Grammar Gazette- Issue 2, 2007

Student Care

Promoting Positive Relationships In the classic works by Homer, Helen of Troy’s notoriety as “the face that launched a thousand ships” began long before she eloped with the dashing Paris. As a twelve year old girl she gained dubious fame through her abduction by the Athenian war hero Theseus. Myth or otherwise, the themes encapsulated in this story wove their way into Western culture for the next two and a half thousand years and cast young women in an ambiguous light as both alluring and dangerous and thus requiring very firm restraints yet vulnerable and requiring protection.

experimenting with identity and a sense of self, attempting a successful psychological separation from her parents, and negotiating the power of the peer group. The discomfort of these transitional phases perhaps goes some way in explaining the power of groups at this year level. Perhaps one of the most potent reminders of the vulnerability of young adolescent girls is the harmful effect of “bullying” where to use the terms used by the media, girls invent themselves as alpha “queen bees” – who place their own success above all, “representing a new-style girls’ empowerment, brimming over with righteous self-esteem and cheerful cattiness,” (Talbot, 2002) that can affect the behaviour and feelings of the whole year group. The Student Care team is particularly aware of the fact that while we have very few reports of bullying in the School,

worry about how their daughters are coping with their new, and often rather perplexing, teenage social world. The Student Care Programme at Brisbane Girls Grammar School endeavours to help the girls navigate all this and strives for an authentic development of girls both intellectually and emotionally; that is based on fostering real self esteem as opposed to a false, and by definition transitory, empowerment. The students in Year 9 in many ways encapsulate the contradictions that belie the powerful images of the teenage girl presented by the media. For some, being “grown up” and confident means negotiating the world of school dances, going to the city, parties and sleepovers. In a school context, the Year 9 student finds herself in an ambiguous position, somewhere between the novelty of newness in Year 8 and the comfortable middle ground of Year 10. More importantly, she is

Obviously, for the twenty-first century adolescent girl, much has changed. Never has there been a time when they have had so much perceived freedom. The media in particular, presents teenagers as both powerful and infallible, girls are told that they can do anything; the possibilities seem endless. But, does the reality of “girl power” match the rhetoric? What is this power based on? And, if these messages are to be believed, how do girls respond to all of the options with which they are presented? In answer to these questions, schools, and in particular schools for girls, play a vital role in transforming adolescent girls into confident young women. If they are to carry out this role successfully however, they must begin by being discerning about the media hype surrounding them. From “queen bees” to “gamma girls” to the “odd girl out” adolescent girls are all over the news. Parents understandably,

12 grammar gazette spring 2007