Preparing Young People for a Rapidly Changing World

Have you heard that we now have more than seven billion people living on earth? On Monday, 31 October, just before midnight in the Philippines a baby was born, Danica May Camacho, who became the official seven billionth person born.

In 2000 the population on earth was 6 billion people. How extraordinary to think that it took 123 years for the world's population to go from one billion to two billion but only 12 years to grow from six billion to seven billion? The world’s population increases exponentially every year with 2.3 billion people expected to be born in the next 40 years - around 200,000 babies born every day. The planet is expected to hit 10 billion by 2083.

While there was a cheer at the birth of seven billionth baby, there were others who pointed to the world of contradiction in which we live. A world where according to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, we need to tackle inequality on a planet where almost a billion people go hungry while others have surplus food. A world where a small minority live in the lap of luxury with a lavish lifestyle, while billions live in poverty. The gap between the rich and poor widens by an ever increasing scale, despite the commitment of world governments to reduce the gap at every international summit held by the United Nations over the last twenty years.

By 2030 India will have overtaken China as the most populous country on earth. South Asia has six of the top ten of the world’s fastest growing megacities and the other four are in Asia or in Africa. The Chinese economy has just overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economy, measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP is a measure of total production of a country) behind the U.S. economy, which is ranked number one in the world. Some forecasters predict that China’s GDP may almost double that of the U.S. by 2030.

Demographically, the world is changing significantly. In 1950, Europe represented nearly a quarter of the world's total population. A century later it looks set to only make up five per cent. While Asia has more than half of the world's people, its share will only rise slightly from 55.6 per cent to 57.1 by 2150. The real growth, however; is in Africa, where high birth rates and falling levels of infant mortality mean that by 2150 one in four people will be African - up from less than one in 10 in 1950.

Can you imagine listening to seven billion stories? Probably not and yet the reality is that while the total number of people is growing faster than we probably like or care to think about, each person on earth is unique. Each person has his or her own story. When we consider the implications of these statistics, it brings new meaning to the concept of a ‘rapidly changing world’. Yes, there is no denying that the whole global landscape is changing - demographically, economically and environmentally.

How do we prepare young people for this tremendous growth and change in the world? Individually and as a country we can no longer hide from the rest of the world. We can no longer ignore the rapid changes that are going on around us. ‘No man is an island’, as John Donne famously penned in 1624:

“No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. “
(Meditation XVII)

As a school, teachers prepare our young people for an ever changing world. While knowledge is important, it is no longer the single measure of a students’ understanding of the world in which they live. Young people need a vast array of skills – such as traditional skills of reading, writing, technological literacies and numeracy – while at the same time developing deeper understanding, or wisdom, good judgement and emotional intelligences. Students need higher order thinking skills that allow them to discriminate between pieces of information, the ability to analyse, synthesise, extrapolate, interpolate and the capacity to put all of their understanding together in a way that is coherent and comprehensible to themselves and others.

As a parent you understand how important these skills, knowledge and understanding is for your son or daughter’s future. As a school we take this task very seriously and teachers are constantly working to develop these skills in all of our students.

Yes, we have differentiation within our classes. One size does not fit all – some students need extension in particular subjects or skills, other students need support and more time to develop the necessary skills. It is for this reason that the school provides a myriad of in class and out of class extension and support throughout the year:

• Gifted and talented extension through in class activities, competitions like the SEQ Water Wise project, like the Writers Competition, like the Forensic Science investigations, like the special tournaments that challenge students to think ‘outside the box’. We provide each semester the opportunity for any student from Prep to Year 12 to undertake a special project of his or her own choosing for the Excellence Forums held at the School.
• In the classroom each student is challenged beyond their ability and where additional support is needed, it is provided.
• Senior students have the opportunity to commence university study from Year 10 and 11 and other students have the option of undertaking Vocational Education, School-based Traineeships – all before they leave School.
• Opportunity for greater cultural understanding through Exchange to Canada, Scotland or Japan and the increase in international students attending CCPS better prepares young people for this demographic and cultural shift.

The main reason for sharing these options with parents, is to underline the point that in order to better prepare our young people, we have to provide them with the best possible learning opportunities – not as a ‘one off’ but each and every day throughout their entire school life.
The world of the future as Hedley Beare wrote, in 2001, is going to be very different from ours.

