Grammar Gazette- Issue 1, 2013

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TO LEAD BRISBANE GIRLS GRAMMAR School during the next stage in its distinguished history will be both an honour and a privilege. This is an extraordinary school with a unique heritage of scholarship and innovation, talented and optimistic students, expert, passionate staff and the support of a community that values the finest traditions and aspirations in education. The ‘river quote’ of Heraclitus holds a particular resonance for me as I return to the School as its sixteenth Principal. A river is an extraordinary entity that remains ‘what it is’ by ‘changing what it contains’ (Graham, 2011), just as Girls Grammar is always alive with new ideas — absorbing the ‘fresh waters’ of new students, new staff and even new principals — and yet retains its identity as a bigger, grander whole. While there will be no departure from the foundations and traditions of Girls Grammar, waters will continue to change, ideas will flow and we will forge new paths. We will see the realisation of a new aspiration for exceptional scholarship, the introduction of our first Year 7 cohort in 2015 and the development of a wonderful new sporting facility. The girls’ 2013 School motto ‘Embrace the new! Link the Blue!’ captures the spirit of a river, encouraging us to gather the new and connect it with the greater Girls Grammar ‘Blue.’ At the heart of the School, and the core of all that we do, are the girls. While it may appear, at times, that we are becoming a highly alarmist and anxious society, there are new and very real challenges in the parenting and education of girls. Now more than ever, girls need to know who they are and what they stand for. Balance is important to ensure that we do not simply focus on what will make them ‘happy’ and neglect what will make them ‘good’. Grammar girls are inspiring examples of young women who challenge some of the media’s negative portrayals of contemporary ‘girlhood’. They understand the challenge and reward in learning, are open to new possibilities, and they are loyal to and truly love their School. As the mother of a young adult daughter, I understand the hopes, disappointments and successes of adolescence; I know the joy our daughters bring and the love we have for them. Last year, Girls Grammar committed to a new aspiration: ‘To be a leader in exceptional scholarship.’ In one sense our aspirations are timeless, but the waters in which we swim, play and learn are ever changing, and into this must come new direction and new leadership. In a world that sometimes appears to undervalue deep thinking and reflection, and grabs for an easy answer, the world of scholarship presents girls with alternative perspectives. They must learn to be discerning when the quantity of information they can access far outweighs their need, and critical thinking is required to sift the river and he’s not the same man. — HERACLITUS, GREEK PHILOSOPHER, CA. 500 BCE (QTD. IN GRAHAM, 2011)

valuable from the spurious. The essential aptitudes — on which professional success and personal fulfilment will increasingly depend — play to the innate strengths of women. Our girls will be at the forefront, if we encourage them, in the creation of new ways of thinking and they will become thought leaders. Exceptional scholarship requires a learning environment that enlivens curiosity. Sir Richard Livingstone wrote in 1941: ‘The test of successful education is not the amount of knowledge that pupils take away from school, but their appetite to know and their capacity to learn’ (cited in Claxton, 2007). To stimulate this appetite, and develop ‘self-managing learners’, the learning must also be personally significant to them, as Professor Erica McWilliam and Professor Peter Taylor wrote in Grammar Insights last year. The curriculum, practices and resources must be rigorous, varied and stimulating, blending the great traditions in education with the latest in educational innovation; as Bertolt Brecht (1984) wrote, ‘old and new wisdom mix admirably.’ To become an exceptional scholar is an earnest undertaking that requires discipline and perseverance, but it also a spiritual endeavour connecting us to our fellow travellers and eliciting a sense of freedom and discovery. Bertrand Russell (1946) wrote that the Renaissance ‘encouraged the habit of regarding intellectual activity as a delightful social adventure, not a cloistered meditation.’ An environment where girls are encouraged to think for themselves, challenge assumptions, and become comfortable with uncertainty allows them to be reflective and open to the ideas of others, while having the confidence to assert their own views. During adolescence, girls begin to dip their toes in the waters of the wider world, as we adults gradually and gently let go of their hands. The world is changing and, while we cannot always anticipate or accurately predict the future, an essential shared responsibility for families and schools is to develop in our girls the capacity to engage with and respond to their world in wise, appropriate and compassionate ways. All skills will become obsolete except one, the skill of being able to make the right response to situations that are outside the scope of what you were taught in school. We need to produce people who know how to act when they are faced with situations for which they were not specifically prepared. (PAPERT, 1998) To acquire this skill, young women must have a well- developed intellect and a strong sense of self. Dinah Maria Mulock wrote in 1857: ‘But “what am I to do with my life” as once asked me one girl out of the numbers who begin to feel aware that, whether marrying or not, each possesses an individual life, to spend, to use, or to

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same

AUTUMN ISSUE / 2013