Apr 25

The teacher taught – how I was inspired by my girls last week

Morning assemblies at St Mary’s Calne are often taken entirely by the girls, from seating the school to the notices at the end, with words of wisdom in the middle, and I experienced a particularly great and moving assembly on Saturday last week. The subject was Christy Brown, the celebrated author who was born with cerebral palsy in 1932, in the days before treatments and therapies were even thought possible, and who, as he learned how to communicate, detailed his feelings and thoughts in his literary works, and most notably in his autobiography, My Left Foot, which was turned into a critically acclaimed film starring Daniel Day-Lewis. I had heard of the book and the film, but had never found time to read or see them; that very evening, inspired by the girls, and thanks to a request I made to our wonderful school librarian, swiftly fulfilled, I was able to read the book.

I read it in one go. I had to sacrifice some sleep to do so, but it was a sacrifice worth making. The message of the book is both moving and inspirational: it takes you inside the trapped mind of the author, and explores his feelings, his moments of realisation that he was different, his determination to succeed in communicating, and his frustrations. His mother’s influence on his progress is palpable, and the reader cannot fail but to be full of admiration for her. It was an astonishing read.

I discovered as I read that the synopsis given by the girls in their presentation was spot on in its accuracy of the messages communicated by Christy Brown’s life and work. They went further, in fact, and pointed out that his life did not have a particularly happy ending, and thus they reflected the realities of our world, which does not always finish as fairytales do. They emphasised, though, the value of hard work – and it is always good to hear one’s own messages reflected back from those whom one seeks to inspire. What mattered to me, however, was the gift that they had given me. I was the teacher taught, the inspirer inspired, and I gained enormously from their presentation.

As a postscript, I spent Saturday afternoon listening to the Chamber Choir sing David Bednall’s Requiem in Keble College in Oxford, and this was another emotional performance, boosted by the presence of around 20 former girls, who rejoined the choir for this great occasion. As the sounds lifted to the heavens, the sun smiled down upon us. It was a magnificent day, a beautiful day, a day full of hope for the girls and the world in which they and we live. I felt supremely blessed.

Thank you so much for everything, girls!

Apr 23

Body Confidence winners! ‘Body Image in the Primary School’: clear, practical and straight to the point

Congratulations to Nicky Hutchinson and Chris Calland, speakers at the last November’s GSA conference, who won the award for Education at last week’s Body Confidence Awards for their book, ‘Body Image in the Primary School’. It is a great book, aimed at teachers in primary schools who have responsibility for personal and social development, and the main body of the text consists of practical lesson plans, but I would recommend it to every parent for the first three introductory chapters and the final resources section alone; besides, it can only help the cause of developing positive body image if parents can see, and support, what schools might be teaching their daughters and sons about how to develop resilience in this respect.

The pressures in our society on young people are shocking, and the authors of this book highlight clearly and concisely a range of research studies which indicate how these pressures have grown over the last century, and how this has led to a rise in eating disorders. Children as young as nine and ten – and younger – are showing a ‘disturbing level of anxiety about the about their weight and their physical appearance’ (p5) because of the sheer volume of messages they receive each day: ‘a young person today is thought to be exposed to more images of physical perfection in one day than a young woman one or two generations ago would have seen throughout her entire adolescence’ (p2). It is no wonder that the effect is overwhelming – and as educators and parents of young people, we should take this potential for psychological harm very seriously indeed.

The core of this book is the development of a ‘body image curriculum’ suitable for use in primary schools. Although the focus often of our concern as a society lies in teenage girls, in fact it stands to reason that the messages that girls – and increasingly boys – receive in their early, primary age years, form the basis of their teenage behaviour, and the sooner these are tackled, the better. This body image curriculum focuses on self-esteem, with lessons exploring the importance of being yourself, as well as examining pressures to look a certain way. Particularly excellent is the interspersing of these messages with the development of tools to enable children to recognise that images in the media are not always what they seem. The lesson plans are clear, imaginative, practical and eminently do-able, allowing the evolution of a creative narrative; it is perfectly obvious that the authors are real teachers.

Parents in search of advice should read Chapter 3, ‘The role of parents and carers’, which is a wake-up call to all parents. Our own thoughts and feelings about appearance and body image are transferred, often unconsciously, to our children, and we need to be very aware of the impact that this is having. As the book puts it, ‘Children who observe their mothers’ pursuit of thinness and dieting often internalise these same goals’ (p13). Parents need to exhibit positive attitudes about appearance, discuss openly with children the pressures placed on them by the media, and not be afraid to monitor their children’s access to technology.

