Hi everyone,
Higher Ground Education will mark its eighth anniversary tomorrow, on March 2nd, 2024.
Yesterday, I attended a Celebration of Knowledge parent event put on by Guidepost Montessori at Brushy Creek, where my son Hugo, who is eight years old, attends the elementary program.
I’ve been reflecting on both the eight-year old organization and the eight-year old boy. Hugo was born mere months before we launched Higher Ground, and he’s attended Guidepost since he was three months old. The boy and the organization have grown up together over eight years.
Many people today look at Higher Ground (and Guidepost Montessori) as an established organization, as mature. But I see the organization, like the boy, as still early in development. A fast-maturing child, already full of so many real achievements, external and internal, but still brimming with promise and potential—still a child with its life mostly ahead.
It’s hard to have this perspective on our organization. That, at eight years old, we are still young, still at the beginning, just coming into ourselves. We’ve accomplished so much, learned so much, and lived so much. It’s easy to forget that, relative to the scope of our ambition, we are just beginning.
But that is the perspective I have today. Life is always both being and becoming, but especially in our youth. And when looking backwards at how much we’ve achieved, it is also important to see that we are young, and recognize how much remains ahead.
Attending the Guidepost Celebration of Knowledge highlighted that for me. Children were sharing their wisdom, teaching their parents, displaying the beautiful products of the thought and labor of their self-creation. In Hugo and every child, I was seeing the courage to try something new, the will to persist, the adaptation in response to real insights, and the joy and pride of successful understanding and achievement—as well as the promise of tomorrow fully realized in the living of today.
And that is exactly what I feel at this organization.
Happy Friday, and happy eighth anniversary to us!
Ray Girn
Founder and CEO, Higher Ground Education
Dear Ray, Thank you for sharing and congratulations. It brings back my own memories as well since our Whole School Leadership Institute began 8 years ago too, and you and I shared our starting up several times back then. Our non-profit status is now 5 years on March 18. Yes we are just beginning and yet have both been on quite a journey of contribution to Montessori in the world.
Happy Anniversary to you and Higher Ground! I love the perspective you shared and couldn’t agree more!