Mary Poppins and the power of dreams

I wonder if PL Travers could have imagined, when she wrote her first Mary Poppins novel in 1934, that her work would have had such an impact on generations of children to come. This impact is not limited to children, in fact; I can testify, having spent a joyous 2 hours watching the stage musical on Broadway on Saturday, that I am still reaping the positive benefits of hearing the catchy music, feeling the joy of the audience, and experiencing the awe at the production. With songs such as ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ and ‘Let’s Go Fly a Kite’ racing around in my head, I feel as though I will have a smile on my face for weeks.

Mary Poppins may be a rather ambivalent character – it is reported that PL Travers fell out with Disney when they toned down the rather harsher aspects of her personality – but (on stage and on screen, certainly) she works wonders in helping a dysfunctional family rediscover its happiness, and in advocating the appropriate mix of discipline and love in child-rearing. She has a no-nonsense, ‘can-do’ approach to life, and obviously cares deeply about her charges (although not enough to stay with them forever, obviously). All elements of a positive role model, in many ways.

But it was not in the pedagogy but in the pure magic and beauty of the stage experience that I lost myself, as did my five year old daughter, who gazed open-eyed in wonder as Mary Poppins ascended to the heavens. ‘I believe in the magic’ said the strapline outside the theatre, next to the life-size photograph of Mary Poppins, headed for the skies holding her parrot umbrella and her bright red bag. And while we all know that there is a scientific explanation for everything, it does us good sometimes to see the world through the eyes of a child who has yet to discover this, and who wonders with amazement how she can fly.

My favourite lines? Well, they won’t surprise you. If you too were to abandon yourself to the extraordinary creativity of the show, you would understand entirely. You would have a bounce in your step as you set off, energised, on the next part of your day, week and life. Here they are:

‘If you reach for the stars, all you get are the stars, but […] if you reach for the heavens you get the stars thrown in’

What a marvellous thought to begin a new school term! Enjoy the magic and wonder of the world over the next few weeks!

 

Miss Wallis and a passion for girls’ education

I have just been reading ‘The Search for Marie Wallis’ by Gerri Nicholas; Miss Marie Wallis was the founding principal of Ascham School, Sydney, Australia, and I shall be following in her footsteps in January 2013, when I become Ascham’s 10th Head in its history. Miss Wallis founded the school in Darling Point in Sydney in 1886, and grew it carefully and astutely, establishing it as a place of learning for young women, until ill health in 1902 led her to pass the school on to its next Head. Since this time, the school has continued to thrive and develop, but I was struck in my reading by the strong resonances that Ascham today has with its early days; the education of girls and young women is a passion that has survived with vigour through the decades and that is alive and well today.

The 1880’s were a very different time from our current decade – and the difficulty that the author of ‘The Search for Marie Wallis’ had in tracking down records about Miss Wallis bears testament to this. Pre-technology, pre-jet engine, pre-penicillin, pre-birth control … life was altogether far more hazardous and far less secure, and yet we would be wrong to imagine that this past is so different from our present day. LP Hartley’s famous words at the start of his 1953 novel ‘The Go-Between’, ‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there’ are not entirely true when applied to real-life history. For a start, I – like you – know people who knew people who lived in that day and age (think: grandparents of grandparents), and their values live on to some extent in ours; more importantly, the 1880’s, like now, were a period of turmoil in education and gender awareness, and the mission to educate girls and young women was as strong then as it is now.

Many of the great girls’ schools in the UK and Australia (and elsewhere in the world) were set up in the last quarter of the nineteenth century (St Mary’s Calne was founded in 1973); social change, too was afoot. In Australia, the passing of Henry Parkes’ Public Instruction Act in 1880, which enabled all girls as well as boys to benefit from a free and compulsory education, meant that education was high on the agenda for parents, who began to expect more of their daughters’ education than they had perhaps previously done. The first two women students graduated from the University of Sydney in 1885, well ahead of their counterparts in many of the leading universities in the UK. Women’s right to vote was enshrined in Australian law in 1902 (again, far ahead of the UK), soon after the Commonwealth of Australia was formed. It was a turbulent time, and although the ambitions of girls and young women were still often subject to, and dampened by, the social expectations of women of the time, girls’ schools had an enormously important role to play in releasing women to think, develop themselves and to become accomplished in all manner of intellectual activity which would enable them to become more authentically themselves.

