Feb 20

Developing a fuller awareness: International Mother Tongue Day

Friday of this week marks International Mother Tongue Day, which has been celebrated since February 2000, with a clear mandate from the UN to promote tolerance through recognising the diversity of linguistic communication in the world. This statement on the UN’s page devoted to the Day is striking: “Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue.”

One of the greatest challenges facing the human race is being able to connect effectively and work together for the common good of humanity and for our planet. Technology is enabling us to overcome the difficulties of vast distance, and is helping to introduce us to other cultures and other ways of life, so that we can understand them better; if we can also appreciate language not as a barrier to communication, but as an enriching factor in this understanding of others, then we will move one step closer to the greater unity that we need to find in our world. Our task is conceptually demanding, both cognitively and emotionally – we must learn to appreciate that each human being is uniquely different, and to value this deeply and honestly, while understanding at an equally deep level that we are all fundamentally the same. Essentially, we have to learn to transcend the physical – and linguistic – appearances of difference, and seek our shared common values, and the core that unites us as humans.

It goes without saying that we all have a role to play in this task. We cannot leave this to the few – no matter how inspirational they are as leaders. This is something that we must all do – and must encourage others to do, in families and in schools. The first step is always one of awareness – let us be prompted in this by our reflections on this year’s International Mother Tongue Day.

 

Feb 17

The courage to make a difference: Nasrin Sotoudeh and her fight for justice

It is easy to forget sometimes that we are immensely privileged to live in a society where we can take justice and freedom – of action and speech – for granted. No society is perfect, of course, and nor is any system of law or government, but on the whole, living in Australia, or the UK, or the US, or most of what we describe as the Western world – we can feel pretty secure that we will be treated fairly most of the time by our law-makers and law-enforcers. As the story of Nasrin Sotoudeh reminded us last year, however, this is not the case everywhere.

Ms Sotoudeh was imprisoned in 2011 in Iran after receiving a sentence of six years for spreading propaganda and “damaging national security”. A human rights lawyer by profession, she had defended political dissidents, and had come to feel the full power of the regime turned against her as a result. In prison, she was subjected to long periods of time in solitary confinement, and was refused visits from her family and her own lawyer. She was not allowed to attend her father’s funeral. Her family suffered too, and it was when the authorities banned her daughter from leaving Iran that in October of 2012 she began a hunger strike that was to bring her perilously close to death.

Our world is more connected now than ever it has been in the past, and with worldwide attention focused on Nasrin Sotoudeh’s case – led, as is often the case, by the admirably persistent Amnesty International – the authorities in Iran eventually lifted the restrictions on her family which had caused her to take such drastic action, and she gave up her protest. Her hunger strike highlighted to the rest of the world the lengths to which repressive regimes will go in order to restrict freedom of speech, but it has also shown that such regimes will listen when we all pay attention.

Sometimes it takes a brave person to stand up for what is right, and Nasrin Sotoudeh is deserving of our admiration. She was finally freed on 19 September 2013, and we must should not forget her – she has more work to do. She falls into my definition of an inspirational woman; I hope she falls into yours too.

 

Feb 10

We have work to do …

I read a potentially rather depressing report recently about a survey of British teenagers post-GCSE (aged around 16), who were looking ahead to their futures and commenting on what was important to them, what they envisaged doing with their lives and what skills they thought they would need. The main takeouts of the survey, as reported in The Independent, were that roughly two-thirds of the cohort valued a high salary above all, while around a third only wanted to do something that helped others. In addition, only 35% were concerned that their employers were socially responsible. As far as their personal skills were concerned, only 7% thought that numerical and analytical skills would be important in 30 years’ time, and although 44% recognised the importance of communications skills, only 23% felt that creativity was important.

Surveys are notoriously difficult to write, and even more difficult to interpret, and reports on surveys – even KPMG’s own press release about this particular survey – are easily skewed to editorial whims. This survey, of 289 students in state schools, gave a snapshot of what those particular students thought, but we have no information about their backgrounds, to understand them better, or to be able to interpret better why they might have chosen certain responses, nor have we any comparative data to understand how this cohort, or any wider cohort of this age, compares either with what they themselves previously thought, or with what other cohorts have gone before them have thought.

With all these caveats in place, we can still recognise that more of these students value a high salary than value a career that helps others, and only 7% seem think that analytical skills are important. On both scores, we should have something to say: for the human race to succeed, we are all going to have to learn that we must do something that helps others, and in order to do this, we are going to need every ounce not only of our creativity, but also of our critical analytical abilities.

