From the Principal
A courageous document
Throughout my almost eleven years as Principal I have regularly turned to the Courage document for inspiration and guidance - and I do so once again as I write this article in the hope that it will offer me a starting point for some final reflections on the approach to my retirement at the end of this year.
The introduction to Courage, written by Frank Moore, describes the process of writing this document. He recalls that in 2008, when he returned to Preshil, very few of the staff at that time knew Margaret (Mug) Lyttle, or really understood the extraordinary legacy she and her Aunt, Greta Lyttle, had bestowed on the School.
Twelve years later, I hope that the publication of this booklet, now in its second edition and readily available on the School’s website, has been widely read by the current Preshil community. It is a regular reference point for staff meetings, publicity material and for anyone new coming into the School.
It is an extraordinary gift; the core elements have underpinned the current strategic directions of the School and continue to inform the day to day life of Preshil, across the two campuses. They do not confine our community to a rigid set of rules; rather, they provide a central point of illumination for development, change and reinterpretation.
The vision for the School has evolved to state:
At our core remains an unshakeable commitment to encouraging all children to set and achieve their own goals and to be respected as individuals in their own right. This is a commitment to be nurtured and challenged in an atmosphere that inspires creativity and independent thinking in all areas of life and does not, overtly or subtly, use competition or punishment to motivate through the fear of failure.
As global citizens, we encourage an awareness of world issues and encourage effort to make a positive difference. We believe education should prepare students to be thoughtful, peace-loving and active citizens of the world. Preshil will remain a school that puts kindness, compassion and social relationships at the centre of its operations.
It’s easy to read such vision statements as being the aspirational rhetoric that has more to do with marketing than the day to day lived experience of the children and adults at the School, but I believe these statements genuinely inform the programmes, policies and decisions made every day. Embodying this vision in our daily practice makes Preshil truly unique.
To encourage students to set and achieve their own goals is radical in an education system that sets lamentably narrow definitions of success, represented by entry into a limited range of university courses. Students are encouraged, and pressured, to aspire to these goals regardless of whether they are able or even suited to enter these traditional professions. The corollary is that the majority of students finish their schooling not having reached these stellar heights, and it takes the efforts of a strong commitment from parents and teachers alike to counter the negative impact of such a self-defeating system.
Valuing creativity and independent thinking in an educational landscape that insists on conformity and compliance as precursors to acceptability and success, is still almost revolutionary. We don’t want the students at Preshil to look alike, think alike or mindlessly do as they are told. Encouraging students to speak out, to question and to value a diversity of views is a precious part of Preshil’s culture; increasingly difficult in a society dominated by might and cowed by the loudest voices, often hidden within the shadows of social media.
For me, like so many other teachers who have spent years in schools where competition is ingrained into every aspect of school life and where the majority of children have learned to accept that they are not the winners, it is heartbreaking to realise that the unthinking perpetuation of these systems was not only counter-productive in encouraging children to be confident and successful learners, but unnecessary and cruel. To see the resignation of the child who knows they won’t get to be chosen for the concert, the team, or even to answer the teacher’s question, is to witness the failure of our society.
Coming to Preshil with its firm rejection of competition as inimical to children’s learning was a revelation. In a society that accepts the mantra of winning, whatever it takes, and seeing high stakes competition leading to corruption and cheating across all aspects of our lives, it is humbling to be a part of a small, idealistic community that stands against mindless and damaging competition.
All of these trappings of mainstream schooling strip away the fundamental capacity of schools to preserve the primacy of relationships as the essential building blocks of learning. Trust and fear cannot co-exist and yet trust is the most fundamental of a teacher’s attributes. It is ultimately trust, not fear, that leads to respect, and this is nothing if it is not mutual.
The School has been immeasurably strengthened by our wholehearted adoption of the International Baccalaureate programmes, with its complete rejection of a competitive ranking of students and fostering collaboration and individual research opportunities in it’s place. The Diploma Programme, in Victoria especially, has been saddled with an inaccurate reputation as an exclusive programme suitable only for a small band of academically elite students. This is completely at odds with the mission of the IB and its steady growth around the world as a highly regarded senior secondary certification which is holistic, inclusive and highly flexible – offering a pathway to tertiary study for the vast majority of students.
The fact that it is only in Victoria, where schools are not able to also offer the complementary IB Careers Programme available throughout the rest of the world, serves to shore up this distorted perception. Not having been able to implement the IB Careers Programme, with all of the diverse possibilities it offers our students, has remained a disappointment that I hope will be a possibility in the not too distant future.
At Preshil we are confident the success the IB offers all of our students - at whatever level they complete their Diploma studies - will serve to break down any preconceived idea of its value. Whilst the bastions of standardisation and a one-size-fits-all approaches to education fail to meet the needs of tertiary institutions and employers alike, the actual best interests of students may finally emerge as the genuine concerns of education.
Preshil advertises itself as a small, secular, co-educational and fully independent school. Each one of these descriptors contributes to setting the School apart from the mainstream, but none more so than its proud identification as a secular school. In an educational landscape where even the supposedly secular state system spends millions of taxpayer dollars allocated to a chaplain program, and where approximately 94% of independent schools across Australia identify as having a religious affiliation, Preshil’s commitment to a genuinely secular philosophy is to be protected and celebrated.
How good to offer a refuge from the unseemly behavior we observe from the variously self-righteous posturing and, at times, deadly fighting that goes by the name of religion in our time. Preshil respects the right of all members of our community to a spiritual life that is outside the reach and control of the School, regardless of whether individuals find their spirits nurtured through music, through a connection with the natural world, through religious conviction, or some other form of spiritual sustenance.
Near the beginning of Courage a short extract from the United Nations Convention on the ‘Rights of the Child’ is included:
Children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today. They are entitled to be taken seriously. They have a right to be treated by adults with tenderness and treated as equals. They should be allowed to grow into whatever they were meant to be – the unknown person inside each of them is the hope for the future.
This statement always gives me goosebumps. So much of what passes for good educational practice, thirty years after the Convention adopted this commitment, we still rarely see it taken seriously and enacted with any conviction.
It has been my privilege to play a part of stewardship in a short span of Preshil’s history and my life has been enriched by the experience.
We have a beautiful school, with an enduring, robust heart and a community of ardent supporters. The Preshil alumni play an essential role in protecting its essential elements and ensuring that it continues to offer children and older students a genuinely progressive alternative to the educational mainstream.
And that takes a Lyttle Courage!
Marilyn Smith
Principal