Fast forward a century and a quarter, and we find ourselves still in a period of social turmoil. Despite the enormous advances made in women’s rights and gender equality over the intervening years, there is much we still have to do as a society to ensure that people have fair access to opportunities, regardless of their sex. It is unsurprising that pockets of unawareness or resistance remain; after all, so much has changed in such a short space of time. Girls’ schools, I believe, continue to have a role not only as experts in girls’ education, to develop individuals to make the most of themselves, but also to ensure that the passion for the education of women and girls, ignited by our ancestors, is not lost, and that our young women go into the world ready and prepared to help make it a fairer and more equal place. Only with a concerted effort will we change the world – and education is the answer.

I feel very optimistic that we will, indeed, soon make the world a better place. Onwards and upwards!

 

The Rosa Parks of women’s golf?

It would be absolutely fascinating to be privy to the discussions currently going on amongst the inner circle of the Augusta National Golf Club, Georgia, where the US Masters Golf tournament has just concluded. The Club has found itself rather uncomfortably at the centre of a gender equality storm this past week, as one of their traditions – to offer membership to the chief executives of the companies sponsoring the Masters – clashed with one of its other traditions, ie not to admit female members. This year, IBM, one of the three corporate sponsors of the tournament, has a female chief executive, Virginia Rometty. A dilemma for the Golf Club. Will they or won’t they change their policy?

People and institutions have of course weighed into the debate, the most powerful voice coming from President Obama himself, who let it be known via a spokesman that his personal opinion was that women should be admitted. And while there are arguments that sit on the other side of this particular fence – that groups should be free under the American Constitution to choose their own members – and while some women golfers see this as an irrelevance (the more important issue being that women’s sport generally is not valued as much as men’s sport), and while, too, Virginia Rometty does not herself appear to be a particularly avid golfer, President Obama has a point.

In this day and age, while we might still accept the existence of private groups of people doing their own thing in their own friendship circles, and not worry whether these are exclusively male or female, once we bring these groups on to a public stage, and set them up as world-class institutions, then we have to have an eye to the values that they are exhibiting to the world. Clubs like the Augusta National Golf Club could very easily have a choice as to whether to host the Masters or not; I can imagine that other clubs would fall over themselves for the opportunity. Surely with this right to host comes a responsibility that extends beyond the game of golf itself? Surely the members of the Club can see that the time has come to make gender a non-issue and admit women?

Virginia Rometty is not setting herself up as the Rosa Parks of golf, as suggested in The Times this week, and I don’t expect her to do so. In our civilised society, these things can be sorted clearly and swiftly with discussion and simple argument. But it would be an opportunity missed if she didn’t at least express some kind of expectation to be offered membership, and if the Augusta National Golf Club didn’t respond with grace.

Why I feel sympathy for Samantha Brick

Samantha Brick’s story has gone viral this week, following an article she wrote in Tuesday’s Daily Mail entitled ‘Why women hate me for being beautiful‘. Now, we have to understand that Ms Brick is a writer, and has in the past written features for the Daily Mail and other popular magazines and newspapers, many of them of a confessional nature – trying for a child aged 40, for instance. She also blogs about her life as a housewife in France. There is nothing particularly wrong with all of this; she makes a living, and generally (not always, but mostly) ensures that she rather than anyone else is the focus of any deprecating remarks. Indeed, her article on Tuesday, while not entirely interpreted as such, is focused on herself rather than on others.

What caused the storm was a perceived arrogance about her looks, and many thousands of people have seen it as an invitation to comment negatively – often cruelly – on how they perceive Samantha Brick’s appearance. Complete strangers felt they were given permission to judge her harshly and to condemn her, to the extent that (unsurprisingly), as she explained in a follow-on article in the next day’s Daily Mail, she spent most of Tuesday in tears. Online communication is a real double-edged sword; it can connect people and their ideas swiftly and almost in real time, but it can also – through utter thoughtlessness and the narcissism and selfishness of commentators who do not think about the effect of their written words on their subjects – be extraordinarily harmful. We have yet to develop, it seems, appropriate strong guidelines to online interaction which would enable safer, more affirming communication with one another.

In many ways, Samantha Brick is a victim. Yes, she will have been paid for her article, and the publicity she has received over the past few days will have helped her profile and her selling power as a writer tremendously. But she clearly did not really anticipate the vitriolic nature of the reactions to her piece, and she will have been wounded as a result. Her bosses at the Daily Mail, however, will have hoped for such a reaction, and will no doubt be absolutely delighted about the worldwide interest her story has sparked; they appear sadly lacking in their responsibility to her wellbeing. Shades, here, of manipulation. To her credit, Ms Brick has come out fighting, with appearances on numerous chat shows, and I detect a shift in public perception towards her. Probably our society was not quite ready for the message she was giving, and maybe she could have phrased it more carefully; but the shameful reactions of many have at least given us deep food for thought in how we deal with others.

