Feb 23

Afghan girls paying for their elders’ sins

On my way back from Australia, I picked up a copy of the International Herald Tribune at Singapore’s Changi airport and read a truly shocking story on the front page – a story that was subsequently picked up in the New York Times. It described the practice of ‘baad’, which despite being denounced by the UN as a ‘harmful traditional practice’, is still very much alive and well in Afghanistan, and which is destroying the lives of girls who are affected. Be under no illusion – this is a very current issue, but clearly one that is slipping under the radar; when you discover what ‘baad’ is, however, you will wonder why on earth we are not doing more about it now.

‘Baad’ is the use of abduction of girls as a form of retribution for perceived wrong done by a member or members of their family, and the stories told in the article were appalling. The article in the International Herald Tribune centred on the experience of Shakila, now 10, who was abducted by men carrying guns when she was 8 – 8! – because one of her uncles had run away with the wife of a district strongman. Her memories were of being locked in a filthy room and beaten. Her face still bears the scars caused when she was thrown against a wall. She was starved and tethered like an animal. Girls taken in baad are usually forced into slavery and early marriage, subjected to sexual relations at far, far too early a stage. Not even the idea that a baby can bring unity to warring families can possibly excuse this.

Shakila was unusual in that she escaped, and managed to make her way home, but as a result her family have had to flee their village and leave behind their home and possessions, out of fear of further retribution. Do not imagine, however, that her family’s objection to her abduction was entirely focused on her welfare; her father’s main complaint was that she was already promised in marriage to someone else, and was therefore another man’s property. None of this supported Shakila’s basic human rights as a girl and a woman.

This scandal of the abuse of girls’ rights is happening in far too many pockets of the world. It is outrageous that we should be encountering this in our day and age; we have to speak up and make a change. It is precisely this sort of behaviour against which Plan, the children’s charity, campaigns – go to their website now and take their vow against early marriage, and support in any other way you can. We cannot let other girls like Shakila suffer.

Feb 20

International travel and movies: reflections on humanity and the world

I haven’t counted up the miles I flew over the past almost 2 weeks, but I know that I have paid enough carbon tax to help plant a small forest, which is some guide. To be in London, Washington and Sydney, three of the greatest cities in the world, within the space of a few days, is one way to gain perspective on the world, and I used every moment to absorb what was special about each of those places and the people I met in them. Travelling really does broaden the mind – as long as your mind is ready to be broadened – and I have returned with three main observations on humanity as a result.

First, our planet is a remarkable place. It is smaller than sometimes we imagine or remember: if you can fly from one end of it to another within the space of a day, then it cannot be the endless pit of natural resource that we can fool ourselves into thinking, and we have to sharpen up fast in our thinking as a result (I did not fly without keen regard for the cost to the environment of my transportation, balanced against the value of my visits; nor, when – for example – I saw the container ships pouring in and out of Singapore, did I acknowledge this without some reflection on our consumerism and potential wastefulness). In flying, you cross deserts and seas, developed cities and remote villages – from 40,000 feet up, we may not see the detail, but we can be conscious of the human activity, and the natural patterns and rhythms of the world, and we can be respectful of them.

Secondly, people really are all the same. There is a deep sense of connection which binds us as human beings regardless of our culture, our history and our experiences. I have met some astonishing people over the past week or so – some, quite casually, in passing at airports and on public transport systems; others who are Heads of great schools and who share in my desire to connect girls’ schools across the oceans; some truly great teachers of all levels at my new school in Australia, giving their all to their pupils every day; and extraordinarily committed parents, former pupils and friends of education. As I write this I am preparing for a new week in my current school, and my heart fills with pride at the thought of spending time with amazing girls and staff, and – although my loyalties are of necessity and choice beginning to be split equally – probably the best team of educators anywhere in the world. People are people – with a phenomenal capacity to do good and to make a difference for themselves and for others. It is humbling to see.

Thirdly, we really are a creative race. What a lot of movies I have seen during my travels! When you are held in a confined space travelling at vast speeds across the continents, you have a perfect opportunity to indulge in watching films, and to admire the craftsmanship behind them. I watched The Iron Lady – which, as you will recall from a previous blog, I feared I might not see until it came out on DVD, and I do believe that Meryl Streep deserves an Oscar for her performance, in a film which was both evocative and challenging at times in its portrayal of Lady Thatcher’s leadership. I watched Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (twice) and was drawn in, caught, by the silences, the waiting, and Gary Oldman’s depiction of George Smiley. I watched Margin Call, about the crash on Wall Street, and The Ides of March, George Clooney’s insight into American politics – neither of which made for comfortable viewing in the messages they planted, although both were captivating. I also watched the A Team – I am not sure what this says about my movie choices, but it should of course be remembered that the team of renegades was motivated by a moral purpose …

This world is amazing; the human race is amazing; each and every child in our families and in our schools is amazing. It is up to us to ensure that they understand this and that together we make the world a better, fairer, place where each and every person can release his or her potential. It is 5am GMT as I write – a great start to what will be a great day in this great world.