Ultimately, we all want the best for our children, and their emotional health and well-being will come at the top of the list for most parents. The more we can do to support children in growing up able to manage the pressures around them about their appearance, the better.

‘Body Image in the Primary School’ is an excellent step along the way. It is also one of the clearest and most informative resource books I have read in a long time. Every primary school should have one – and the sooner, the better.

Apr 21

The Chimp Paradox

I am in the process of reading Dr Steve Peters’ book on mind management, ‘The Chimp Paradox’. It comes highly recommended, as Dr Peters is a consultant psychiatrist who has worked since 2001 with the British Cycling team and has obviously taken their achievements to great heights during this time. A ringing endorsement by Sir Chris Hoy is stamped on the front cover of my copy: ‘The mind programme that helped me win my Olympic Golds’.

Dr Peters’ model is for achieving success in life is based around an understanding of the human brain and how it works, and he focuses on three particular parts of the brain (or, as he describes it, three of the seven brains that make up what we usually describe as our brain – the frontal brain (which he calls the ‘Human’ brain), the parietal brain (which he calls the Computer), and the limbic brain, the primitive brain in side each of us, which he calls the ‘Chimp’ brain. It is this brain – the emotional machine within us – that can cause us to act in ways that we think we shouldn’t, and I was very struck when I read this key point he makes at an early point in the book (page 11, in fact): ‘You are not responsible for the nature of your Chimp, but you are responsible for managing it.’

He is absolutely right, of course – we need to take responsibility for our actions, and we cannot simply blame someone else, or our ‘natural instincts’, or any such aspect of our emotional being, when we do things which harm others. Nor is it our inalienable right to do whatever we choose, without respecting boundaries, when we are with and around others. It is up to us to manage ourselves. In fact, this concept transfers to society as well – as a social grouping, be it local, or national, or global, we cannot be responsible for the essence of our emotional natures, but we can and should be responsible for managing ourselves and others so that we can all function harmoniously. All too often we shy away from thinking along these lines, for fear that we will impinge on the liberty of our fellow human beings, when in fact we need to recognise that to enable others (and ourselves) to live and work together with ease and freedom, we must manage and work within boundaries.

The concept of society is a fascinating one. Undeniably, we are drawn together as human beings in social groups, and what differentiates us from chimpanzees is the wisdom to learn how to manage these groups. This is what we should be teaching in schools.

Back to Dr Peters’ book now …

Apr 19

Dr Ruth Gruber: an inspiration to girls in New York and across the western world

I came across the most amazing 101 year old woman last week. Her name was Dr Ruth Gruber, and I met her during my visit on Friday to Nightingale-Bamford School, a great girls’ school in New York which is one of several partner schools across the world to my new school (from January 2013), Ascham School, in Sydney Australia. Dr Gruber was giving a talk about her life, partly narrated in film, and partly in answers to questions from her audience, as Nightingale-Bamford’s annual Werner Feig Memorial Lecture, and I was entranced.

Dr Gruber was born a Jewish American in 1911, and during the course of her life travelled widely, never afraid to stand up for her values, and always ready to take on adventures. She became the youngest person in the world to receive a doctorate, at the age of 20, and she once, in the 1930s – against the advice and in the face of the fear of the Jewish family with whom she was lodging – disguised herself as a German citizen so that she could see for herself what Hitler was like at one of his rallies. As she described how Hitler spoke – ‘every few words, he said ‘Death to the Jews’, ‘Death to America’ ‘ – the girls listening were frozen still, hanging on her every utterance, for here was someone who had witnessed at first hand the beginnings of the perpetration of the greatest evil of the twentieth century. She was forthright and clear, her mind as sharp as anyone 80 years younger – addressing the girls, she said: ‘You are the future. You each have tools. Use them to change the world.’

When asked whether she had ever faced discrimination because she was a woman, she was adamant that she had not, and it was obvious why – she had, quite simply, ignored any barriers that might have been in her way, and had pursued both what was true and what was right. It was her photographs and reporting of the fate of the ship Exodus, for example, fired upon by the British as it tried to take Jews to Palestine in 1947, that are credited with opening up the state of Israel. Her lifetime’s work was in supporting refugees and the dispossessed, and in bringing their stories to the attention of the world.

It was an honour to be in the presence of such a venerable woman, and as she signed a book for me with her shaking hand as we talked at the reception after the lecture, I had a strong, strong sense of her legacy. This is a woman who has made an enormous difference in the world, but who knows that her job is not done, and so is tireless in making sure that the message spreads about our own, individual responsibility for change.

Think of Ruth Gruber, and be inspired.

Apr 16

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!

 

Apr 13

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!

 

Apr 09

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.

Apr 06

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.

Apr 05

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.

Apr 02

‘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.