Homepage Feature Column (do not use)

Ms Sarah McGarry, Dean of Student Transition This week has seen the School celebrate the diversity of our community in Multicultural Week. At first glance, this has taken the form of students (and teachers) donning national dress, sharing internationally-flavoured foods, and partaking in music and dance. On a deeper level, though, it has provided us with the opportunity to reflect upon the importance of each individual’s contribution to our community. ‘We tell ourselves stories in order to live,’ wrote Joan Didion in 1967. Even SBS television’s slogan ‘7 billion stories and counting ...’ is recognition of the value of the narrative in our local, national and global communities. UNESCO (2001) notes that culture is at the heart of contemporary debates about identity and social cohesion and that the process of globalisation, facilitated by the rapid development of new information and communication technologies, creates the conditions for renewed dialogue among cultures and civilisations. In our particular biosphere…

Mrs Judith Tudball, Dean of of Co-curriculum Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for. But do not hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you are old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you have gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. The concept of educational travel is not a new one. In his poem Ithaka, the modern Greek poet C.P. Cavafy outlines the lessons learnt on a journey when he writes about the eventful progress of the hero Odysseus home from Troy and the wealth he has gained along the way (Waldron, 2009). Similarly, the great Victorian poet Lord Alfred Lord Tennyson, in his poem Ulysses, writes of the spiritual and intellectual imperatives of life-long journeying. Tennyson’s Ulysses (Odysseus) cannot rest from travelling life to the fullest. Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ Gleams…

Is feminism still relevant? Dean of Studies challenges Grammar girls to assess the gender gap.

Mr Shane Skillen, Co-Director of Technology Studies, urges parents assess the value of cultural capital in their homes.

Principal Dr Bell focuses on teacher quality in her Gonski review opinion piece for The Australian website.

Ms Jan O’Sullivan, Head of Griffith House I only care what you think of yourself. If you feel your value lies in being decorative, one day you may believe that’s all you really are ... Time erodes all such beauty but what it cannot diminish are the wonderful workings of your mind: your humour, your kindness and your moral courage.   Abigail March in the 1994 Columbia Pictures film Little Women If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. Atticus Finch in the novel and film, To Kill a Mockingbird For many years I have promoted the idea to my English students that the reading of novels and the viewing of quality films is an effortless way to widen one’s…

What would Socrates have done with so much information just a mouse click away? Ms Alison Dare, Director of Humanities, reflects on how a Classical education can lead the way.

‘Superwoman’ has a younger counterpart in our teenage girls who, like their mothers, feel the pressure to be everything to everyone. In recent years the term ‘supergirl syndrome’ has been coined to describe the unrealistic standards that many girls feel compelled to attain. Compared to their mothers and grandmothers, girls are presented with seemingly endless opportunities and told they can do anything. Unfortunately this positive message can have its shadow side when girls confuse opportunity to do anything with compulsion to do, and perhaps be, everything. It is not enough to be smart and successful, they must also be thin, beautiful, kind and caring.