Feb 17

Young Australian of the Year 2012 – Marita Cheng

As part of my – highly enjoyable – wanderings through Australian history and current events, I came across this week information about this year’s newly appointed ‘Young Australian of the Year’, Marita Cheng. This award has been made every year since 1979 and recognises exceptional achievement in 16-30 year olds – an excellent idea, it strikes me, for motivating others and celebrating the success that comes from hard work and courage. Previous recipients have included young Olympic sports stars, people who have overcome significant adversity and hardship, and people who have set up charitable organisations and made a difference in the world – all extremely laudable activities.

Marita Cheng is an engineer – or at least, she will be when she eventually graduates from her engineering course at the University of Melbourne. Although she is still a student, she has already shown immense dedication to the cause of engineering, and to encouraging young women to take up a career in engineering. In 2008 she founded Robogals Global, an organisation that uses fun and educational activities to teach schoolgirls about engineering and the difference that engineers make to our lives; already, through Robogals, she has been responsible for running robotics workshops for 3,000 girls across 80 schools in Australia and now has 17 sub-groups functioning across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

We know that – still – engineering does not attract women to the same degree that it does men, probably because it still has an image wafting around it of grease, dirt and physical labour. The truth of the sector now is that it is as much about intelligent thinking and design as it is about building, and we still have work to do to ensure that girls especially (woefully under-represented as they are in the profession) understand this.

Marita is an impressive young woman. She has a Nancy Fairfax Churchill Fellowship, an International Youth Foundation YouthActionNet Fellowship and an Anita Borg Change Agent Award. She has been a panellist on ABC TV’s New Inventors programme, and she plans to start a robotics company, creating robots that will take care of many everyday and mundane tasks. It is clear that already she has changed the way that girls view their ability to contribute to engineering and technology. I hope that I may meet her one day!

Feb 13

Filling in the history: famous Australian women (part 1)

Another week, another city – another continent. From Washington DC to Sydney involves travelling more than half way around the world, which is an exercise in physical resilience, but an opportunity to think and reflect, and I have enjoyed using the time to start preparing for our new life in Australia (for which this trip is only a precursor – we don’t move out to take up my new post at Ascham School in Sydney until December 2012). An important part of moving to a different part of the world is seeking out and absorbing the history of one’s destination, and I have enjoyed using some of my travelling time to think about some of Australia’s famous women.

I suspect that this blog will be one of many over the next few months; the names will be familiar to Australian readers but not so often to British or US readers, so I shall continue to indulge my investigations. An early famous Australian woman to capture my attention was Mary Lee, who lived from 1821 to 1909, and who was an active welfare worker and suffragist. Her entry in the Australian Women’s Register describes how – born in Ireland, widowed at 35 and an ‘migr’ to South Australia that same year – Mary Lee became very involved in campaigning for women’s rights, essentially to improve their living and working conditions. She and others soon recognised that women’s suffrage was crucial to their goals, and she became secretary of the Women’s Suffrage League of South Australia in 1888. In addition, she served with the Female Refuge ladies’ committee, the Distressed Women’s and Children’s Committee and the Adelaide Sick Poor Fund, and was secretary of the Working Women’s Trades Union – an active and an engaged life. She is credited, along with her friend Mary Colton, who became President of the Women’s Suffrage League in 1892, with the advent of universal suffrage in South Australia in 1894 – several years ahead of the UK.

In 1892 Mary Lee visited Broken Hill, New South Wales, to address a group on women’s suffrage, and her letter to the newspaper, the Barrier Miner, published on 1 September 1892, is quoted in the Australian Women’s Register:

‘I congratulate my working brothers on their respect for law – their avoidance of all which might provoke to fund, or sew the seeds of an after-crop of bitterness – on their patience under misrepresentation and provocation’ But Sir, this strike has one feature which renders it more profoundly interesting than any of its predecessors here, or elsewhere as far as I know, and which must secure it a prominent and distinguished page when the history of these colonies shall come to be written. It is the fact that the women of Broken Hill are the first great body of working women who have raised their voices in united protest against the glaring injustice that “the present Constitution will not allow them a voice in the framing of the laws under which they are compelled to live.”- May the memory of those woes and distresses which have awakened in the women of Broken Hill the spirit of liberty kindle that spirit to such a glow that the hearts of the “fathers, brothers, husbands and sweethearts” shall burn with the determination that the liberty which they prize so dearly shall be shared by those most dear to them; that the sons of freed men shall have freed mothers; that they shall bequeath to their daughters that grandest of human heritages -freedom!’