In his first chapter he writes of a fictional child:
“Hullo. I am Angelica. I am 5 years old. I really don’t have much of a past. In fact, I am the future…..My world is already very different from the one you have grown up in.”

It is this very unknown and uncertain future for which we prepare our young people. By 2024 our Preps will be leaving our school and embarking on further study at university or the first of many career choices. One thing parents can be confident about, is the level of care and excellence that we will provide for your son or daughter at Caloundra City Private School over the coming years.

Who knows, one of our graduates of the future may be one of the leaders to make significant change for the better in this ever growing world community, which in an almost contradictory way, despite its every increasing size, shrinks in real time of travel and transference of knowledge and goods over time from one country to another. Yes, anything is possible with the right preparation and the wherewithal to make a difference in this world.

Karon Graham
Principal

Inspiring People who Make a Difference

“It is difficult to say what is impossible,
for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today
and the reality of tomorrow.”
(Robert H. Goddard, pioneering rocket scientist)

Don’t you feel inspired by people who in the midst of terrible emotional or physical pain or seemingly insurmountable obstacles or hardship, achieve positive change through their own actions? Rather than wallow in self pity, which would be perfectly understandable in the circumstances, they manage to pull themselves out of their despair and act to make changes, not only to themselves but for others around them and in some cases can effect change on a global scale. It seems as though some people have this amazing capacity to rise above it all and harness all of their energy to bring about good in the face of adversity and unbelievable sadness.

Inspirational people like internationally renowned psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl who survived years in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, wrote a book, ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, which chronicles his experiences in Auschwitz and how different individuals coped in such traumatic circumstances. As you might imagine, some never got over the shock of the experience, others became apathetic and conditioned to the appalling conditions and the constant fear of death, others become bitter and disillusioned but there were others, only a few, who were able to rise above the depersonalisation and horror, by comforting other inmates, giving away their last piece of bread that they had to another inmate. Frankl writes that while all of our possessions can be taken from us, the last one human freedom that can’t be taken from us is our attitude to what happens to us. He famously wrote in this surprisingly uplifting book:

“When we can no longer change a situation,
we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Recently I had the opportunity to listen to an inspirational speaker, Stephen Lewis a former Canadian Leader of the Opposition, who amongst other things, became a Humanitarian Ambassador for the United Nations, and has been a very vocal advocate for the eradication of HIV Aids, which he claims could happen if more developed countries put more medicine, and more time and effort into achieving this goal. He has seen some of the most tragic consequences of civil war in Rwanda and appalling outcomes of AIDs in Africa. He is a passionate speaker who speaks of first-hand experience of the dreadful consequences of neglecting this epidemic in Africa.

As Lewis argues, the world surely has enough resources and the wherewithal to bring about positive change in the life of people in less developed countries, as this 1998 report from the United Nations on Human Development demonstrates:

“The world has more than enough resources to accelerate progress in human development for all and to eradicate the worst forms of poverty from the planet. Advancing human development is not an exorbitant undertaking. For example, it has been estimated that the total additional yearly investment required to achieve universal access to basic social services would be roughly $40 billion, 0.1% of world income, barely more than a rounding error. That covers the bill for basic education, health, nutrition, reproductive health, family planning, and safe water and sanitation for all.”
(United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 1998)

Lewis has been to many of the poorest countries; countries torn apart by internal strife, war and devastation. In spite of the hardships, Lewis commented upon the spirit of the people to rebuild their lives and their country. After two years study of children in conflict (in countries such as Rwanda, Uganda and Somalia), Lewis found that the one thing that children and parents wanted most of all, was school, because school would allow the children’s lives to return to some sense of normality, and the healing process, after all that the children had witnessed, would begin. As a result, Lewis has been able to lobby western governments to provide much needed educational resources after the conflict has ended. He has made a real difference to this world.

Some countries are not torn apart by warfare but rather by natural disasters. In January, 2010, the small island of Haiti was reduced to rubble by a massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake, killing over 100,000 people. Emergency housing, mainly in the form of tents, was sent to the small island. Thousands of lives were affected, and thousands of children lost not only family and homes but also lost their schools.

