2022 Annual Review

Principal’s Address Thursday 17 November 2022

MS JACINDA EULER WELSH PRINCIPAL

Principal, Ms Jacinda Euler Welsh, delivered the following address at the School’s Annual Speech Day and Distribution of Prizes 2022.

Our shared humanity We are a special, very particular, subset perhaps, but our goals are no different to those of every other school. I hope. Our families’ hopes are no different from those of every other family—the degree of ambition may vary, the material circumstances certainly, but all families want something good for their children. And a decent society in which to make their way. We hear so much about our differences—our diversity, our groupings, affiliations … our labels. And yet it is our shared humanity that binds and unites us. Strengthens us. Our times It is, they say, one of the great paradoxes of our times—that everything seems both better and worse than ever before. We are wealthier, healthier, safer, and more informed than ever. However, all this progress seems to have left many somewhat isolated, powerless, and cynical. Increasingly I find myself asking … Is it really all so bad? This ‘doomerism’ as they’re calling it, revels in the horribleness of our world—graphic depictions that people seem increasingly addicted to. Playing fast and loose, gratuitously sensationalising many people’s realities. Everything heralding future calamity. And all delivered with such emphatic conviction. It seems we are increasingly intolerant of uncertainty. Imagine a politician being able to say ‘I’m just not sure’. And yet we can’t even predict next week’s weather with any certainty. How many times (have we been warned) that a big storm, torrential downpour, hail is approaching—and it failed to arrive? And the all-pervading fear and anxiety this all provokes—as crisis upon crisis is declared.

Chair of the Board of Trustees, Ms Julie McKay; Trustees—past and present, including immediate Past Chair, Ms Elizabeth Jameson; honoured guests including Professor Geraldine MacKenzie; Councillor James Mackay; Dr Cate Campbell, President of the P&F; Mrs Ann Caston representing the Old Girls Association; staff; parents; and our students. How lucky are we? • To be here, to be together, to have these magnificent girls, unbelievable staff, supportive parents and great friends of this School. How important is this undertaking we are all a part of—education? • What could be more exciting, more challenging, rewarding or more profoundly important than to take into our School these unique, individual, eager to learn and contribute, young Grammar girls? • And to respectfully, even reverently, assume responsibility for educating their minds, developing their characters and sense of themselves, their abilities to face the world with confidence, knowing they have something—something uniquely their own—to offer our world, our society … as the young women of Year 12 we celebrate today. Our society needs them. They will bring their education, their fearless determination, an uncompromising approach to life, strong work ethic, optimism and hope. We speak so disparagingly of our society, sometimes, condemn seemingly all of our history. And yet as Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Marilynne Robinson (1943–) has said, ‘When we accept dismissive judgements of our community we stop having generous hope for it. We cease to be capable of serving its best interests.’ (Robinson, 2012, p. 30) Our students, our teachers, have generous hope for the future, see ourselves, as best we can, serving society’s best interests. And occasions such as this very powerfully remind us of that—our purpose.

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Brisbane Girls Grammar School Annual Review 2022