Inspiring words from an inspiring woman. And what a positive note on which to start my few days in Australia, where I will be spending time with a new generation of young women, whose futures stretch brighter before them because of the work of women like Mary Lee.

Feb 09

Inequality put right: recent lessons from America

Being in Washington tends to focus one’s mind on things American, which can be very refreshing and enriching, bringing as it does a slightly different perspective to one’s world view. Yet even though the view is different, the issues are often at heart the same, and as I was reading the comments made by the First Lady, Michelle Obama, at an event a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded of this very strongly. She was talking in Florida about the work her husband had done in office, and how his values had motivated him to do what was right, to help create a more equal world, and she reminded her audience that the very first Act that President Obama had signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (2009).

This Act was designed to overturn the 180 day limitation on anyone (but principally women) bringing a claim against their employers for unfair or unequal rates of pay. The law responded directly to (and therefore overturned) the 2007 ruling by the US Supreme Court which had held that the statute of limitations for presenting an equal-pay lawsuit begins on the date that the employer makes the initial discriminatory wage decision, not at the date of the most recent paycheck, as a lower court had ruled. The ruling had come about when Lilly Ledbetter, a production supervisor at a Goodyear tyre factory in Alabama, filed an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination six months before her early retirement in 1998, but relating to a period of several years over which her pay had slipped in comparison to the pay of her male counterparts.

For most of the years she worked for Goodyear, from 1979 to 1998, Lilly Ledbetter worked as an area manager, a position largely occupied by men. To begin with, her salary was in line with the salaries of men performing similar work, but over time this changed, and by the end of 1997, the pay discrepancy between Ledbetter and her 15 male counterparts was obvious: she was paid $3,727 per month, while the lowest paid male area manager received $4,286 per month and the highest paid, $5,236. Under the statute of limitations, however, she was not entitled to receive any compensation, as the discriminatory decisions relating to pay had been made more than 180 days prior to the date she filed her charge.

Inequality is inequality, and should be put right. And it was. As Michelle Obama said in Florida of her husband, ‘he did this because he knows what it means when women aren’t treated fairly in the workplace. He watched his own grandmother – a woman with a high school education – work her way up to become the vice president at a little community bank. And she worked hard. She was good at her job. But, like so many, she hit a glass ceiling, and she watched men no more qualified than she was – men she actually trained – be promoted up the ladder ahead of her.’ And he signed this bill because he knows that closing that pay gap can mean the difference between women losing $50, $100, $500 from each check, or having that money for gas and groceries and school clothes for their kids. He did it because when nearly two-thirds of women are breadwinners or co-breadwinners, he knows that women’s success in this economy is the key to families’ success in this economy. And he did it because, as he put it, we believe that here in America, there are no second-class citizens in our workplace.

So true and so important to hear. They say that travel broadens the mind. It certainly allows us the opportunity to think, reflect and remember that our quest for equality is not yet over, but is still underway. It is incumbent upon all of us to remember that we all have a part to play in the journey.

Feb 06

The case for girls’ schools

Earlier today I appeared on the BBC2’s Daily Politics – find it on BBC iplayer with today’s date (6th February) – and I was able to talk about the benefits of girls’ schools, which was a real boon. Girls’ schools are such fantastic places, and I am meeting with some colleagues from the US National Coalition of Girls’ Schools this week, as well as with other colleagues from around the world, as we seek to draw together our girls’ schools in a wider network which will benefit the girls we educate. This is a global world, after all, and our young women are growing up with a clear imperative and need to be able to understand and communicate with peoples from every corner of the globe. The more we can do as educators of girls to help develop this awareness and to help ‘grow’ the next generation, so that they can continue the work towards a fairer, more equitable society, the better.

As I was just checking a few details for my trip, I came across again the excellent ‘Case for Girls’ Schools’ on the NCGS website, and I was so inspired (again) that I wanted to share it with you here. They dismantle the myth that girls’ schools are in a bubble, pointing to the far greater opportunities that exist in girls’ schools for girls to do anything at all, free of prior expectations or prejudice: ‘By subtracting boys, an all-girls’ education adds opportunities. At a girls’ school, a girl occupies every role: every part in the play, every seat on the student government, every position on every team. Not only does she have a wealth of avenues for self-exploration and development; she has a wealth of peer role models.’