On hearing the plight of the children in Haiti, one young Queensland university student, Chris Eigeland, with the help of two other young people put out a request via FaceBook to garner help from businesses and young people around the world, to raise funds to supply books and stationery for the schools and children of Haiti. Incredibly, these three young people joined forces to bring the books and stationery to the children in Haiti – a massive effort requiring military precision – to supply all schools with the much needed equipment. They personally packed the boxes and delivered them to delighted children and teachers in every school location in Haiti. What a truly inspiring story of hope for the future, where young people can effect global change through social media and a simple call to action.

As a school community our own young people are developing a strong social conscience too. Over the last year, many students have approached me and taken on projects that have raised money, or specific needs that have benefited the local community and beyond – places like the Solomon Islands, East Timor, Kenya, Sudan and Nepal. I congratulate all of the students involved in these projects for what they have achieved. For example, students have given assistance to the flood victims earlier this year, CanTeen, Give Me Five for Kids, the Daniel Morcombe Foundation, 40 Hour Famine, Breast Cancer – Pink October, to name but a few.

We can be very proud of our students and recently I received an email from Greg Bradley from World Vision, Australia telling us that because of our magnificent fund raising efforts for the 40 Hour Famine this year, that Caloundra City Private School will be receiving a World Vision, Outstanding Achievement Award, which is a fitting tribute to the students and staff involved in this project.

The School is now offering a Certificate II in Volunteering which will better educate our young people about the benefits of helping others and CCPS will be one of the very first schools to offer this program. This Certificate will see our Senior students volunteering in the community and making a real difference to the wider community. Thinking of others before ourselves and giving back to people less fortunate than ourselves is one way that society can effect positive change for the better. Yes, we can all take action and do this if we set our minds and hearts to this goal.

George Bernard Shaw wrote many years ago:
“Some people see things as they are and ask why not.
Others dream things that never were and ask why not.”

Yes, we really can turn the dream of hope for the future into a reality today.

Karon Graham

Principal

Tale of Two Men - Jobs and Steinman

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything ahead of us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…..”
(Charles Dickens, “Tale of Two Cities”)

Sometimes we hear bad news and without consciously thinking about it, remember exactly what we were doing and where we were at the time we heard the news. I still remember exactly where I was as a child when JF Kennedy was assassinated, and later when Princess Diana died and the 9/11 attacks on New York brought America to its knees. For some reason these events stick in our mind for most of our lives.

Last week I was shocked when I read that Steve Jobs had died, however; I can’t say that I even heard when Dr Ralph Steineman died, let alone who he was, yet they both died within the same week. Much was written about Steve Jobs and his accomplishments and in stark contrast the cell biologist Dr Ralph Steinman may have passed away in some obscurity in the world’s collective mind, had it not been for a major announcement the following week.

Both men were brilliant and highly successful in their respective fields; very different fields – one in technology and the other in biology. Both were innovative and creative thinkers - light years ahead of their peers, but for very different reasons. Steve Jobs was responsible for revolutionising technology (and some say the 21st century) through his inventions of the most amazing devices - Apple MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones, while the other man, Dr Ralph Steinman revolutionised the field of immunology by discovering a new cell, that would change how we treat cancer and many other life threatening diseases. Both men died at the peak of their lives and within a week of one another and surprisingly, both men died of pancreatic cancer after long fought battles with the disease.

Both men took very different pathways in their lives. Steve Jobs dropped out of one of the most prestigious colleges after six months because he didn’t want his parents to use their life savings to pay for his college education when he couldn’t see the value in continuing his college course, since he wasn’t learning anything new in technology. (His parents had adopted him as a baby and promised Steve’s biological mother that they would send him to college.) Jobs continued to attend some classes that he thought were valuable though, and slept on the floor of mates’ dorm rooms to save on the cost of accommodation.

Steinman on the other hand, took the academic route, by continuing his study at McGill University and the prestigious Harvard Medical School and then onto the equally famous Rockefeller University. Steinman’s only blimp was at the tender age of seven years, when in the face of being sent to Summer Camp by his parents, a strident Steinman packed his bag and ran away from home. His short lived sojourn came to an abrupt end when the milkman spied him in town and alerted his parents of his attempted escape. Just think, if that milkman had not spotted Steinman, he may never have gone to university and discovered the dendritic cell that was to be one of the most important breakthroughs in our understanding of immunology.

