About
Culture is one of the most powerfully formative forces in our lives. We spend our whole lives immersed in culture. From it, we learn communication, spoken and otherwise; we learn acceptable behaviors, and how to act in various situations; we learn morals and values that help shape and enrich our lives as inherently social beings. Through all of these things, we learn community, compassion, friendship, human connection, and ultimately, love. But how much of our educational system serves as inspiration to fully express our passions and values on a daily basis?
At Got Core Values℠, we’re bringing positive cultures to a place children spend a tremendous amount of critical, formative time: their schools. It’s been proven time and time again that happier people do better work. We know that happier children do better in school, create healthier relationships, and thrive once they enter the working world, which leads to a healthier, more innovative, and inspired world for us all.
Sandi Herrera’s brain child has roots in her work as the former COO of Delivering Happiness, a company making waves in the corporate world by creating positive cultural change in the workplace, thereby keeping employees happy and motivated. Why then, Sandi thought, shouldn’t schools have this same resource? Childrens’ years in school have a profoundly significant impact on their development as people. At Got Core Values℠, we don’t just believe that culture needs to be in schools: we believe schools need to develop their own cultures based on their unique personnel make-up in order to get children enthused and excited about their education, and eager to be engaging members of their community.
So… what exactly do we do?
- We survey all members of your school community- students, their families, teachers, administrators, the school’s support staff, even members of the surrounding community that aren’t explicitly school related (if students study there, shop there, eat there, go on dates there, work there- they’re school related!)- regarding your core values.
- We then facilitate the wordsmithing process with the whole community in mind, going back and forth between all parties, until we arrive at a concrete set of communally crafted, consensus-based values upon which everyone agrees.
- We give your school community the tools to intentionally and purposefully live those values every day as they permeate every facet of school life- to deliberately live your culture.
Our approach is fresh, fun, and creative. We want to inspire you to use all of your senses to discover what your perfect school looks, sounds, feels, tastes, and smells like, based on what you value most. By defining and clearly conceptualizing a community’s core values, we change the way students, teachers, parents, and communities at large perceive themselves, catalyzing passionate, positive change that ripples throughout the whole. It’s never too early to start thinking about our core values as human beings. We break idealism down into a realistic, pragmatically planned process, challenging students to think critically early and to live lives of integrity based on a culture they have a hand in crafting. Most importantly, we make it fun so your community enjoys the journey together.
Imagine your perfect school environment. Is it a place with bright colors streaking the walls, with laughter and playing heard in the schoolyard as music drifts through the hallways, mingling with lectures filled with diligently note-scribbling students? Might there be delicious scents wafting through the cafeteria as the kitchen staff prepares a healthy, mouth-watering meal, and everyone feels connected, and everyone feels welcome and good and excited to be a part of the community?
If more students are exposed to vibrant, healthy, and forward-thinking school cultures, then their lives are forever changed, forever shaped for the better, with futures that much brighter, and brimming with that much more possibility.