This case for girls’ schools continues with a focus on the classroom environment: ‘In an all-girls’ atmosphere, classroom dynamics shift – Without the distraction of boys, girls can have a greater ability to focus on their work; and teachers can demand that such work meet the highest standards.’ And finally, the proof is in the results – based on research which is listed, the article makes that point that ‘single-sex schools for females provide greater opportunity for educational attainment as measured by standardized cognitive tests, curriculum and course placement, leadership behavior, number of years of formal education, and occupational achievement’.

Girls’ schools are great – they are amazing places. As the National Coalition for Girls’ Schools says, ‘Simply put, girls’ schools teach girls that there is enormous potential and power in being a girl.’

And they are right.

Feb 04

Girls learning to lead: deciding on next year’s Head Girl and her team

I am just about to announce – tomorrow, after our morning assembly – the new positions of responsibilities for our Sixth Form girls for the coming year. The time has come for our final year pupils, with public exams looming, to relinquish their leadership roles and to pave the way for the next generation of leaders – this year’s Lower Sixth Form – to take on the mantle of responsibility in their place. This year’s team has been outstanding, and I will continue to meet with the senior prefects of this team weekly for the next few weeks as we effect the transition, but the time has come for them to hand over the reins, and there is another group of budding leaders eager and willing to take them from them.

Tomorrow will mark the end of a process that has involved discussions by pupils and staff about leaderships, analyses of performance and potential, voting by the entire school, and a clutch of deeply impressive letters of application, followed up by equally impressive, fluent, articulate and convincing interviews with me. It has been a privilege to be at the receiving end of such passion and commitment to the school and to the roles for which the girls have applied. Not every girl can be Head Girl, of course – and the appointments are as much about the team as they are about individual roles (a point which I stress at every stage) – but the courage and determination to succeed shown by the girls who apply (by every girl, in fact, in the year group) has been enormously satisfying.

Why is leadership by girls in school so important? Well, quite apart from the fact that the senior prefect team contribute hugely to the day-to-day running of the school, both in the practicalities and in the pastoral support that they offer to the younger year groups, the world needs women leaders, and young women need to learn somewhere. Moreover, they need to learn to lead not just for others, but also for themselves. The qualities that you need to develop if you are to be a good leader of others – confidence, courage, self-awareness, humility, strong values (to name but a few) – are exactly the same qualities that you need if you are to learn to make the most of yourself, to stretch yourself and to become the best of yourself. And, of course, you only develop these qualities by practising, by doing and by engaging in the act of leading, which is why it is important to create opportunities for girls and young women to do precisely this.

So – the new Head Girl’s Team will be announced tomorrow. Good luck to all the girls for what I know will be an exciting and fulfilling year – because they will make it so.

Feb 02

The London Eye and the human spirit

I swallowed my rather irrational (but probably essentially healthy) fear of heights on Sunday and went on the London Eye, the huge wheel that dominates the central London landscape and provides visitors with a bird’s eye view of the capital. The trip was a culmination of a rather irritating process of trying to persuade various sales people that the cost I was being charged online did not match the advertised cost – but to their credit they sorted this (eventually), and I ended up stepping out, into a moving capsule, on a brisk, fresh, clear morning, accompanied by my middle daughter.

The London Eye experience begins before you take this step, though, with a short 4D cinema film in the former County Hall, part of which is now transformed into the London Eye ticket hall. Capturing the excitement of a young child as she sees the Eye for the first time, it also contained clips of the spectacular New Year fireworks. A flurry of artificial snow flakes later, we were in the mood for our trip above the rooftops.

The London Eye, once it starts in the morning, almost never stops, moving inexorably round, people embarking and disembarking, capsules filling with people gazing out over a 360 degree London panorama. High up in the sky, London stretches before you – a beautiful city. It lacks the coherence of Paris or Washington DC, having evolved over centuries with only the faintest hint of a plan in small pockets, and the architecture varies wildly, due in no small part to the necessity of rebuilding huge swathes of the infrastructure after the devastation of the bombs of WWII. But it is a beautiful city nonetheless, and an inspiring one. All the movement, the endeavour, the work of Government, of enterprise, of people making this country function.

Perhaps it is the thought of seeing London less often when we move to Australia that allowed me to see it this way – I would prefer to think, however, that it is because a city like London encapsulates the desire and aspiration of the human spirit, and nowhere is this more evident than when rising high up above it and gazing down. I had the strong sense, as we moved ever upward, of the potential of humanity, not only in the engineering that was lifting us up, nor just in the design, architecture and activity beneath us, but in the spirit of our fellow human beings who can and do inspire us through the ages. It was magnificent, and I was so, so pleased to have shared it with my amazing daughter, whose life stretches ahead of her. May she and her generation continue to reach for the heavens.