We shouldn’t be too hard on these young people who responded to this survey, however. In an economic recession, income is important, and high incomes are associated with success – and do, after all, allow people to support others – their own families and communities. And maybe the survey was phrased in such a way to suggest that those analytical skills were tied to standard, easily automated tasks, which we might expect to diminish over time. Several of the other results were interpreted as positive – “ambitious and entrepreneurial” were the headlines of the press release.

Equally, though, we should not be complacent or dismiss the results. We have work to do to show our young people that working selflessly for the good of others is important, that strong, humane values should define us as as people, and that by developing their critical faculties, they will be well-placed to learn this and to make the most of their capacity to do the right thing in life. This work starts in families and in schools. As this survey shows, we certainly have our work cut out for us.

 

Nov 22

Why life really is like a box of chocolates

In the 1994 award-winning film, Forrest Gump, the eponymous hero (played, as anyone who has seen it will remember, by Tom Hanks) utters the words “My momma always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get'”. It is a film worthy of its many Oscars, Golden Globes and so on – it is a compelling tale which challenges conventional views of what human beings can achieve, and it makes us laugh, cry and think. The rather poignant words about the box of chocolates have stuck in common parlance as a result.

The phrase, “Life is like a box of chocolates”, can be interpreted in a multitude of ways, and is often assumed to reflect the variety that life has to offer. Certainly, when I look at the enormous range of paths anticipated by our Year 12 leavers, as they await their HSC results in December, I can see an enormous and refreshing variety of options. We want our young people to grow up to become the unique individuals they can be – and life offers them this chocolate-box variety.

In reality, however, the box of chocolates is nothing without the action of selecting the actual chocolates. To experience the chocolate, we must choose it and commit ourselves to it by taking a bite. Sometimes this is a leap of faith, and we do not necessarily know what taste sensation awaits us. Sometimes we like what we taste; sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we learn to like what we thought we would not like.

Chocolates hide an inner delight – the outer coating can give us a clue, as indeed can the guide on the side of the box, or the recommendations of people who have chosen before us. But essentially they are there (in moderation, of course) for the choosing – for us to make our choices. As our Year 12s make their final steps towards life beyond school, they should remember Forrest Gump, and be inspired by the thought.

 

Nov 08

The male-female divide in sport

An article in this Tuesday’s Sydney Morning Herald caught my eye very early that same morning – it was a story about Melissa Barbieri, former captain of the Australian national women’s football team, who finds herself without funding after taking a year out to have a child. In order to keep playing in the W-League, and – she hopes – regain a place in the national team, she decided that she had to raise funds and so had planned to auction off some of her precious souvenirs from her time as an international player. The small sum of $5,000 should do it, she reported – and she is not alone in seeking to self-fund, as her teammates are doing all sorts of jobs on the side, including cleaning windows.

This is a difficult subject to discuss. One the one hand, playing football need not be a full-time job, and can allow for other (paid) employment, although clearly at state and national levels any sport requires dedication and time far beyond that of a mere recreational activity, thus limiting the potential for earnings. Moreover, lest we concern ourselves too much with the sentimental impact of selling memorabilia, we must remember that Ms Barbieri has a choice – she too could raise money by cleaning windows if she wanted. And we should also not forget that football is a physical activity. Pregnancy and child-birth will in many cases inhibit the capacity of an individual to be able to perform in sport at the same level as other women. This is a valid consideration when it comes to allocating positions and remuneration.

And yet … something feels very uncomfortable about this story. Perhaps it is because of what is not said in the article – the scale of the salaries paid to professional sportspeople who are men, for instance, and the uphill struggle that women’s sport faces to receive the same amount of media coverage as men’s sport. Despite small triumphs – more tv coverage and sponsorship this season than before – there is still a long, long way to go before we can say that we are as excited about women’s sport in this society as we are about men’s sport. This, of course, is also down to each and every one of us; we have choices and a voice when it comes to expressing preferences for watching sport.

So … the messages we must take away are these: let us be positive about what has happened to improve gender equity in sport over the past few years; let us not be accepting of continuing difference on such a vast scale as exists still; and let us not think that the time has yet come for us to let down our guard – there is work to be done in this world.

 

 

Nov 01

Schools leading the messages we need to hear in our world

I have been thinking a lot about the role of schools recently, and I have come to a very firm conclusion. All schools need to educate and to communicate, but this role should not be restricted to communicating and educating within the environs of a particular school; as schools, we need to speak out, more widely, because we have expertise that is needed to help change the world for our children and their future, and that means galvanising people to help make a difference.

We also need to do this because parents – not just the parents of pupils in our own school, but all parents â-genuinely need guidance in how to help bring up their children, and it is the moral responsibility of schools to share what we know and to lead. Parents are often very alone in their roles, buffeted by advice but not really given much help and support. Meanwhile, their children are under huge pressures – they are seduced at an early age by our highly commercialised and sexualised culture, they are dazzled by the glamour of celebrity, and they are brainwashed into believing that banality and idleness are going to make them happy.