Two good things could emerge from this for Samantha Brick. One – she will probably increase her earnings, and I suspect that a book deal is just around the corner. I hope she uses this opportunity wisely, and with a view to the responsibility she now has a public figure. Two – and I really hope that this happens – she could and should use her new-found platform to speak more forcefully and politically about how we need to move away from the obsession we have with superficiality and appearance, and how we – women as well as men – need to value people for who they are, not what they look like. The final words in her original article can be her call to action: ‘Perhaps … the sisterhood will finally stop judging me so harshly on what I look like, and instead accept me for who I am.’

Out of every storm comes an opportunity for change for the better for us all. Let this be Samantha Brick’s moment.

Trayvon Martin and America’s conscience

Last week – and this week, still – America has been transfixed by the Trayvon Martin case. It has been the topic of news debate after news debate, and has been addressed by politicians, the President, church leaders and ordinary citizens, many thousands of whom have attended rallies and vigils. Why? Because this case has really needled America’s conscience, and has made Americans look very closely into their souls about why it happened – why a young man was shot and killed, and why no-one has of yet been held to account for this.

The facts – as far as they are discernible, and there is of course some dispute – are these: on 26th February, in Sanford Florida, 17 year-old Trayvon was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighbourhood watch captain, as Trayvon returned from a local 7-Eleven after buying a bag of Skittles and iced tea. He was in a gated community – common in Florida – but had the right to be there, as he was visiting his father’s girlfriend. His death came after Mr Zimmerman had called 911, explaining that Trayvon, who was wearing a hoodie at the time, a pair of blue jeans, and red/white sneakers, looked suspicious. Zimmerman then pursued Trayvon even after he was told not to do so by the 911 dispatcher. When he approached Trayvon, the two got into a scuffle, resulting in Trayvon taking a bullet to the chest at point blank range. Zimmerman claimed that he shot Trayvon on the grounds of self-defence and has since been in hiding.

Florida authorities claim that the so-called ‘Stand Your Ground’ law passed in Florida in 2005 is the legal obstacle to the prosecution of Martin’s killer. Such laws permit someone to use deadly force, ie kill another human being, when he or she feels threatened by that individual’s behaviour. Enshrined in the American Constitution, after all, is the right to protect life and property. Many of the debates have focused on whether this was a racist act, and whether or not gun control would have made a difference; what America is beginning to realise, however, and is beginning to focus upon, is that this was a young human life – a life which has been tragically cut short. For a whole host of reasons – perhaps because we are so used to fictional violence, or perhaps because we feel so comfortable and protected in our own lifestyles that we feel at times immortal, or perhaps because we put ourselves first, before others – we seem to lose sight, too often, of the precious nature of human life. Nothing will bring back Trayvon Martin’s life – nothing at all. It is gone. The least we can do is to try to learn the lessons to ensure that it does not happen again.

And that is what America is realising.

‘The Hunger Games’ … and why all adults should read it

As I write, Suzanne Collins’ teen novel The Hunger Games sits at the top of USA Today’s bestselling books lists, with the next three slots also occupied by novels in the trilogy – the twelfth week that they have appeared in the top 10, with the top slot occupied by the first book in the trilogy. With the release of the movie just over a week ago, to full houses and earning its place as the highest grossing non-sequel in history, this position at the top of the teen fiction league tables looks assured for some time. But why is it so captivating? What makes it such a compelling read for young people?

As almost all of the teenagers I know have read or are reading it, I bought the book myself last week to find out, and I too found it compelling. It is a relatively easy read, but fascinating and utterly gripping, both in its concept and in its execution – a word not to be used lightly in the context of a book which focuses on the fight to the death of children, forced, in a dystopian future, to compete each year in brutal televised games in retribution for a past (failed) rebellion. It is shockingly cruel in places, and yet immensely compassionate in others; above all, though, it portrays the adult world in a way to which many teenagers will relate, namely as a distant, remote, omnipotent autocracy which has ultimate – and uncaring – control over the actions of its young people.

