From the Principal
Dear Friends,
As the year rapidly draws to a close and various events take place, I am reminded of the resilience that is embedded in community in the face of unprecedented challenges. We really are made for kinship and shared experience. An exemplar this week was the Year 12 Valedictory Dinner, at which Oxley’s graduating class celebrated their past years of schooling in style, at a delightful venue. On their behalf, I congratulate our staff involved in presenting a wonderful occasion of commemoration and of prayer for the next stage of our graduate’s journeys. It is a privilege and joy to share such occasions with parents and staff who have a common interest in the success of these young adults as they leave our College.
Although we have had to cancel some end of year events, we still look forward to the Junior School Production of Annie JR. and the final assemblies ahead. Our evening of music ensembles and a modified Presentation Evening will also be special. Here we will announce the 2022 College Captains and farewell some staff members. In particular, I take this opportunity to honour our remarkable and much-loved Head of Junior School, Sharee Gaiser.
Sharee joined Oxley eight years ago and has served the College as Head of School, alongside a dedicated staff, for the educational benefit and pastoral care of so many students. Having Sharee as a colleague on our Executive team has been a great privilege and the occasion that has provided us with great insight into her acumen, diligence, perfection, and passion for Oxley’s values of pursuing all that is true, good, and beautiful in life. Her support for families and the various Junior School teams and staff has been outstanding. I know she will be sorely missed in our community as so many have been very blessed by her leadership, guidance and compassion. Sharee’s professional influence extends beyond the College to previous employment in some five schools in Australia and New Zealand, and membership of organisations like the Independent Primary School Heads of Australia (IPSHA), where she serves on their Executive team. On a more personal note, I am indebted to Sharee for her collegiality as we have enjoyed working under God’s grace on behalf of our College community. I appreciate Sharee’s warm personality and energy that underpin her hard work and competence in every facet of a visionary leadership for education. We acknowledge here Sharee’s gifts and talents, and we pray for God’s blessings to accompany her in the next part of the journey of a life well-lived.
In my role I am sometimes puzzled by how easily we break free from the constraints of rationality when truth ceases to be a primary goal of a particular inquiry. While people may be extremely passionate about a subject matter, we are simply engaging in self-deception unless we are willing to discover the truth of the matter. This is not a popular pursuit in much of our current public discourse. So much that was intellectually accepted, even just a decade ago, is now aggressively contested or overwhelmed by those who are morally outraged. Self-deception is often a major part of what defeats our spiritual formation about, or in, truth. When we refuse to accept issues in our lives about which we may be vaguely conscious or even fully know to be the case, but are not prepared to deal with or admit that we need to change, then we have a problem. As a result, those faulty factors probably continue to govern our actions and shape our thoughts to the point of believing what may be patently untrue.
Of course, the biblical picture is that at some early point in our creation we were deeply betrayed by a spiritual enemy, and as a result we have been wounded by that betrayal. This wounding or failure through deception is not just a religious affair, but it pervades every area of human existence. The apostle Paul therefore challenges us to walk in the light of truth or in the light of Christ to see the reality of deception and the steps we can take to defeat its effect in our lives. In a similar fashion we challenge students to not simply and unthinkingly accept the secular images and ideas of the age, but to do the hard work of seeking truth beyond the mere opinions of the majority and the number of ‘likes’ on social media. Indeed, a primary goal of Christian formation is the transparent evaluation of truth and hopefully, as scripture puts it, the ability to walk humbly with our God.
Warm regards,
Dr Douglas Peck