Grammar Gazette- Issue 2, 2011

grammar gazette SPRING 2011

Features

3 Scholarship: An old fashioned concept in a new fashioned world Dr Amanda Bell 5 Systematic curiosity in research and learning

7 Judicious and ethical engagement with the world Mr Alan Dale 8 Contemporary learning places Miss Felicity Williams

10 Life-wide learning Mrs Judith Tudball 12 A twenty-first century

educational renaissance? Mrs Marise McConaghy

Ms Samantha Bolton and Mr Trent Driver

There is a readiness, we believe, to rethink what it means to be a scholar Ernest L Boyer

From the Chair of the Board of Trustees

Scholarship: An old fashioned concept in a new fashioned world he word scholar is derived from the Latin schola meaning school, and refers to a student or a learned person. Often in an education context, the notion of being a scholar, pursuing scholarship or emphasising its value, is deemed only relevant to the academically gifted. This is far from the case. In fact to aspire to exceptional scholarship applies to every student— whether their talents lie in science, humanities, sport or the arts. Exceptional rather than the more cliché term excellent, implies a uniqueness, something singular and beyond the norm. It also connotes an understanding of difference and individuality in ideas and people, inspiring interesting ways of seeing and being. As individuals and as organisations, we should look for the exceptional in who we are and what we do—and build upon it—making the most of our talents, interests and assets. At times scholarship has been considered an old fashioned, almost elitist term conjuring mental images of wise, solitary, old men surrounded by ancient tomes and artefacts symbolic of learning — visually exemplified by the renaissance paintings of St Jerome by artists such as Dürer and Ghirlandaio.

Importantly the School’s strategic Intent remains intact and focused on our first priority—our girls: Proud of our Grammar tradition, we are a secondary school that establishes the educational foundation for young women to contribute to their world with wisdom, imagination and integrity. In this publication the senior academic staff, who have brought their expertise and experience to bear on the development of the Strategic Design, outline the key concepts and principles underpinning the new aspiration and strategy. In the coming years the hard work of successfully delivering this strategy can only be possible with the involvement of our extensive and supportive Grammar community. I trust and believe that together we will continue to achieve great things for this great school and the education of the young women in our care.

elcome to the Spring 2011 edition of the Grammar Gazette. Eighteen months ago the Board of Trustees set in motion the planning process for the School’s 2012–2015

Photography The Australian

Strategic Design. This followed thoughtful review of the findings from the stakeholder surveys commissioned in 2010. The surveys provided the School with a clear understanding of the expectations and perceptions of parents—current and future, alumni and staff as well as a quantitative measure of the extent to which the School had met the goals of its current strategic plan. This analysis combined with the work of our Scholar in Residence for 2010, education futurist Professor Erica McWilliam, provoked a palpable change in the way we thought about our commitment to education for young women and what teaching and learning might look like in the future. Our development of the next stage in our Strategic Design embraces all the very best current practices and our vision for the future: Brisbane Girls Grammar School aspires to be a leader in exceptional scholarship. This simultaneously concise but complex vision moves the Strategic Design into its next logical incarnation: a clear and, I hope, compelling statement of the role of the School in the education of future generations of Grammar girls.

However, there can be a catch in this rendition of the scholar if it only applies to ‘book learning’. In the early seventeenth century George Chapman wrote:

Let a scholar all Earth’s volumes carry, He will be but a walking dictionary.

While Google has perhaps taken hold of much of Earth’s volumes these days, Chapman’s words are a salient warning to educators and students today that fine scholarship is not about ‘knowing’ content, but rather about understanding how to think and apply knowledge with wisdom and integrity. Daniel Defoe was even more scathing in the eighteenth century when he also identified this important distinction between mere content toting and considered scholarship: We must distinguish between a man of polite learning and a mere scholar; the first is a gentleman and what a gentleman should be; the last is a mere bookcase, a bundle of letters, a head stuffed with jargon of languages, a man that understands everybody but is understood by no body. In other words, Defoe decries the arrogance of scholarly pride when it is not supported by refined ‘learning’ which

MS ELIZABETH JAMESON

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