I feel very strongly about and have campaigned against the premature sexualisation of our young children in these unprecedented times we live in, where children are bombarded by thousands of potentially damaging media and marketing images a day. Our children – and by this I mean all our children, as I genuinely believe that we have a collective responsibility as a society to help raise every child – are swamped by these media messages about how they should appear and how they should act. It is very true for girls, but also true for boys. It starts very young, before children even get to school – just look at how the sinister US toddler pageant cult is starting to gain popularity over here, with ‘contestants’ as young as 18 months – with (poorly guided) parents saying (and probably believing) that it gives their child confidence to appear in them.

We need the courage to help give parents the courage to stand up for what they believe and know is right – appropriate boundaries, and strong values – so that they can protect their children and – crucially – know from what they should be protecting their children .

Schools need to be leading those messages.

Oct 25

Lessons from the Dalai Lama: we should honour our teachers

Yesterday we celebrated World Teachers’ Day in school, and it reminded me of something I have been meaning to write about for some time. When the Dalai Lama visited Sydney recently, I was fortunate to be present at his public talk in the Sydney Entertainment Centre, and – as one would expect from a talk by one of the world’s great spiritual leaders – the experience gave me food for thought. This began even before the Dalai Lama began to speak, because the backdrop to the stage was a most striking set of banners against a crimson red curtain, and they read as follows: “We are all the same. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally.”  As I waited for the main talk, I mused.

On one level, of course, we are not all the same. We are all unique. There are 7 billion human beings on the planet, and none is completely identical to another. Each has combinations of genes which cannot be replicated absolutely; and even so-named identical siblings follow, from the moment they are born, slightly different pathways which create different neural tracks and different social responses. We are all amazingly different.

It is also true, however, that we are all human beings, and we are all inter-related. No human being stands alone in this respect; we have all been created by and through other human beings, and we are all connected through blood lines and shared experiences. We also have a shared capacity for consciousness and awareness of others. We have – if we choose to develop and use it – an empathy for others, and an understanding of our responsibility towards others. In this sense, we are all the same.

This presents an immense challenge for schools and parents, who have the task of growing our young people and forming them into the best and most valuable human beings they can be, both as unique individuals and as human beings who are on one level the same: physically, mentally, emotionally. How can we do this?

This, of course, is the art of education. One size does not and cannot “fit all” in our schools; education is a fluid, responsive process which requires teachers to be aware of, and able to react differently to, the needs of every single child, working on those areas where she/he struggles, and developing those areas where she/he is strong, while being mindful of the whole – a strong framework of global understandings and shared human values.

This is not easy. In fact, it is distinctly difficult. But it is also immensely important; and every day, teachers are seeking to do exactly this in our schools. We should honour them, for their task is that of taking humanity to a higher plane.

 

Oct 18

Understanding the quiet children: a book review

I was recently sent for review an advance copy of a new book on introverted children, Quiet Kids, by Christine Fonseca, and I found it a fascinating read. Written by an introverted adult, with a self-confessed “need for silence”, Quiet Kids gives an insight into the world of introversion which is experienced by approximately a third of all children, who have to fight against the expectations of a world where the extrovert is king. We often mistake introversion as a negative; this book very clearly defines it as a positive, and it goes a significant way to realising the goal of the author, who herself has learned to “harness the strength within [her] need for silence”.

Introversion is often misunderstood, or not understood at all; Fonseca, however, is very straightforward on the matter: “Introverted children develop deep relationships built on intimacy. They are interested in the inner workings of others.” Because of this, introverted children only form a few friendships at a time, they find collaboration and teamwork challenging, and they can find social situations demanding. Moreover, in a culture which “often measures success in terms of the number of friends you have, your ability to interact in social situations and your ability to ‘sell’ yourself in any given situation”, an introverted child will struggle: “trying to live up to these ideas may be an act of futility”.

This book is aimed at parents and educators of introverted children – it demonstrates to parents and to teachers that introverted children are perfectly capable of growing up into independent, happy and self-reliant adults, but they require a greater depth of understanding than is typically offered to them at home and at school. Introverts need “alone time” more than they need interaction time with friends – they still need time with others, but the balance will be different from that of an extroverted child. Children are wired differently; we know this, so why do we continue to insist that they are treated the same? Besides, we should be valuing introverts – introverts may need more space, but they also bring deep and powerful gifts – deep thinking, innovation, emotional intelligence and the building of meaningful relationships -, not to mention empathy and intrinsic motivation. We need to think differently about them.

