain to mind transition that occurs in all children, they need guideposts that are based in our time and place in history; that are based on our experience as parents. The Village Academy programs are based on developing two mindsets; an academic mind and an entrepreneurial mind. We are an Inukshuks that will develop students of enterprise who will become firstly, independent life long learners and secondly entrepreneurial citizens. They must not only learn the skills and competencies that will allow them to be employed in a competitive job-marketplace, they must also learn the attitudes and develop the inner confidence that will allow them to aspire to and then become entrepreneurial employers. Our students of enterprise will not only enter the marketplace they will be equipped to expand the marketplace.

The method by which we accomplish this is through a series of programs. One program is our own thematic based educational model which has an ever increasing age appropriate choice of student projects. The projects that our children do in class are to be perceived as small enterprises. Within each project they are practicing and learning the skills and attitudes that will afford them success both in their student career and in their adult careers. That is why we call the school, the Village Academy for Student Enterprise. Students of enterprise must develop the skill sets and attitudes of independent learning and entrepreneurial methods if they are to successfully compete in the free society that has been built for them by the past generation. In order to ensure that our method works we measure all of our programs. However, we measure the literacy level of each child twice a year in order to ensure that our method is working for each individual child. This also gives transparency to our program, allowing you to continually monitor the academic progress of your child.

The success of the Academy will ultimately be determined by the success of it's students and its ability to read the signs of our times. Surely we do not have to relearn everything new as if past generations never existed. Is it not our duty as parents to pass on to our children the wisdom, the skills and the knowledge which we have learned? Is it not our role as a school to be an Inuksuk to the minds of our children showing them the way towards lives of great meaning? Is it not our responsibility to be an Inuksuk that shows them how to contribute strongly and confidently in the world of this a new millennium, to be an Inuksuk that will allow all of our children to dream dreams that can be realized through the application of the skills, the understandings and most importantly the attitudes learned during their years with the Academy.