Jan 30

On being thankful

On Friday evening I travelled down to Mount House Prep School in Tavistock, Devon to give a talk at their Friday service, and it was a lovely occasion. Mount House is a delightful school – small, warm, friendly and well-supported by parents, even to the extent that they are regular contributors to the great school choir, who sang a John Barnard anthem beautifully. A relaxed and delicious supper with the Head and his family after the service rounded off what was a super and uplifting evening.

My theme for the evening was thankfulness, as we have much to be thankful for in our lives, and sometimes we do not stop, take stock, and recognise this. I spoke again about Bangladesh, and my visit to that country last October with Plan UK to see the magnificent work that Plan is doing with and for children in that country (as in 49 other countries around the world); I find myself still inspired, on a daily basis, by my visit to Bangladesh – it was a powerful experience to see so much poverty and hardship, and yet so much positive work going on.

And of course, what was so remarkable in Bangladesh was the thankfulness and joy which was evident wherever we went. Everywhere we travelled, we were greeted with happy faces, cheerful songs, flowers … I wish I could have brought home the garlands of colourful flowers, and bottled up some of the laughter and the joy. These were people who had nothing, and yet were thankful for what they had, and for what they were doing, together with others, to create a better life for their children. There was a lightness, a happiness, a joyfulness about them as a result, and it was fantastic to see this.

That visit to Bangladesh taught me a lot. It taught me to value what I have, and to be thankful for my life. It taught me that you don’t need possessions to be happy. It taught me too that being thankful brings great joy not just to yourself but to others.

And of course, it taught me that we are all the same, we human beings, and we should never forget this. We should do what we can to help those less fortunate than ourselves, and we should do this not because we are better than them, but because we are all human beings together, and this is what we do – we do things for one another.

We would all do well, I think, to reflect from time to time on whether we are thankful enough for what we have, and for the world around us, and whether we are translating this thankfulness into action for our fellow humans. If, as I suspect might be the case, we realise that we are not thankful enough, or doing enough, then remember that it is never too late to adjust our perception of our lives, nor too late to make a difference. Start now – look up, look about you, see what is amazing in this world, and be truly, truly thankful. Your heart will be lighter immediately.

Jan 28

Communicating with young people: the work of Jean Gross

Jean Gross, the Government’s Communications Champion, – awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List – came to talk at the GSA conference which I hosted as GSA President in Bristol in November, and she speaks out tirelessly about the need for us to communicate effectively with children. Her goal is simple: she wants us to do this so that young people in turn can learn to communicate with adults and with one another, and access what life has to offer – without communication, after all, we cannot fully function as social human beings, we cannot learn about the world around us, and our life is so much shallower and paler as a result.

Vanessa Feltz, the radio and TV presenter once described as the hardest working woman in the media – and for whom I have a lot of time, as I admire her dedication and incisiveness – wrote an article in last week’s Express newspaper about the work of Jean Gross, which is worth a read. In it, she mentions one of the shocking real-life examples which Jean Gross has encountered in the course of her work: one in five new parents, apparently, thinks it is ‘a waste of time’ to talk to their baby before he or she reaches three months old; they are, in effect, ‘spending their first quarter of a year on earth in silence’.

This is a shocking thought, knowing what we – as educated adults – know about the importance of communicating with babies and children from their earliest hours, to help them see the world and understand the love that surrounds them. As Ms Feltz eloquently puts it, ‘The thought is so cold, so sterile, so many million light years away from the kisses and tickles, nursery rhymes and games of ‘peep-o’ that we fondly believe come entirely naturally to our species, it chills us to the very marrow.’

But this is the reality that Jean Gross is encountering – parents who lack parenting role-models, and who have themselves been so poorly or inadequately parented that they have not learned how to parent their own children. As a result, we risk entire swathes of our population growing up unable to communicate well, and we cannot allow this to happen. Jean Gross is doing an amazing job, but we all need to help her in our extended communities. Let’s not be afraid of talking openly and widely so that parenting becomes understood through all the media at our disposal. Let us teach it in schools, and by the example we set to others. As Vanessa Feltz puts it, ‘Isn’t it time every 15-year-old was taught that talking to a newborn baby is not only fun and infinitely rewarding but absolutely essential for the baby’s future attainment and development?’

Together we can make the world a better place – but we need to start now, and we need to get the message out fast.