Grammar Gazette- Issue 1, 2015

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If Lauren Resnick is right, that intelligence is properly seen as ‘the sum of one’s habits of mind’ (Resnick, 1999); if David Perkins is right, that much of what looks like evidence for intelligence (or lack of it) is actually a matter of learned dispositions and ‘sensitivity [or insensitivity] to occasion’ (Perkins & Ritchhart, 2004); if Carol Dweck is right, that our apparent intelligence is powerfully moderated by acquired beliefs about intelligence (Dweck, 2000); if Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman are right, that (acquired) self-discipline accounts much better for school performance than (fixed) IQ (Duckworth & Seligman, 2005); if all this is good psychology, then the idea of helping young people to learn how to be smarter — especially in the way they respond to difficulty and uncertainty — gains a great deal of credibility and practicability’(2012, 17).

For example, in November eight Year 10 girls participated in the International Young Leaders Forum at the Suzhou Foreign Language School, an hour west of Shanghai. In a week rich with discussion and debate some very bright and idealistic students from six leading schools in Asia gathered to explore topics of common interest with their international peers. In the words of the host Principal, Mr Cao Lunhua: The spirit of this event is to offer a multi-national stage for our brilliant young people to play their role in handling the important global issues of our time. Through creative thinking, wise decision making and cooperative action, they can make the world a better place, and simultaneously make their own lives extraordinary by attaining higher levels of interaction with their peers, as well as a higher level of understanding of the solutions to the pressing issues that the globe faces. The future will require our girls to have the skills to form collaborative personal and intellectual relationships, to synthesise information and different views from multiple sources, to be inquisitive and to ‘learn, unlearn and relearn’ (Toffler, 2015). They will need ever greater understanding about other cultures and an appreciation that ‘other people, with their differences, can also be right’ (‘Mission’, 2015). Fortunately, it is not always necessary to travel so far as China to develop the skills of intellectual dialogue. Our own Athene Club, debating and public speaking competitions, science Olympiads and so many other opportunities provide these experiences at home. Most importantly, it is within the classroom that students are inspired to understand that we are all life- long, life-wide learners whatever our innate abilities or intellectual aptitude. Scholarship is the intellectual endeavour of learning how to think and thinking solves the problems of the world. If we can teach the art of thinking through a Girls Grammar education, we will have fulfilled a very noble and worthy purpose. Our learning environment enlivens curiosity and nurtures in all students a love of learning and for 140 years that has been both the joy and the privilege of being a Grammar girl.

Exceptional scholarship, then, is most assuredly active not passive. It is rigorous and disciplined and yet allows for meandering and musing. Much of this meandering and musing is being encouraged through the practise of keeping a learning journal with our younger students. Through Philosophy of Learning the girls keep a reflective learning journal in which they ask themselves ‘What did I learn?’, ‘What worked?’ ‘Why did I underperform and how can I improve?’. The concept of Personal Bests (PBs) is encouraged in this journaling activity because it is essential that all girls, regardless of their particular interests or individual abilities, experience academic success and understand that intelligence is malleable not fixed. Relationships are fundamental in Gardner’s concept of a scholarly community. At Girls Grammar we understand the strength and importance of these social connections and view scholarship as a spiritual endeavour that connects us to our fellow travellers and elicits great joy, a sense of freedom and delight. As Bertrand Russell observed, it was the Renaissance that ‘broke down the rigid scholastic system, which had become an intellectual strait jacket’ and ‘encouraged the habit of regarding intellectual activity as a delightful social adventure, not a cloistered meditation’ (1946). So many of the opportunities at Girls Grammar to rigorously explore ideas and to question, not just within a particular field but also between neighbours, and even between nations, are important intellectual social adventures for our girls and young women.

i Festschrift - a collection of articles published in honour of a scholar

REFERENCES Gardner, H. (22 May 2014). Mind, work and life: A Festschrift on the occasion of Howard Gardner’s 70th birthday (Volume One) . Kornhaber M. & Winner E. (Eds.). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Claxton, G. Professor. (2013). School as an Epistemic Apprenticeship: the Case of Building Learning Power . British Psychological Society, Great Britain Retrieved from http://www.winchester. ac.uk/aboutus/lifelonglearning/CentreforRealWorldLearning/ Documents/Claxton%20 %282013%29%20School%20as%20an%20 epistemic%20appren ticeship%20%28Vernon%20Wall%29.pdf

Russell, B. (1946). History of western philosophy . London: Routledge.

Toffler, A. (2015). Toffler Quotes . Retrieved from http://www.alvintoffler.net/?fa=galleryquotes

International Baccalaureate – Mission, retrieved from http://www.ibo.org/ en/about-the-ib/mission/

AUTUMN ISSUE / 2015