Grammar Gazette_Issue1_2025

MRS ANNE BYRNE DEBATING AND MOOTING COORDINATOR

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Ditch the tests, cue pop culture? Students and teachers debate whether schools should serve the present, or ‘boldly’ shape the future

assessment. He suggested that if we think about pedagogy as the ‘special place where teachers and students meet’, there is much to explore and embrace in this era of incredible flux. If we are advocating for slow looking and careful thinking, musing and discernment, he asked, how then does the current notion of `assessment’— as something akin to speed dating— fit this model? ‘Can we think creatively to push bold frontiers?’ he asked. The conclusion he reached is that we can’t educate for a ‘rearview mirror’ world when the road ahead is littered with obstacles and disruption.

This year’s debate topic was inspired by Deputy Principal (Academic) Dr Bruce Addison’s keynote address on Term 2 Staff Day, which he opened with a quote from philosopher Ivan Illich in Rutger Bregman’s (2021) book Human Kind: A Hopeful History, in which Illich says: ‘School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need society as it is’. Dr Addison challenged staff with the idea: ‘…something needs to blow up the industrial model of schooling’. Although most of his address focused on the advances and implications of AI technology, Dr Addison offered some rich musings around learning and

The annual staff-student Comedy Debate has become a much anticipated feature of the Brisbane Girls Grammar School Arts Fest Showcase, which ran for two weeks during Term 2. The annual Arts Fest celebrates the immense breadth and depth of talent across BGGS in the areas of dance, choir, music, drama and debating. This year’s Comedy Debate attracted a lunchtime audience of more than 400 staff and students, and, although the intent was to entertain and amuse, the debate also demonstrated the talent and mental agility of our debaters, while leaving audiences with weighty issues to ponder after the laughter.

16 | GAZETTE • ISSUE 1, 2025

Brisbane Girls Grammar School