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Bowen Island school community

March 3, 2023

Steven Klein (2001) Checks In

Julia McCaig Alumni Stories alumni success stories, BC independent school graduates, Bowen Island school community, experiential learning outcomes, former student reflections, IPS alumni update, IPS class of 2001, Steven Klein Island Pacific School

I’m now a Lecturer of Political Theory in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London, where I live with my partner Renee and our two kids Iris and Jacques. I teach and write about democracy in the contemporary world. Recently, (well, in 2019) I was a Berlin Prize Fellow and Daimler Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. And then the grant I just got is an ERC Starting Grant, from the European Research Council, the largest scientific funding body in the world.

Read about Steven American Academy in Berlin’s website and the King’s College London press release about the grant

If you’re curious, here’s the publisher’s website for my book — I think of it as an extended version of my masterworks thesis…it overlaps a lot in time period and geography!

Congratulations to Steven Klein

February 2022

Steven is a Lecturer of Political Theory in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London, where he lives with his partner Renee and their two kids Iris and Jacques. He teaches and writes about democracy in the contemporary world. In 2019, he was a Berlin Prize Fellow and Daimler Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He recently received an ERC Starting Grant, from the European Research Council, the largest scientific funding body in the world.

Read more from the American Academy: https://www.americanacademy.de/person/steven-klein/ and about the grant: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/grant-funding-awarded-to-major-new-research-project

November 30, 2022

Lauren Brzezowski – Alumni Class of ’15

Julia McCaig Alumni Stories alumni success stories, BC independent school legacy, Bowen Island school community, class of 2015 IPS, experiential education outcomes, IPS alumni spotlight, Island Pacific School graduates, Lauren Brzezowski IPS

Hi, my name is Lauren Brzezowski.

I had the privilege of attending Island Pacific School (IPS) from grade 6-9 and graduated in 2015. It was not, however, only a privilege, but a choice my family and I made each day as we drove from Squamish to Horseshoe Bay to catch the morning ferry; I am forever grateful to my parents for supporting me in this adventure as IPS forever changed my approach to education and life.

I completed high school at Brentwood College and I am now finishing my BSN at the University of Victoria. This past year I was awarded the President’s Scholarship and long listed for the Rhodes Scholarship. Now I am an RN preceptor on the Neuroscience unit at Vancouver General Hospital. In my future career endeavors I hope to improve equitable access to health and address social justice issues.

As I reflect back on my life I can attribute these goals and values to projects such as masterworks; to activities such as understanding the lived experience of Vancouver’s downtown eastside residents; and most importantly to the engaged teachers at IPS (and other institutions) who were respectful and attentive to the learning needs of each student.

I have fond memories of the adventurous experiences which are woven into the DNA of IPS. While these experiences are one of a kind and helped foster my self trust, my willingness to be courageous, and developed my fervor for outdoor activities, I do not believe they are what makes IPS such a special place. IPS taught me the importance of community and how to have authentic human connections. From the first time I sat on the concrete and ate lunch with people from all grades I felt welcomed; it was a safe space for me to show up as myself and explore who I was as a person.

Each teacher held space for me to learn who I was and explore what was important to me by framing each learning opportunity within the context of topics in which I was interested.

This sense of community is built into every aspect of IPS from taking the ferry every morning to being a part of morning check to being a mentee and later becoming a mentor. This sense of community is special; it creates a small family which demands you to show up, be honest, respectful, and ultimately lead with integrity because in return you are able to be curious and explore the world through project based and experiential learning.

Now in hindsight I am able to see how this principled yet curiosity based approach to education began to develop my own moral compass.

Thank you IPS!