As adults we often forget what it feels like to be a teenager, although if you ask most adults whether they would like to relive those teenage years again (without the benefit of hindsight), then they would refuse; being a teenager is a turbulent and difficult time in places, although it brings an intensity of emotion that can lead to huge highs and bonds for life as well. The turbulence is all down to biology and the radical rewiring that occurs during the post-pubescent years, but this rational explanation does not usually help make it easier for young people – or even their parents and other adults – to deal with the trials and tribulations of this time of their lives. The Hunger Games taps into this sense of difference and distance, and because it does so, it simultaneously makes for both essential and dangerous reading (and, now, viewing).

Adults should read The Hunger Games because it will teach them to see again the world through the eyes of a significant proportion of the population. They should also read it, though, because they need to help mediate the view of this world through their own eyes, and their own, more balanced, experience. They cannot allow some of the assumptions it makes about the world to go uncontested, for therein lies the danger for young people, who can risk becoming more and more isolated from a society which they need, and which needs them. Adults need to have the conversations with teenagers about why the cruelty is so wrong, and why and how rebellion can be justified; they need to take on board the fact that teenagers often – rightly – feel that adults do not understand them, but they also need to take on the task of showing teenagers how they can in fact understand and relate to them, if both teenager and adult communicate.

Read The Hunger Games. Prepare to be shocked. And then talk to a teenager about what it means to them, and help them to grow into stronger and better adults as a result.

Music makes the world go round …

The St Mary’s Calne Chamber Choir Tour to Florida was an amazing success, and every single one of the girls on the tour, including our Upper Sixth Form lead violinist, who played fantastic solos and accompaniments as part of the concerts, was heartily in agreement that this past week has been amazing. The girls certainly saw Florida- from the sophistication of Naples to the ecologically driven activities of the Mote Marine Laboratory in Tampa, and from the popularity of the churches to the glitz of Miami, with places like Siesta Key and wildlife such as crocodiles and flamingos thrown in en route.

Most importantly, however, they experienced at first hand – as if they needed reminding, given that music is a passion for them – that singing and music have a power to unite people across cultures and continents. The standing ovations and high level of appreciation for the work of the girls in the services and concerts at which they sang were both gratifying and humbling – gratifying because it gave them proper recognition for all their hard work, talent and achievement; humbling because in the sounds that they produced, they had created something astonishing and moving which transcended the ability of each of them alone. The concerts were truly, truly beautiful, and no-one who attended them left unaffected or unchanged. The sounds reverberated around the churches, the schools and the concert venues, and reverberated also in the hearts of the audiences.

Music is incredibly powerful; beautiful music is incredibly and beautifully powerful. Faced with such a phenomenon, it is no wonder that Florida was wowed. There are days, as I have said before, when I am so, so proud to be a Headmistress of a wonderful school with wonderful girls. These past seven days most certainly count as some of those.

Of course … first step Florida, next step the world. Watch out, world!

Singing, sand and sisters in Florida

I have just spent a couple of days in Naples, Florida, as the first part of the fantastic St Mary’s Calne Chamber Choir tour of the State. You can follow them via their website – http://musicatstmaryscalne.wordpress.com/, and if you are in Florida in the next few days, come and hear them! Make an effort – it will be worth it!

The weather is lovely, the people are enormously welcoming, and the singing is just amazing – it is so uplifting to be at the heart of this experience. With the schedule as full as it is, however, my time for writing blogs is limited, and so I shall merely point you in the direction of a fascinating woman about whom I have been reading since arriving in the Sunshine State. Everywhere I go, I seek out stories of interesting women, as I firmly believe that it is through hearing their stories that we – and most importantly, our young people – learn and absorb more about our social history and how the perceptions and roles of women have changed in recent times and are changing still … but still have some way yet to change.

Today’s story is about a woman called Doris Reynolds, 86, who is Naples’ official historian, and feted as having had a hugely successful career. She was, however, born into poverty and abuse, and it was the power of education – learning to read – which freed her from this. A simple but clear message to remind us all – read about her here.

In the meantime, I am off to celebrate more of the achievements of the next generation of women, watching and listening to the girls of St Mary’s Calne in their phenomenal performances. This is a tremendous experience.

Oh, and the beaches are fabulous too …

Let teachers be teachers

I offer my thanks to a former Headmistress of Ascham School in Sydney who pointed me in the direction of The New York Review of Books and a recent review by Diane Ravitch of a book by Pasi Sahlberg, ‘Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?’. Finland, of course, which rises high in the PISA international education league tables, is much vaunted in UK educational circles as a paragon of educational virtue – although it is not always widely known why; it is interesting not only to see that a similar awareness-raising process is happening in the States, but also to understand, through a closer analysis of the Finnish system, why this should be.

