At Ascham this past week we held an excellent CyberSafety Forum, led by Susan McLean, well-known for her no-nonsense approach to how we protect children from the dangers on online activity. Her presentation and the subsequent discussion, while looking at all the possibilities for online engagement which lie in wait for young people, had a …
Category: Uncategorized
Jul 14
Girls need inspiration in sport, not abuse
Melinda Tankard Reist’s column in today’s Sydney Sun-Herald, ‘The ugly truth is rules are different for girls in sport’ (to which I will add a link when I can track it down) is excellent. Well-known for her forthright views on the premature sexualisation of girls in particular, Melinda is passionate about speaking out and making …
Jul 05
Listen out for Malala
Next week, on Friday 12 July – her 16th birthday – Malala Yousafzai will talk to the United Nations, and we should all listen. Most people know Malala’s story: it began when she started to write a blog in 2009 for the BBC Urdu channel about life in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. At the time, private …
Jun 29
Nelson Mandela and the education of girls
Nelson Mandela is a truly great man, and much has been, and will be written, I am sure, in the coming weeks and months, about his many achievements in his home country of South Africa, and throughout Africa and the world. In and amongst all of these tributes, we should not forget his deep-rooted commitment …
Jun 22
“Devious” girls? How the misuse of statistics undermines our girls.
My attention was caught earlier this week by an article in the Australian Daily Telegraph: in the print edition the headline read Study reveals devious girls lead way in tormenting kids; online, the headline read AIFS bullying study shows girls are more devious. The leading paragraph supported both these titles: “Girls are more devious than boys …
Jun 14
Girls, girls, girls … how girls are changing the world
Yesterday turned into somewhat of a celebration at Ascham of how girls and women have changed and are changing our world, together with a reminder of what needs to be done still to make this world a fairer, more equal and more harmonious place. To a certain extent, every day in a girls’ school is …
Jun 07
Floundering … or Fulfilling? Different Perspectives on Mothering.
Last weekend I flew from Sydney up to Dubbo, on my way to a schools’ riding expo at Coonabarabran; it was not a long flight, but there was enough time on the way there and the way back to read, cover to cover, Melbourne writer Romy Ash’s first novel, Floundering. This novel is worth a …
May 31
Why it is important to talk about values in parenting
We all have values, many of them strongly held values. If you press us on ethical issues, if you test us or challenge us, and if you go deep enough, there will come a point when we reach a point where we will say that we will (or won’t) do something because it is the …
May 25
The academic benefits of team sport
The results of a fascinating US study into 9,700 high-school students aged 14-18 are reported in this week’s Times Educational Supplement in the UK: according to research conducted by academics from the University of South Carolina and Pennsylvania State University, participation in team sports during adolescence makes a “significant and consistent difference to students’ academic grades”. …
May 17
Redefining ‘richness’ in working motherhood
Lat month I attended an all day festival at the Sydney Opera House entitled ‘All About Women‘. A number of speakers spoke about their various opinions about women’s role in the world today, and the day was supplemented by a number of ‘conversations’ – panel discussions which tackled some of the issues facing women in the …