Sally Thicke is a visionary, change-maker, retired teacher and Principal based on the Sunshine Coast, BC. As an educational innovator, she is credited for having envisioned and created the NEST program (Nature Education for Sustainable Todays and Tomorrows) within School District 46, along with numerous other cutting-edge alternative programs showcased in the district (ACE-IT, NDVR, Phoenix and Horizons). Click on the links below that showcase the alternative programs in SD46 that Sally played a role in creating.
While Sally’s career had incredible depth and breadth in the realm of alternative education programs, I’ve focused in on her passion for sustainability and the creation of NEST from her vision.
NEST is a district-wide nature program that caters to grades Kindergarten to Grade Seven, looking at the BC curriculum through nature’s lens, and allowing children to learn in, with and about the more-than-human world. In 2013, Sally started the program at Davis Bay Elementary – a small community school that’s population had diminished to less than 40 children and was slotted for closure. Using her creative problem-solving mind, Sally began to carefully curate the support needed for a nature-based program for primary students, inspired by Forest and Nature schools she had read about around the world. Seven years into its inception, NEST is thriving. What began as a pilot primary program with 38 students grades K-3, now includes grades 4-7 and has a population of roughly 100 students. There is a continuous wait list for the program and incredible community support for the philosophy behind NEST.
I have always been inspired by Sally’s verve and interviewed her to get a better sense of how her brain works.
Sally, you were such a change maker in your career. What inspired you to continually rethink formal education and create forward thinking educational experiences?
I was inspired by opportunities to grow or develop or fix things, especially when they didn’t seem possible or people have given up. Generally, the first thing that motivated me [to act] began with making a change happen that nobody thought was possible or creating something that everybody wanted but they weren’t sure how to make it happen. A passion developing for human potential. A passion for challenging status quo and the mythology infused in our education system and those whom participate in it, especially those with power – teachers, administration, parents.
You were able to create a number of programs in education that met a wide variety of learners including home learners, marginalized youth, and those with a passion for sustainability and nature-based learning. What were your main motivating factors?
The first motivation was around enjoying the challenge of creating something good and worthwhile when other people would not or could not.
The second motivator had to do with best practice and that it should be happening in schools, that there are ways and methods and curriculum and design that will deeply connect children with their learning and is different than how things have been done but the schools and our students’ classrooms were still bound by keeping things the way they are. There is some belief around what can be done what can’t be done, how it needs to be done, how learning happens. So, my second motivation was to put deep learning (the design and the methodology that will bring deeper learning for kids and have them excited about learning, extending themselves, and having a larger potential) than is often seen in a regular design. I wanted to ensure the right things happen in schools or in learning in the lives of kids while they are with a teacher and in the school system. Much of this best practice is evident in environmental education, outdoor education and learning environments that are not part of the formal school system and so my motivation was to pull all of those right ways for educating kids into the mainstream school system i.e. change the system.
The third motivation is that I deeply believe that when children and adults understand and love our home place, it’s very hard to disregard or harm it. A deeper connection moves people to heal and protect. As a species, we are more able to engage in the thoughtful use of our environment. That, at its fundamental culture, is one of love. As little people grow, they embrace a personal sense of stewardship for our place and this continues into adulthood, rippling out into our larger community and planet. I don’t think that the route of fear that the kids get right now, so much negative fearful rhetoric about the planet, their planet, their place even, is helpful for developing this. As kids, they can only see their immediate world. That is what they engage with.
As they grow in the program [NEST], children have the opportunity to gain knowledge and understanding. At the same time, they develop their connection and love of all the parts of their place. As they mature, they are able to have that expand to the wider community and the wider world. Having students fall in love with their home place and having the potential for that to grow a thoughtful, connected, responsible adult, is and was a major motivator for me.
While many of the programs you created were immediately unanimously celebrated, I am aware that some of your educational changes and ideas were met with a small fringe of resistance. How were you able to stay resilient?
If you have your ideas right in your heart and your mind and they are supported by educational research, it is pretty easy to be resilient. Even easier when there is support in the community and/or you know it is the right thing for your community. It makes it easy to stay excited and to continue on down that path of creation.
What barriers (if any) did you have to overcome toward achieving your goals?
Barriers were culture and context. Choice and change. Systems with people very invested in how things are. Everything becomes personal in education – the political is the personal as the work is so personal- protectionism, and fear become the immediate response. Barriers were seen more as challenges to work through or around. I don’t recall feeling any personal barriers other than not being able to commit my full time to the “innovation”.