Lauren Brzezowski

December 2022

January 17, 2020

Natalie Helm (class of ’09) on life since IPS

Julia McCaig Alumni Stories, Community & Culture alumni success stories, BC independent school legacy, Bowen Island school community, experiential education outcomes, IPS class of 2009, Island Pacific School graduates, life after IPS, Natalie Helm IPS alumni

Natalie Helm checked in with us recently to share her experiences over the past 10 years since leaving IPS

On October 27 2016, a metal gong woke me; it was 5:00 a.m. in Kerala, India and we were being summoned to the meditation hall. I rose out of bed, struggling my way into my sports-bra and walked down a moonlit path — I stopped to enjoy a cup of warm water and admired this early morning ritual that existed at the Ashram. In meditation, my mind drifted; I sat cross-legged on the cement floor and thought about the gong — I wondered why I liked it so much. I wondered what piece of this morning ritual made me feel so at ease.

girl on step As I sat down in January 2020 to write a piece for IPS, expressing my experience at the school, I didn’t know where to begin — the only words that continued to ripple through my head were “let’s go, let’s go, let’s rock and roll!” This was the phrase that echoed through the halls of the school at 8:45 a.m. each morning, gathering students, staff and faculty to the MBC room for Morning Stretch. To me, this phrase is the gong of IPS. Once summoned together, we would sit cross legged, sharing two minutes of silence, followed by attendance and a brief stretch; we would then check-in, sometimes about what was going on for ourselves, sometimes about what was going on in the world around us. This process was something each of us honoured together before embarking on each day.

It has been 10 years since I graduated from IPS (that went fast!) and 14 years since I walked into IPS on my very first day. On day one, I remember feeling mad at my parents for believing so strongly in IPS – for making the transition from public to private school a priority for myself and my brother. For this reason, I remember resisting IPS: the teachers, the hike up Garibaldi, the Kayak trip to Anvil Island, the push-ups when we said “like” or “um”. I remember missing my old friends and yearning for a high school experience like “everybody else”. With time,
this resistance shifted into acceptance, and with more time, this acceptance shifted into gratefulness. Looking back now, it is clear to me that frustration and sadness were only a small piece of my feelings in my early days at IPS. Perhaps more importantly, I remember feeling accepted, and celebrated even, for exploring exactly who I was and wanted to be from that very first day.

When I entered IPS, I was a timid 10-year-old girl who followed in the footsteps of her peers. When I left IPS, I was a strong 14-year-old-girl who had summited mountain tops, flown a plane, travelled to Quebec, built a shelter to sleep under with only a tarp and a rope, and become an expert on the Impacts of Divorce on Youth by writing a mini-masters paper. By the end of my four years at the school, I learned how to be courageous, grew to understand the power of wisdom, and believed in the importance of integrity.

In January 2020, I attended a six-day personal development course on Gabriola Island. Each morning, our leaders had us sit cross-legged, sharing two minutes of silence, followed by a brief check-in about ourselves or world events before we embarked on each day. This process, much like gathering for Morning Stretch, was familiar and comforting to me.

Natalie’s IPS days from 2006 – 2009 shown below

I cannot pretend that I know my journey at IPS changed my life for the better. I do not know that I wouldn’t have become a traveler, hiker, camper, crafter, or active learner had I gone to public school. I do not know that I wouldn’t have learned lessons of wisdom, courage and integrity from other people or places along the way. While I cannot prove how my life would have progressed, one way or another, I do know that I look back on my time at IPS with pride, gratefulness, and excitement. I believe that spending my middle years inside the four walls of IPS (okay, we spent a lot of time outside of the four walls too!) shaped me into the human I am today.

Now, at 25 years old, I find myself speaking about IPS often. I feel appreciative for all that the school was and continues to be – beyond what I am able to express here on paper. Most of all, however, I find myself consistently reminded (by waking to Indian gongs, reaching Himalayan summits, or attending workshops on Gabriola Island) that I walked into IPS a shy young girl and left feeling like a courageous woman.

I wish my experience at IPS on anyone who is open to it and even those who are not… ahem, yes, that includes you, 10 year old Natalie… So if this is the sign you are looking for – then let’s go let’s go let’s rock and roll!

