Principal's Message
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I think it was watching our Year 12s in class this week that brought to mind a little snippet of memory about the Emperor Charlemagne. In 789 AD, the Emperor declared that every monastery was to have a school for the education of boys in “singing, arithmetic, and grammar.” To set the example, a palace school was set up for the education of the royal household and the stimulation of education throughout the realm. Placed in charge of that prestigious school was an Anglo-Saxon scholar by the name of Alcuin and it was one of his famous sayings that I recalled when I was observing our Year 12s. Alcuin exhorted his students thus:
Ye lads, whose age is fitted for reading, learn! The years go by like running water. Waste not the teachable days in idleness!
Most students at MFG enthusiastically or otherwise, make a reasonable effort to follow that advice. But there are always a few for whom the exhortation is rather more difficult. Of course, if such students had a right of reply in this column (which fortunately they don’t…), I imagine they would say: “Why should I always have to do things and study things that I don’t want to study? What is the point of it? Why can’t I do what I like doing instead of all this irrelevant stuff?”
Now, that can seem to be an eminently reasonable reply, and many modern educationalists would agree – hence the often frantic search by teachers across the nation for “relevant material” which, hopefully, will interest their students. While that is a legitimate and desirable search in many ways, it should not cloud our understanding of the most important goals in education. One of those important goals has been very well expressed by Thomas Huxley:
Perhaps the greatest and most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.
It is the first lesson that ought to be learned, and however early a person’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson that they learn.
John Ruskin puts a slightly different slant on it:
The secret of life is not to do what one likes, but to learn to like what one has to do.
Now, that sort of thinking isn’t very popular these days.
I’m not saying that learning shouldn’t be enjoyable. It very often is and it should be. I’m not saying that teachers shouldn’t be trying to find better ways of engaging student interest. They are and they should be. But there are going to be times when learning is nothing more than plain hard work! Our Year 12s will certainly attest to that! It will be difficult, demanding and tiring – and we should not try to shield our children from these significant and vital experiences.
Ms Michelle Crofts
Principal of Matthew Flinders Girls
