2023 Annual Review

‘ One needs more than brainpower. Among other things we also need humility, courage and a deep spirit of truthfulness.’ Gaita, R., 2014.

Globally, urgent attention has been directed to, tragically, the rise of war this year; we also see global issues being fiercely debated on our domestic doorstep. This very week we have seen protests, marches and vigils—with worrying displays of antisemitism, islamophobia—that reveal how connected to the world beyond our own shores the citizens of our community are, as people desperately seek a way through. Our students have the confidence and willingness to speak up for what they believe in and to, equally, be attentive to, and respectful of, the views of others. For so much in contemporary debate is polarising and divisive, and the young women graduating from Girls Grammar this year—and in the future—will help us to find ways to talk about our shared humanity in the times ahead. Lead our attention, increasingly, to that. To return to Megan Garber, she notes that with the cascading information with which we are inundated, and the splintering of our attention we are, ironically, less able to meet the complex challenges of contemporary times. ‘Today’s news moves as a maelstrom [of] information’, she says, ‘at once trifling and historic, petty and grave, cajoling, demanding, funny, horrifying, uplifting, embarrassing, fleeting, loud …’ (Garber, M., 2021).

The School’s Role So what is the role of our School? It is not to tell our students what to think, but teach them how to think. Philosopher Raimond Gaita says, ‘… the most important lesson I try to teach my students is just how hard it is to think seriously. ‘One needs more than brainpower. Among other things we also need humility, courage and a deep spirit of truthfulness’ (Gaita, R., 2014). He speaks of the importance of art and literature—the humanities—to draw upon, as society seeks to develop a common understanding. And the value of ‘critical engagement with the past’ through history that ‘helps us to establish the kind of distance that is necessary…’, he says, to develop perspective, a timeless love of the world, when the future is unknown (Gaita, R., 2014). But most important is our aim to live a decent life—to focus, above all, our attention on that. That is an utterly practical goal, Gaita says, and that to which people return in times of crisis. The crisis you can’t control; the decent, good, life is yours to build.

BRISBANE GIRLS GRAMMAR SCHOOL ANNUAL REVIEW 2023

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