Ravitch’s review situates Sahlberg’s exposition of education in Finland within the wider context of educational reform in the US. The landscape of this reform is deeply concerning, and echoes can be felt in the UK too – an ever greater focus on standardised testing, and the judging of teachers by the results of these tests. No-one doubts the intention of educational policy-makers who seek to ensure that ‘no child is left behind’; tempting though it may be to apply mechanistic processes of accountability to the problem, however, there is an inherent absurdity and a blindness to the realities of this ‘science’ at play. As Ravitch puts it,

‘The reformers don’t care that standardized tests are prone to measurement error, sampling error and other statistical errors. They don’t seem to care that experts have warned about a misuse of standardized tests to hold individual teachers accountable with rewards and sanctions. Nor do they see the absurdity of gauging the quality of a teacher by the results of a multiple-choice test given to students on one day of the year.’

In Finland, on the other hand, standardized tests are sat only at the end of a student’s high school career, and ‘the central aim of Finnish education is the development of each child as a thinking, active, creative person‘.

The American focus on ‘accountability’ of teachers is replaced by a stronger inner sense of ‘responsibility’, as Sahlberg put it in a conversation he had with Diane Ravitch in December 2010. Finnish teachers are highly respected, and highly valued; only eight universities run teacher-preparation programmes, and places on these programmes are highly prized, with only one in ten applicants successful. As a result, Finnish teachers are extremely well-prepared, and – most encouraging of all – they have, so Sahlberg writes, a ‘sense of moral mission’.

The relationships that our children build with their teachers are among the most powerful in their lives. An outstanding teacher will guide, nurture and direct the children in his or her care, and will have a positive and lasting impact. Therein lies the success of Finland’s education system.

Learning at the heart of every school … but what to learn? That is the question.

The OECD published a report last week about leadership in schools across the world; entitled ‘Preparing Teachers and Developing School Leaders for the 21st Century’, it had as its core intention an exploration of how headteachers and principals of schools are developed into effective leaders, and how, by sharing good practice, we can all learn from the best. The Report was particularly interesting, however – once you moved beyond the tables of comparisons (which, though interesting in themselves, sometimes distracted from the main messages) – in what it assumed about learning today:

‘… in a fast-changing world, producing more of the same education will not suffice to address the challenges of the future. Perhaps the most challenging dilemma for teachers today is that routine cognitive skills, the skills that are easiest to teach and easiest to test, are also the skills that are easiest to digitize, automate and outsource. A generation ago, teachers could expect that what they taught would last for a lifetime of their students. Today, where individuals can access content on Google, where routine cognitive skills are being digitized or outsourced, and where jobs are changing rapidly, education systems need to place much greater emphasis on enabling individuals to become lifelong learners, to manage complex ways of thinking and complex ways of working that computers cannot take over easily. Students need to be capable not only of constantly adapting but also of constantly learning and growing, of positioning themselves and repositioning themselves in a fast changing world.’

These messages have been growing in volume and intensity for a few years now, and are entirely convincing, and yet in school classrooms we often seem to bury our heads in the sand and keep on teaching in essentially the same way as children have been taught for the past century or so. The technology is innovative, and there is a far greater focus on skills than ever before, but the main pressures not to change come from the imposed need to conform to a knowledge-based examinations system which channels learning into specific boxes, and a national curriculum which is conceptualised around discrete ‘subjects’, taught by discrete specialists who – in the face of the inexorable drive towards national examination targets (now, of course, compared internationally) – have little time to collaborate, to question what their students are learning, and to find a way to connect it for them, to create the opportunities for higher level, joined up, synergistic and synoptic thinking that our world needs.

Too much time is wasted at school with pupils moving from classroom to classroom, readjusting their expectations of what will be required from the next – separate, un-joined-up – class. We need to think radically and fast about what we are doing in our schools, and this is a conversation which needs to happen both at national and international level, as well as in the heart and crucible of the action – our schools. Nothing will change unless we make it change, and we are going to have to be very, very bold if we are going to take a leap – together – into planning, through the education we provide, for a world where our children are ahead of the challenges they face, not struggling to adjust to them when they leave schools and universities.

One thing is clear – the status quo is not good enough. Let us press on with the conversation and drive for the future.