Grammar Gazette- Issue 2, 2011

grammar gazette SPRING 2011

Designs, but will be our most challenging yet. Leading modernist architect, Mies van der Rohe, is often associated with the aphorism Less is More , and this eloquently summarises the structure of the School’s new strategy for 2012–2015: Aspiration Brisbane Girls Grammar School aspires to be a leader in exceptional scholarship. Intent Proud of our Grammar tradition, we are a secondary school that establishes the educational foundation for young women to contribute confidently to their world with wisdom, imagination and integrity. Initiatives in education will be further referenced by our Organising Principles Systematic curiosity in research and learning Judicious and ethical engagement with the world Contemporary learning places Life-wide learning Leading an educational agenda of exceptional scholarship will not be easy, and nor would we want it to be. This new School Design, for example, will guide our academic initiatives alongside the implementation of the Australian Curriculum; provide innovative programmes for staff research and development; further enhance concepts for the very best student-centred teaching and learning; and perhaps most specifically inform the planning and transition for our first cohort of Year 7 students commencing in 2015. For 136 years Girls Grammar has held assiduously to its motto and the next four years can be no different if we—the School, Board, staff and students—are to become leaders in exceptional scholarship: Nil sine labore.

is comprehensive, deep and self-effacing. In this vein, most true scholars would probably concur with the adage that the more they know the more they realise what they don’t know. Isaac Asimov summarised this in a short piece titled “What is intelligence, anyway?” in which he describes his early complacency about his intellectual capabilities based on academic test scores, but later realises that his intelligence is not absolute, but actually a function of the society in which he lives. So what do we, at Brisbane Girls Grammar School see as exceptional scholarship? Exceptional scholarship requires the activation of a personal systematic curiosity towards research and learning, and striving for judicious and ethical engagements with the world. These pivotal and necessary characteristics apply equally whether the student aspires to academic goals, achievement in co-curricular pursuits, classrooms, cafés and homes—it is perhaps even more vital for our young students to embrace the old-fashioned qualities inherent in scholarship. They need to be discerning about where they access information and understand how to verify its worth; they need to think profoundly and broadly in a life-wide sense, and not be lured by the quick-fix, superficiality of the first ten Google search results; and they need to work hard at their studies and interests. Similarly, the School as an organisation and its staff, need to role model the attributes we wish our students to assume. In the comprehensive strategic planning process which has occurred over the past twelve months, the senior staff and Board took the very best of our current School Design and looked to the future. There were many criteria assessed during this process, but perhaps the most salient early influencers were provocations by our then Futurist in Residence, Professor Erica McWilliam, and feedback from the School’s 2010 Stakeholder Surveys. Previous School Designs by necessity have been detailed and specific; our new Design notably and rightly builds upon previous or in personal development and growth. In our contemporary places of learning—virtual spaces,

Systematic curiosity in research and learning

triennial PISA survey seeks to answer the question whether current education systems are leaving students well placed to meet the challenges of their future, whether our systems and practices are leaving students with the curiosity they will need to maximise their engagement with the world. Too often the answers are ambivalent. The economist Thomas Friedman (2005) argues that to thrive tomorrow the students of today will have to be adaptable and able to acquire the new skills, knowledge, and expertise that will allow them to create value in contexts yet unimagined. With labour-oriented futurists forecasting that over sixty-five per cent of the work tasks to be completed by our current cohort will fall into this context (Heffernan, 2011) there exists a moral purpose for schools to build curricula grounded in curiosity. In a fluid global environment, schools cannot just prepare their graduates for lifetime employment, but rather have a responsibility to prepare them for lifetime employability. As Gentry and McGinnis (2008) argue, learning to learn (or be curious) is the most essential skill that they can acquire.

ystematic curiosity in research and learning is the cornerstone of the School’s aspiration to be a leader in exceptional scholarship. To appreciate the importance of this guiding principle it is essential to understand the concept of scholarship in this context. That is, to understand that scholarship refers to the application of a disciplined and rigorous approach to the quest for new ideas with an acknowledgement of the infinite nature of knowledge. To understand that scholarship involves a journey into a territory of deep and critical thinking based on a commitment to limitless learning. There are few who embody the essence of curiosity as evocatively as Lewis Carroll’s Alice. In a place where all around her seems out of place, she is lost. In her travels she meets the Cheshire Cat: ‘Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?’ ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to’ said the Cat. (Carroll 1999 p102) Poor Alice’s quandary is central to the role society should expect of curriculum in schools at this time. The OECD’s

DR AMANDA BELL, PRINCIPAL

REFERENCES Chapman, George. 1609, The Tears of Peace (line 530) Boyer, Ernest, L. 1990, Scholarship Reconsidered , http://www.hadinur.com/paper/BoyerScholarshipReconsidered.pdf retrieved 23 September 2011 Defoe, Daniel. 1728-9, The Complete English Gentleman (chapter 5) Asimov, Isaac. http://talentdevelop.com/articles/WIIA.html retrieved 5 August, 2011.

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