Life was not always a bowl of cherries for either man. Steve Jobs, a self-made millionaire at twenty three years of age was fired from the very company he founded when he was 30 years of age and suffered great humiliation at the exit from his brainchild company. Jobs later told students of Stanford University that this was probably one of the best things that ever happened to him in his life. Why? In Jobs own words:

“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company NeXT, and another company named Pixar, which went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film. Toy Story.”

Many years later in 1997, Jobs returned to Apple and almost single-handedly turned the declining fortunes of the company around to create an astounding success story. Steve Jobs is acknowledged as one of the greatest inventors of our time, with over 4000 patents in his name at the time of his death.

Steinman, like Jobs, also suffered similar humiliation. After years of research that resulted in him identifying a new immune cell – the dendritic cell – many scientists were sceptical of his findings, simply because his experiments were so difficult to replicate. It was many years after his discovery, that improvements in technology enabled his findings to be confirmed and he was vindicated.

The immune system is very complex and many of us don’t give a second thought to how our immune system is constantly on alert, attacking bacteria, viruses and parasites, yes, even while we watch television. Different types of cells have different jobs to do in fighting foreign invaders in our bodies. The dendritic cells that Steinman discovered, devour these intruders and help activate the rest of the immune system and also filter body fluids to clear them of foreign organisms and particles. While others questioned his findings, Dr Ralph Steinman never once doubted the significance of his discovery or the implications of the dendritic cell to fight life threatening diseases such as AIDs, tuberculosis and cancer.

In a sad and ironic twist, Canadian Dr. Ralph M. Steinman was named one of three winners of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his life work on the human immune response on the Monday, three days after he died in Manhattan at 68 years. This fact was unknown to the Nobel Prize committee when it made its announcement.

Steinman was a humble man who gave little thought or care to awards presented to him and much to the chagrin of his family, often told them well after the event. One can’t help but think though, that Steinman would have been just a little proud of winning the Nobel Prize had he lived to hear the news. It’s surely a measure of a great man that he put so little value on these acknowledgements and awards during his life, and thought only, of how he might benefit people, through his research by finding a cure or treatment to eradicate diseases such as cancer.

What lessons can we learn from these two brilliant men? For our students, the message is clear. There is no one way to find success and happiness in life. There is no easy way to achieve what we want to in this life and sometimes we have to persevere with steadfast determination in the face of opposition or even ridicule. .Most importantly for us all to contemplate, is that our time on earth is limited, so we should make the very most of every single day – never waste a day or let an opportunity pass. Life is too short.

Steve Jobs was very reflective about his life, and in his address to students at Stanford in 2005 he made this sage comment to his audience:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward – you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

Put simply:
 Find your passion in life – never be complacent with your ‘lot in life’
 Follow your dreams
 Never, ever give up on them, even when experts tell you, “You’re wrong” or “It can’t be done.”
 Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb for what you believe; and
 Keep the faith, stay true to your vision.

Karon Graham

Greatest Genius of all Time

“All our knowledge
has its origin
in our perceptions.”
(Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519)

Who was the greatest genius ever? Buzan and Keene, (1994), authors of “The Book of Genius – and how you can become one”, rated the greatest geniuses of history, by : originality, versatility, dominance in their field, universality of vision and strength and energy - an interesting array of categories to say the least. The diversity of these criteria demonstrates that genius can’t be ranked or captured by one single measure.

So who were the greatest geniuses of all time according to Buzan and Keene? Starting in ascending order at number ten was Albert Einstein, then Phidias (architect of ancient Athens), Alexander the Great, Thomas Jefferson, Sir Isaac Newton, Michelangelo, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the great Pyramid Builders, William Shakespeare and coming in at number one, as the greatest genius of all time, was Leonardo da Vinci.

Fifteenth century painter, sculptor, scientist, architect and visionary, Leonardo da Vinci was an extraordinary man by anyone’s definition. He had an intense curiosity, an insatiable inquisitiveness about all manner of things. His desire to understand how things worked led him to ask confounding questions all of his life. The width and depth of his knowledge and his life- long quest to uncover the secrets of a wide range of topics, as diverse as natural world, flight, science, weapons, art, astronomy, human anatomy and the daily experiences of the world around him, was unparalleled.