The author has researched her subject well, and draws on some of the voices of her interviewees in the book. The question and answer format that runs throughout the book makes it a very accessible read, while the Tips sections, particularly those for teachers, are invaluable. Above all, the advice is eminently sensible; while the author asks for understanding and the provision of space and calm for introverted children, she also recognises that “learning a few survival social skills can help introverts overcome the misperceptions.”

The book provides fascinating insights and is an empowering read for those of us who have learned extroversion the hard way. If you have an introverted child, then read this book.

‘Quiet Kids. Help Your Introverted Child Succeed in an Extroverted World’ (ISBN 9781618210821), by Christine Fonseca, was published by Prufrock Press on 1 October 2013. 

Oct 11

So proud of our girls!

This International Day of the Girl Child has been the most amazing experience at Ascham. It was preceded by a week of awareness-raising, as we discussed the significance of 11th October – only the second ever International Day on which the girl and her latent power to change the world have sat at the heart of our understanding. Educate a girl and you educate her children and her grandchildren; educate a girl and you also educate an entire community and nation.

These were the messages, and we heard and absorbed them in the days leading up to Friday so that when Friday came we were ready for our sponsored walk to raise funds and awareness on behalf of Plan International, whose “Because I am a Girl” campaign seeks to enable those millions of girls denied an education to go to school. We were the first to set off on the day on a walk that sought to bring girls in girls’ schools across the world together to walk the equivalent of the circumference of the world – a total of 40,075 km.

Our youngest girls, aged 4 to 8, walked 1.8 km around the school grounds, our junior girls walked 3 km down to and around Rushcutters Bay in Sydney, and our senior girls walked the full 10km to various iconic venues in the Blue Mountains and in Sydney, including to the Botanic Gardens, with a beautiful view over to the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.

10km was a symbolic figure; it is the average distance a girl in the world needs to walk each day to collect water – a task that keeps her out of school and that therefore limits her choices and her life opportunities. We were walking in solidarity with those girls – girls walking with girls – and it was incredibly meaningful.

Moreover, this walk has brought the whole Ascham community together. Scroll down the comments on our JustGiving page, and you will see affirmation after affirmation of the worthiness of the cause. At the time of writing, the community has contributed $10,393, and this is phenomenal. It costs less than $100 to send a girl to school in Uganda for a year; think how many girls whose lives we have the potential to change for the better.

I was so proud of our girls today. They were great company, at ease with themselves, and understanding of their responsibility to show the world what can be done to empower and educate girls. And I was so proud of our entire Ascham community for rising to the global challenge that is ahead of us all.

Well done, Ascham!

The end of the walk

 

Sep 29

Where no-one has gone before …

In a recent assembly at school, I read out a post from a blog written by Luca Parmitano, an astronaut with the European Space Agency currently serving on the International Space Station. Entitled EVA 23: exploring the frontier, it can be found on the ESA website and recounts in gripping detail a spacewalk that did not go to plan, with near fatal consequences. It was a sobering experience for all of us to hear it, and worth reflecting for a moment on why, despite the dangers, we are drawn irresistibly to the notion of space exploration.

An estimated 600 million people watched the first moon landing on 20 July 1969 – a world record until 750 million people watched the (then) fairytale wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981. Landing on the moon was fraught with danger and was a first for humanity; both of these are compelling reasons for people to watch, entranced, just as millions watched Felix Baumgartner’s skydive from space last year – we knew that this latter event was a stunt and that it was of huge benefit to commercial sponsors, but we watched anyway, holding our breath. When the Virgin spaceship takes off sometime next year, having just passed the latest stages of its technical development, queues of people will be waiting to take up the opportunity.

We are fascinated by space: each year, blockbuster movies (the latest being Oblivion) make us ask the as yet unanswered questions about whether there is life beyond the bounds of earth. Space offers us the sense of the unknown, and potentially of the unknowable. As humans, we struggle with this; whether this be down to our pioneering spirit or our arrogance, we are affronted by the sense that we do not and may not be able to know what is ‘out there’. Luca Parmitano reminds us in his blog that space is harsh and unforgiving, and that we are minuscule dots in comparison to the vastness; this challenges us at a deep, almost primal level.

We are drawn as a race to the pushing of frontiers, and space represents an enormous frontier still for us. We should not allow it to distract us from the frontiers remaining here on earth – of poverty, of inequality, of conflict, of the environmental harm we are doing to our planet – but neither should we discount it. If nothing else, space reminds us that we are incredibly fortunate to be human, and we should not waste this great fortune. Perhaps we should remember, rather, that we owe it to ourselves and to the universe to make a positive difference with our lives …