Natalie Helm

Do you have an IPS story to share? Send me a note:

Julia McCaig
Director of Community Engagement
[email protected] | 778.989.0771

September 30, 2019

A Parent’s Perspective

Julia McCaig Community & Culture, Leadership & Philosophy BC independent school feedback, Bowen Island school community, experiential learning impact, family perspective on education, IPS parent engagement, Island Pacific School experience, parent testimonials IPS, student growth stories

Volunteering at IPS has given me a window into my sons’ lives that I otherwise would not have been privileged to experience.

Simply learning the names of all of the students was once a challenge, but through consistent volunteering—in and out of the classroom—I was able to learn names, personalities, challenges and passions of all of the students. With this knowledge I have been better able to navigate the ever-changing middle school years with my three boys.

Because of this personal connection to the school, meeting and chatting with parents and staff, contributing to academics and experiences—AND watching, working with, and listening to the students—I feel like a more confident parent to my kids and a co-educator with our amazing teaching and support staff.

As a parent of a Grade 9 student (the last of my 3 guys!!), I can only recommend that future parents get involved in personalized and meaningful ways. It’s helpful, entertaining, thought-provoking and GREATLY appreciated—but most of all IT IS FUN!!!!

Let’s face it… we’d all go to IPS as STUDENTS if we could. Volunteering is the closest us “older students” can get to enrolling!

Rebecca Salmon
Gr 9 parent, alumni parent & uber volunteer parent!

February 22, 2019

Walnuts are the #1 brain food: HEALTHY BRAIN, HEALTHY WORKPLACE, HEALTHY LIFE

Julia McCaig Community & Culture, Leadership & Philosophy BC independent school wellness, Bowen Island school community, brain health education, healthy workplace culture, IPS staff well-being, Island Pacific School initiatives, mental wellness in schools, staff support programs

Friday, February 15th marked the end of a pretty manic week at IPS as we succumbed to winter weather and declared a “Snow Day” on Tuesday and followed that with an incredible Science Fair and Open House on Wednesday. By the time Friday rolled around the IPS teaching ranks were ready to be inspired and energized at the ISABC Professional Development Day at York House School. The opening Keynote was delivered by Terry Small, of The Terry Small Learning Institute, and was entitled HEALTHY BRAIN, HEALTHY WORKPLACE, HEALTHY LIFE: The role of your brain in a healthy workplace. Terry reminded us that brain dysfunction is the #1 reason people fail work, school, and relationships. Our brain is the supercomputer that runs our life and we need to take care of it!

Here are 10 of the many points that Terry raised during his presentation:

We need to get kids standing more – IPS recently ordered two sit to stand desks for each of our classrooms.
New knowledge = new brain growth. Every time we expose ourselves or our students to new knowledge, they are creating new brain networks and neural pathways.
Effort is more important than answer. The students who struggle in any given class are still building their brains. Knowing all the answers is not the answer. Struggle, challenge and failure are so important to brain development.
Pay attention to your brain like you pay attention to the weather. Not everyday will be the same.
Walnuts are the #1 brain food
“Mess” in our lives is what keeps us “alive”
Brains are very elastic – it is never too late to learn!
We need new challenges, hobbies, use it or lose it
Laughter in the classroom is so important
We all need a 20 minute vacation everyday!

Point #3 above linked closely with a lovely email I received from a Parent after the Science Fair Open House. She wrote in part:

“Just speaking personally, my favourite part was how no student seemed to be particularly concerned about whether their hypothesis had worked out or not – they were all completely comfortable talking about how things hadn’t worked out, and almost to a person, sounded keen to get started on another experiment to see if they could make their systems better. This is one of the main reasons we sent our daughter to IPS in the first place – to learn to fail, to learn to accept ‘failure’ as part of learning, and maybe, to learn to embrace these ‘failures’ or at least to look on them without worry or fear of negative judgment.”