What advice do you have for others who would like to foster creativity and innovation in their own teaching and school districts?
Fostering creativity and innovation is about culture. It’s about making the time to establish a culture of risk, establishing, living, modeling a supported culture of risk-taking and supporting people through their individual risk taking.
Do the research on your area of passion. Check that the spark [in you] is not just the last spark, but that there is the fuel around that spark to create a fire. It’s about building the fuel, collecting that fuel and then applying this to the spark and coaxing it into a fire - so that’s doing work behind the scenes to make the right choices [around creation of an idea into a reality].
It’s important to remember that educational innovations are always about the people: the people served, the people that are living their lives as educators.
In your opinion, what is the best way to make change in education happen?
Recognize that any movement toward change in education is political and that anything political in education is personal and therefore there will be a complex mixed stream of reaction. Embrace this, plan for this, discover where and when to move forward quickly, where and when to slow down. Know your allies, gather and work with them, know your resistors and work with or around them. There must be a clear vision, and ability to articulate and actualize this vision, and the people to grow and sustain it. At the risk of over use: Just do it!
Do you see your efforts contributing to social/environmental/cultural health and well-being? If so, how?
Yes, I do.
I wouldn’t have done anything I did in my career if that wasn’t the end game. I think there has been a bit of an opening for educators and schools (in our district anyway) to get over the fence, even by just going through the gate, to learn and explore with students outside. There is an opportunity to get students away from that artificial learning environment and into an experiential environment, knowing that you can experiment and still meet the curriculum requirements. That is the end game for me. Knowing that children have had the opportunity to learn deeply and are growing to become thoughtful citizens of our planet.
Personal Reflections
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to ask these questions of Sally Thicke. She has been a mentor to me for years in my career and yet we’ve never delved into a philosophical conversation as to how she was motivated and/or able to create the changes she did in education. Her positive impact on the education of the students in our school district runs wide and deep. Her work in alternative education has contributed immensely toward creating passion and purpose in youth. The impact the work of an educator is difficult to measure and often can only be done in a qualitative format by the words and thoughts of others shared in a community. Even though Sally is now wrapping up her third year of retirement, her developed programs remain strong and she still has numerous local fans.
During the initial planning phases of NEST, Sally hosted a small gathering of eco-educators to brainstorm ideas around the possibility of a nature program. I was a part of this early conversation and continued to communicate with Sally as she garnered district and community support for the program.
In the end I was hired as one of two initial teachers in this (once) pilot program to assist Sally in the creation, design and implementation of NEST – truly one of the most exciting job opportunities I have ever been given. At the time, I had been at a crossroads in my teaching career and seriously considering leaving the profession altogether. My personal passion and spark were not igniting with the career opportunities I was being offered, and I was looking other options to feel I was contributing meaningful work to this planet.
NEST has become a family affair for me-my oldest child was one of first students in our pilot year and just graduated his final of seven years in the program. My youngest child joined in Kindergarten and is now in grade 4, and my husband joined the teaching team two years ago to take the reins in our intermediate class. The philosophy and foundation that the NEST program has developed are (perhaps no surprise) directly aligned to the educating I want to do as a teacher, and want to provide my own children the opportunity to learn. I feel a deep sense of gratitude to Sally for her vision and creation of this program as it has had profound effects on my own teaching, learning, growing and the teaching, learning, growing of my own children.
As someone who considers myself a fervent supporter of meaningful change in education, I am inspired by Sally’s positivity around her own capacity to make change in public education. I have seen first-hand the incredible amount of work, energy, research and thought-shifting she has had to do to create new programming in a public system, and yet I never saw her tire of the challenges ahead. Instead I witnessed her continue to creatively problem solve, sometimes with an incredibly simple solution, occasionally with an intricate puzzle that unfolded into the most beautiful new idea imaginable. She has a gift for change that I aspire to have.
The impact of her work on my own career aspirations is powerful. I vowed to myself when I became an educator that I would never let myself get so comfortable in a role that I would forget to innovate and create. After seven years in my current position, I am aware that I have settled into some very comfortable routines. I see it as a healthy time to remember to stretch myself and as Sally says, ‘figure out a way to get over the fence’. Already, the CBU Masters program is offering me the opportunity to expand my vision and thoughts around what is possible, and what innovations could come next in our district.
*Written and shared with full permissions from Ms. Sally Thicke herself.
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