Mrs Marise McConaghy, Deputy Principal
How hard it is to escape from places
However carefully one goes they hold you –
You leave bits of yourself fluttering on the fences,
Little rags and shreds of your very life.
(Katherine Mansfield, to Ida Baker, 1922)
Schools are remarkable places. Brisbane Girls Grammar stands on Gregory Terrace, Spring Hill and has done so since the year 1884 when the Main Building from which I write was commissioned and built. And so it is, as the weather warms, the jacarandas bloom and another academic year draws to a close 127 years later that one can’t help but feel this place steadying itself for the next chapter in its story. This is a time of the year when I feel humbled by the dimensions of the history of this School and what the people who have passed through have left as a legacy.
Our Year 12s are engaged in their final school assessment and are psychologically preparing to leave. Day by day over the past five years, they have grown from girls to women and are now imagining lives beyond the picket fence. As they reach another turning point and leave our immediate care, I hope they take with them ‘still frames’ in their memories of their time here, indeed, that they remember they had the time of their lives. Since they entered the Gehrmann Theatre as wide-eyed émigrés, in crisp new uniforms for their first assembly together, much growth and learning has occurred both in and out of classrooms. I hope that not only have they enjoyed the social and co-curricular elements of school life, but enjoyed the School’s very spirit itself.
I challenge the girls not to measure their success in life as reduced to mere letters and numbers: LOAs (Levels of Achievement), QCS (Queensland Core Skills test) results, OPs (Overall Position), GPAs (Grade Point Average), Degrees, BFs (best friends), FB likes (Facebook); or pairs of shoes and parties attended. My wish for our girls is that they are able to find an authentic sense of themselves which resists simplistic categorisation and enables them be resolved and courageous in finding their own way in life. At this time of leave-taking we always talk to the girls about the importance of reflecting on a personal ethical framework and values as a way of guiding them through the perplexities of life. As the girls move towards their eighteenth birthdays and take on the full mantle of adult responsibility, we encourage them to live by the old-fashioned idea of being a person of good character whose word and deed can be trusted, who is respectful, whose general intent is fairness and thoughtfulness towards others.
I would like to thank this Year 12 of 2011 who have been led splendidly by Lucy Tonge and Angelique Sweep. The entire cohort has developed well into the position they have held as senior role models; they have responded robustly to the intellectual rigours of Year 12 and seem to have managed to navigate the tricky, awkward aspects of mid-adolescence with good grace while having a great deal of fun along the way. They are ready to leave us now, whether they know it or not, as it is time for them to learn other things in other places. We wholeheartedly wish them well and remind them that, although new generations of girls will come and go, inhabit their tables and take up the responsibility of being ‘the seniors’, they will always belong to the Girls Grammar family and will always be the only Year 12 of 2011.
Over the years, younger students have told me that they feel a sense of safety when they see the Year 12s at their tables and in the week the Year 12s leave and the tables are abandoned, they feel a commensurate sense of vulnerability and excitement. Isn’t this interesting? As the older girls disappear, the responsibilities of the adult world loom closer for the younger ones. Sometimes they retreat back a bit more to childhood for a little rest, while others seek to be grown up too soon just to push the matter, feel the excitement and defy the fear. All groups are looking now to what is next. The Year 11s are voting for their leaders. This can be a difficult time as inevitably there are disappointments and the need for girls to readjust to long-held aspirations. We know that important lessons in life are being learned but we understand their joys and sorrows. Our Year 11s also know there is not many school days, or wriggle room, left and “reaching one’s potential” is now an imperative rather than an airy slogan. They know their parents’ eyes will be on them and that the teachers mean business. Despite the excitement of finally being the seniors on campus, they wonder in less certain moments if they are up to it all and they are fearful that they are not. We know that they are ready, and we know through our history and the experience of all those who have gone before, what to do to support them.
Year 10s are also looking to new horizons. They have chosen subjects for the senior school and are excited at the prospect of learning new things, while sharing apprehension about the demands of senior study. It is interesting that despite the workload, students seem to love their senior years best of all and love retelling – with more and more embellishment as the years progress – the hilarious stories of Camp adventures or seriously awkward Junior School moments. The girls in Years 8 and 9 know that they will be in new classes next year with a new suite of teachers and most of them are eager to move on to being a bit more grown up and having the opportunity to meet new people and broaden their circles of friendship. It is hard for them at the beginning of the year and, like our Year 12s, who will be in unfamiliar university or work settings, they must draw on their strengths and resilience as they face classrooms full of unfamiliar faces and personalities. Certainly, they will have ‘wobbly’ moments of self-doubt and self-consciousness but we know that they will manage with our support and that these life lessons will stand them in good stead. In past weeks we had House Afternoon Teas for our incoming Year 8s so that they can get to know each other and experience being together on this campus that will soon be theirs. It is so uplifting to see their bright, little-girl faces, feel their straightforward, pre-teenage energy and their pride in nearly being big secondary schoolers.
Yes, schools are remarkable places. To the people who work in senior leadership in this School is entrusted not only the gift and responsibility of educating our girls, but also of providing assistance to the Principal for the wise provision of stewardship for this remarkable School. Dr K Kimber stated in an article she wrote last year, Simply the Soul: “It is human agency that catalyses refinements to the ‘soul of a society’ rather than merely passing education from one generation to the next”. As this year closes and the inevitability of change becomes apparent yet again, we prepare for the departure of Miss Felicity Williams, Deputy Principal Emerita. Miss Williams has provided sagacious counsel to four Principals for more than four decades in two great schools. In so doing, she has indirectly contributed to refinements to the ‘soul of society’ – although I know she will say something irreverent and self-deprecating when she reads this tribute. Her understanding of the inexact ingredients that constitute a great educational experience is profound and she has taught us all very much. Thank you, Miss Williams. I will certainly miss my senior Deputy mate – not only for her wisdom and experience but also for the wonderful humour, wicked appreciation for the mad ironies of school life and the down-to-earth ability to remain level-headed enough to keep everything in perspective, even on the most trying of days and the most confusing of circumstances. For what it’s worth, it’s worth all the while. I hope you had the time of your life.
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road, time grabs you by the wrist, and directs you where to go. So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why. It is not a question, but a lesson learned in time. It is something unpredictable, but in the end is right. I hope you had the time of your life. So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind. Hang it on the shelf of good health and good time; tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial. For what it’s worth, it was worth all the while. I hope you had the time of your life. (Green Day, 1997)
References
Armstrong, B. (1994) Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). Released on album Green Day (1997) Nimrod. Reprise Records.
Kimber, K. (2010) Simply the Soul? . Retrieved 2 November 2011 from website: http://www.bggs.qld.edu.au/?p=6672
Mansfield, K. (1922) Letter to Ida Baker in The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield. Oxford University Press, June 2008