In his ground-breaking book, “Think Like Da Vinci”, author, personal and organisational development expert, Michael J. Gelb writes at length about Da Vinci’s life and his genius – his achievements in art, his inventions, his skill as a military engineer, his work as a scientist in anatomy, botany, geology, and physics. Gelb notes that two of the greatest paintings ever produced were Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. He was a renowned sculptor and architect too.

Leonardo was incredibly innovative and is credited for making plans for a flying machine, helicopter, parachute and hundreds of other amazing inventions, all recorded meticulously in his journals, which totalled over 7000 pages and estimated to be closer to 14,000 pages at the time of his death. Interestingly, Leonardo wrote all of these notes backward and they were designed to be read in a mirror and much speculation continues to this day about why Leonardo did this. Don’t you think this amazing? Why is it so?

What makes Leonardo so extraordinary? According to Gelb, Leonardo’s incredible inquisitiveness led him on a life- long quest for knowledge about every conceivable concept. He questioned everything and developed a systematic and rigorous investigative approach to his study. For example, not content with drawing his anatomical dissections from one perspective, Leonardo drew them from three different perspectives. Yes it’s true to say that Leonardo was a perfectionist when it came to detail – whether it was in his study of flight of birds, or in his artistic achievements - he was rigorous in every aspect of his investigative studies and drawings.

Gelb identifies seven “Da Vincian Principles” which could easily be used and applied by every person today. The key words were originally Italian but I have loosely translated these with the meaning conveyed by the descriptions of each of Gelb’s, Seven Principles of da Vinci.

• Curiosity – an insatiable curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.
• Demonstration – a commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes (even da Vinci made many mistakes along the way).
• Sensation – the continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience.
• Ambiguity – a willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty.
• Artistic and scientific balance – the development of a balance between science and art, logic and imagination, or ‘whole brain’ thinking.
• Grace and poise – the cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness and poise.
• Interconnectedness – the recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena or ‘systems’ thinking.

I list these principles of thinking because many of us who are in total awe of Leonardo’s intellect, seriously doubt that we could ever emulate his outstanding, ‘off the scale’ intellectual capacity. How could any of us mere mortals compare or aspire to be like Leonardo da Vinci? (Some of you may be even thinking at this point, “You have to be joking”.) Surprisingly though, many experts, including Leonardo, would argue that while fifty percent of our intellectual power is genetic, the other fifty percent is due to our own environmental circumstances and our willingness to expand and develop our level of thinking and our intellectual capacity.

What resonates most for me in reading Gelb’s book and Leonardo’s biography, was the rigorous questioning of even the smallest detail by Leonardo and his search for answers; his insatiable thirst for knowledge and understanding. All of us, including our inquisitive children, learn by asking questions and by exploring the possibilities of our imaginative and creative thinking.

In a time of instant information, have we somehow lost this capacity to think creatively and to think ‘outside the box’? My challenge to all teachers this term has been to “Imagine, Inspire, Innovate and Implement”. Not only do educators - and all adults for that matter - need to imagine more, inspire more, innovate more and implement more. We need to create a culture where our young people are confident to question the status quo and explore new possibilities. Surely this is the essence of education – to learn from those who have gone before us and to ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’ so that we might continue to learn and add to the knowledge and wisdom of the world in which we live.

As Gelb so eloquently notes:

“The essence of Leonardo’s legacy is the inspiration for wisdom and light to triumph over fear and darkness. In his never-ending quest for truth and beauty, art and science were married through the ministry of experience and perception.”

What finer quest can there be?

Karon Graham
Principal CCPS

Queensland Spirit

Wasn’t Queenslander’s Samantha Stosur’s win in the US Tennis Open brilliant? Wasn’t she the best; cool, calm and collected while sullen Serena Williams had a meltdown midway through the game? Don’t you feel a great sense of pride to see a young less experienced but determined Australian not cave into any of the pressure of arguably one of the biggest international tournaments on the circuit? She didn’t lose her cool because of the parochial crowd from New York, nor did she cave into the intimidating Serena Williams. Sam held her ground and her nerve taking out the title in just 73 minutes. She is the first Australian woman to win a majors since Evonne Goolagong Cawley’s Wimbledon win in 1980 – an outstanding achievement!

Equally, Queenslander Sally Pearson’s world championship win in the 100 hundred metres hurdles, running 12.28 seconds was the fourth fastest time in history and the fastest time in 19 years, was sensational too. There must be something in the Queensland air, to say nothing of the spirit of Queenslanders, to see two young Queensland women perform so well on the international stage over recent months.