IPS prides itself on “engineering” experiences to help students to express the very best of what it means to be human and I am comforted to know that even when they struggle or fail, they are learning so much!

January 10, 2019

Massender Family Join Community Partners Program & IPS

Julia McCaig Community & Culture, Community Partners & Giving BC independent school fundraising, Bowen Island school community, education sponsorship program, family donors in education, IPS Community Partners, Island Pacific School supporters, Massender Family IPS, school-family partnership

Ian and Jill Massender and their daughters Alexis and Kylie are extremely pleased to be joining the IPS family this fall.

They have arrived with a bang, generously supporting our Community Partners Program last month which helped bring our total to just over $9,000, thank you to the Massenders!

Ian is a veteran Fire Captain in Vancouver and while on island, he operates his own real estate business (which began here in 2004). Jill assists with the business, volunteers with school activities, as well as being full time Mom to their twin daughters.

Alexis and Kylie have varied interests, from Frisco (their Giant Schnauzer) to walking, skiing, boating, playing soccer, dance, and time with Bud and Nan Massender (their grand parents) — one busy family!

We look forward to welcoming them to IPS in September 2019.

Julia McCaig

Director of Development and Alumni Relations

[email protected] | 778.989.0771

December 11, 2018

An interview with Scott Herrington, Head of School

Julia McCaig Alumni Stories, Leadership & Philosophy, Teacher Features BC independent school administration, Bowen Island school community, education leadership insights, experiential learning philosophy, head of school interview, IPS strategic vision, Island Pacific School leadership, Scott Herrington IPS

Tim Rhodes has fond memories of his son Buzz’s time at IPS. He feels Buzz benefited enormously from the experiences he had here. He said his one regret is that he wishes they had found IPS sooner!

Enjoy Tim’s interview with Scott.

Check out all of Tim’s local business videos on Rhodes on Bowen.

buzz rhodes & other students — Buzz Rhodes (5th from left)

tim rhodes and students — Tim Rhodes talks to IPS students

Buzz Rhodes — Buzz at Rites of Passage 2007

October 18, 2018

A conversation with Nicole Gibson (2011 alum)

Julia McCaig Alumni Stories, Community & Culture alumni reflections IPS, BC independent school graduates, Bowen Island school community, class of 2011 Island Pacific School, experiential education impact, IPS alumni spotlight, Nicole Gibson IPS, student success stories

1. What inspired you to start songwriting? Who or what first got you involved with songwriting?

Singing and songwriting came hand in hand for me. I started songwriting when I first started taking singing lessons at the age of 8! I remember we had to pick a song to sing for the end of year recital and I decided to write my own because as an 8 year old I found it really hard to relate to the songs that were playing on the radio, so I wrote a song called The Dove. It was about peace. It wasn’t very good but I actually found the lyrics on a cue card again last year, which was fun! From really early on songwriting stemmed from really just expressing myself, my reality and how I felt as a person in a particular moment in my life.

2. How would you describe yourself as a musician?

If someone asks I would just say I play and write music for a pop rock band. I have played in a lot of different genres of music from classical to progressive rock but I would say I feel most at home playing in the more pop rock/indie sphere of music.

3. How long have you been writing music?

I have written music really on and off since I started singing. For most of my early teens I stopped writing songs and just started writing in general. I would pretty much write a short story or poem every single night, it was almost my form of a diary. Then around 16, I started my first original band and that’s when I started writing songs again. Since then I haven’t stopped doing music and have been writing very steadily ever since. It does come in waves, sometimes I will go months without writing, sometimes I will write everyday for a couple weeks!

4. What does your writing mean to you?

My writing to me is really just a feeling or experience. Each song means something different to me but they are always inspired by what’s happening in my life at that moment. Looking back at my older songs now I can always remember exactly where I wrote the song, how I was feeling and what I was trying to say.

