About Our Logo
The art of the Pacific Northwest Coast First Nations Peoples is traditionally used to identify one's history, family, and responsibility within the community. I felt it to be a perfect medium of expression for the Extended Learning Community.
I chose three symbols for this work to represent the personalities, skills, and aspirations of the teachers, students, and families who make up the FNSBSD Extended Learning Program. These symbols, chosen for their importance in cultures throughout the world, are crane, sun, and wolf.
Within this picture, crane is the largest of the entities. Crane transitions between worlds; moving from air, to land, to water, with ease. As ELP teachers, our job must be to assist these young peoples' transitions among their worlds: communities, schools, and families. Some will make the transitions with ease, others make them with great difficulty, but all will need the self-knowledge of crane to succeed.
Sun symbolizes life, growth, and creative power. Each ray of light illuminates the surrounding area giving birth to understanding and sparking creativity. Sun can also be headstrong and impulsive, each of which can add to our strengths as well as take away from them. Sun nestles among the protection of crane's feathers bringing balance and self-knowledge.
Wolf rides the wing of crane. He is the teacher. We are all teachers as well as students, learning and building on one another's strengths. To fluctuate between teacher and student with agility gives us the balance of independence. This is our goal as teachers or students. Intelligence and inspiration are also areas of influence designated by wolf.
These symbols are placed within a circle. The circle symbolizes the connections that bind us all together. We are all dependent upon one another for our strength, understanding and growth.