My attention was caught earlier this week by an article in the Australian Daily Telegraph: in the print edition the headline read Study reveals devious girls lead way in tormenting kids; online, the headline read AIFS bullying study shows girls are more devious. The leading paragraph supported both these titles: “Girls are more devious than boys …
Category: Uncategorized
Jun 14
Girls, girls, girls … how girls are changing the world
Yesterday turned into somewhat of a celebration at Ascham of how girls and women have changed and are changing our world, together with a reminder of what needs to be done still to make this world a fairer, more equal and more harmonious place. To a certain extent, every day in a girls’ school is …
Jun 07
Floundering … or Fulfilling? Different Perspectives on Mothering.
Last weekend I flew from Sydney up to Dubbo, on my way to a schools’ riding expo at Coonabarabran; it was not a long flight, but there was enough time on the way there and the way back to read, cover to cover, Melbourne writer Romy Ash’s first novel, Floundering. This novel is worth a …
May 31
Why it is important to talk about values in parenting
We all have values, many of them strongly held values. If you press us on ethical issues, if you test us or challenge us, and if you go deep enough, there will come a point when we reach a point where we will say that we will (or won’t) do something because it is the …
May 25
The academic benefits of team sport
The results of a fascinating US study into 9,700 high-school students aged 14-18 are reported in this week’s Times Educational Supplement in the UK: according to research conducted by academics from the University of South Carolina and Pennsylvania State University, participation in team sports during adolescence makes a “significant and consistent difference to students’ academic grades”. …
May 17
Redefining ‘richness’ in working motherhood
Lat month I attended an all day festival at the Sydney Opera House entitled ‘All About Women‘. A number of speakers spoke about their various opinions about women’s role in the world today, and the day was supplemented by a number of ‘conversations’ – panel discussions which tackled some of the issues facing women in the …
May 10
Why it is important for girls to blow their own trumpets
A recent initiative at Wimbledon High School for Girls in London has received quite a bit of coverage in the UK – the school encouraged the girls over a number of months to scribble down their thoughts whenever they realised that they were proud of something that they had done and then the school spent …
May 05
“Equality’s just gone well out the window.”
A quote in the IPPR report about which I wrote in a recent blog caught my eye in particular. Describing how she felt about her equality with me, a 19 year old woman from Manchester said the following: “It went from empowering women to women are just items again. It’s gotten even worse, because women …
Apr 30
Coming to terms with the First World War. Reflections on ANZAC Day
Last week Australia paused on ANZAC Day to consider what that day meant and why it is so important that we recognise it. Fresh in the minds of students across the nation will be their study of the Gallipoli campaign, but the purpose of ANZAC Day goes far beyond the anniversary of that fateful landing …
Apr 22
The Boston bombings and an outpouring of human warmth
One of the most heartening aspects of the dreadful events that have unfolded in Boston over the past week and a half has been the visibly great strength of the human reaction to other human beings in distress. News stories captured the heroism of individuals who ran towards the blast rather than away, to tend …