5. How would you define ‘success’ regarding a singer/songwriter? Would you define yourself as successful and why? If not, what do you feel you would have to achieve to call yourself successful?

Success to me in general means being happy. But in terms of being a singer/songwriter solely I think having people relate and creating some sort of connection with what I am trying to say in our songs is a big success.

6. What currently inspires you to do this style of music? How would you describe your music? Have you got a target audience for your music?

I would describe our music as pop rock. We definitely did not go into this project with a set sound in mind. Me and my writing partner’s main goals with our first EP was to create something that was really honest to us sound wise and lyric wise and that happened to come out in a pop rock sound! As for a target market I generally think music is very dependent on the person who hears it and that it is hard to nail down a set demographic, but if you were ask me to target an ad I would probably do women between the ages of 18-35.

7. Once you have created and recorded a piece of music, how do you go about distributing it? How do you use the Internet to facilitate this? Do you rely on a fan base / mailing list? Do you do the distribution and marketing yourself or use external sources? If so, who or what?

We release single by single so once we have a single ready to go and have done all the pre-promo for it and filmed a music video we use a music distribution website such as CD Baby to distribute it to all the major streaming platforms (Spotify, Google Play etc.). We do rely on our fan base to push and share the song and social media ads and posts to announce it. YouTube, Facebook and our mailing list are big ones for us. Currently we do all our own marketing and promotion.

8. How important is it to you that you perform live music events/gigs? How often do you perform at such events yourself? How do you decide what performances to play or not to play? How do you use these events to market yourself / increase your audience? How often do you attend live music events (by both signed and unsigned artists) as a consumer not a performer?

It is super important to us to play shows live, that is our favourite part! We generally look at performance opportunities and say will this either — 1. Help us grow our fan base and gain connections or 2. Be fun. Those are pretty much the two deciding factors for us at this point in time. We use these events to get people to convert to fans! We do this by having our set super tight and pushing merchandise, mailing list sign ups and selling tickets to our next concerts in town! As for concerts I wish I went to more music events. I really love live music and the smaller shows are somewhat like a networking opportunity for artists, but I don’t go to nearly as much as I would like to anymore because when I am not working I am working on music so at this point a few times a month.

9. How important is the Internet to your development as a singer/songwriter? What sites do you use regularly for distribution/advertisement? If the internet was not available to you, do you feel this would affect your capabilities in getting your music heard?

The internet has made the music industry a whole different ball game so I am not even sure what we would have done without it! 99% of our strategy thus far has been internet based. Mostly all of our press, meeting our band mates, most of the shows we have booked and a majority of our fan base has come from the internet. The internet allows musicians to be completely DIY. We can now distribute our own music and content and connect with our fans without middlemen, which was not possible before. I feel like the internet has really bred a new type of artist, which has been interesting to see. It’s pretty amazing that you don’t need to be ‘discovered’ anymore to have a fan base or for people to hear your music.

10. You did a presentation for Island Pacific School back in January – how was that in terms of playing to a younger audience?

It was definitely a cool experience and I am so happy we could do it! It was different than what I am used to but it was fun to think back to myself at that age and what would have been helpful for me to have known then.

11. This led to a conversation between Shari Ulrich and myself about you and as a result, you were contacted by Shari to Play in February at a songwriters association of Canada event at the Roundhouse SongBird North. What was that experience like for you? Did you make any connections?

It was a great experience! I am so grateful we got to take part in it, especially since it was one of our first times playing live. We made some great connections and it was an honour to share the stage with Shari and pleasure to play with the other incredible artists at the event.

12. Please leave one tip you think is invaluable for aspiring/beginner singer/songwriters to know.

Everyone has an opinion and at the end of the day your opinion is what matters the most. And also to just keep moving, keep creating and keep working, momentum is everything!

To connect with Nicole Gibson and Chris Kelly visit their website here.

Bowen Island school community

Steven Klein (2001) Checks In