Grammar Gazette- Issue 1, 2015

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A SCHOLARLY COMMUNITY

AUTHOR Ms Jacinda Euler Principal

Passionate, intellectual exchanges — sometimes heated ones — characterise the debate and discussion of our own Athene Club. Named for the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athene provides a forum for girls and boys from the Grammar schools in Years 11 and 12 to engage in informed scholarly dialogue on ethical, social, political and philosophical issues. The discussion within Athene is managed by the students themselves. A research paper on a topic of their choice, and the questions that emerge from it, provide the stimulus for their arguments to be challenged, logic to be questioned and opinions tested, all within a civil and respectful setting. They learn to critically evaluate the ideas and views expressed, responding with thoughtful and reasoned argument, just as all Grammar girls are encouraged to think for themselves, challenge assumptions and become comfortable with uncertainty in the pursuit of wisdom. Dr Bruce Addison, Dean of Curriculum and Scholarship and Dr Ann Farley, Director of Cross Faculty Initiatives are developing our Philosophy of Learning programme with Girls Grammar’s newest students in Years 7 and 8 to encourage reflective practice, develop essential learning dispositions and provide a foundation for ‘thinking about thinking’ that will sustain them in the years ahead. British educator, Guy Claxton, effectively summarises some of the most important research in this area that is guiding our approach to teaching and learning at Girls Grammar:

WHEN HARVARD UNIVERSITY’S HOWARD GARDNER MADE HIS FESTSCHRIFT 1 PUBLIC, HE SAID THAT ONE OF HIS MOTIVES WAS THAT HE BELIEVED ‘THE KINDS OF EXCHANGES THAT I’VE HAD OVER THE DECADES WITH STUDENTS AND COLLEAGUES HAVE BECOME AN INCREASINGLY RARE IF NOT ENDANGERED SPECIES. IN MAKING AVAILABLE THESE EXCHANGES — EXTENDING WELL OVER 1000 PAGES — I WANT TO GIVE A FEELING FOR WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO LIVE AND INTERACT IN A SCHOLARLY COMMUNITY, WHICH IS ALSO A COMMUNITY OF HUMAN BEINGS, DURING THE LAST DECADES OF THE 20TH CENTURY AND FOR THE FIRST DECADES OF THE NEW MILLENNIA’ (2014, p.xx). At Brisbane Girls Grammar School our own scholarly community comprises strong intellectual and emotional relationships and we encourage this connectedness for, as Gardner said early in his academic career: I had come to realize that there was no better education for a young student bent on taking the temperature of a field than to have the opportunity to read exchanges — sometimes heated ones — among individuals who are trying to create, define, build up, promulgate, or corral a field of knowledge (2014, p. xvii).

GRAMMAR GAZETTE