Don’t you find it amazing that the mood of the whole country can be affected by a win by an Australian in the international arena? Even those people who rarely watch sport or take a cursory interest at best in what happens in tennis, rugby or athletics are suddenly transfixed by a world final and are buoyed by a win. National pride collectively swells as we all clearly identify with the winner, be it a team or an individual.

In a recent article in North American Journal of Psychology, noted psychologists (End, Worthman, Foster and Vandemark) found that many sports fans, particularly those who are avid fans of a team or individual, had very positive emotions after a team’s win and not surprisingly, very negative emotions after they lose.

Interestingly, fans internalize the successes of the team in such a way that their actual self esteem is boosted as well as their mood. Psychologists also discovered that if a fan watches the team win then they predicted that the fans would personally perform at a higher level than fans who watched the team lose. Yes, there is a whole science and research around sports psychology. The psychology of fans responses to winning or losing sports teams should come as no surprise to any ardent sports fan.

Teams sports as well as individual pursuits in tennis, athletics, and swimming for example, are important for young people’s development of character, resilience, determination and cooperative efforts. The benefits of sports activities are well researched and acknowledged as being an important ‘core’ component to the growth and development of young people.

Young people need to have opportunities to think quickly and to react quickly to situations and sport provides this immediate opportunity. Young people can learn from what they do on the sporting field instantly - they know if they have made a good decision or a bad one and learn from the experience. Young people learn about leadership, teams, coaching and working with others. Parents should be there to guide and give advice but not to lecture or berate young people for how they have played or performed.

We have a lot to learn about human behaviour and sport provides an excellent vehicle to learn the basic principles of human nature. There is no victory without effort and determination. Our sporting heroes deserve our accolades; they have put in the hard yards and have committed, in many cases, a whole life in pursuit of their dreams. Yes it's wonderful to see our up and coming youngsters strive for greatness, but I also hope along the way that they learn lessons of humility and graciousness in victory as well. Both Sam Stosur and Sally Pearson have done us proud in this regard and stand as excellent role models for our younger sports men and women who are our champions in the making.

“To be what we are,
and to become what we
are capable of becoming
is the only end in life.”
(Robert Louis Stevenson)

Karon Graham

Paradox of our times kjg

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Child Safety: Forewarned is Forearmed

Most readers of my newsletter and blog will know that I don’t normally dwell on the darker side of life. Like many of you, I know that bad things happen but sometimes, I prefer not to know all the details and certainly don’t want to alarm people by elaborating on unpleasant and unsavoury events unnecessarily. However, this week I feel compelled to write about a difficult topic: child abduction and child safety. This is because firstly it’s Child Protection Week this week and secondly because of recent tragic events on the Sunshine Coast.

Every person in Queensland would be aware of the disappearance of Daniel Morcombe and the long painful quest to find out what happened to Daniel. It is every parent’s worst nightmare to discover that their child is missing. Sometimes, there is good news when a child is found safe and sound, but occasionally we know that parents’ worst fears are realised. Our hearts go out to the Morcombe family and most of us silently say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Abductions of children while not common on the Sunshine Coast are still a huge cause for concern given what we have witnessed recently. Only last week the school received reports of attempted abductions at nearby schools in Caloundra. It is essential that everybody makes child safety a priority and the helpful tips below come from a very useful website: http://www.reallifesolutions.net/family/abductions.html

Here are some of the realities of child abduction:
• The majority of children who are reported missing have run away, or there has been a misunderstanding with their parents about where they were supposed to be.
• Of the young people that are truly abducted, the majority of them are taken by a family member or an acquaintance; only 25% of children are taken by strangers.
• Almost all children kidnapped by strangers are taken by men, and about two thirds of stranger abductions involve female children.
• Most abducted children are in their teens.
• Children are rarely abducted from school grounds.

Strategies for Preventing Abductions: Parents often do not provide their children with safety information that could help prevent an abduction.

These strategies may help:
• Make sure custody documents are in order.
• Have ID-like photos taken of your children every 6 months, and keep these readily accessible.
• Keep your children's medical and dental records up to date.
• Make online safety a priority. The Internet is a great tool, but it's also a perfect place for predators to stalk children. Be aware of your children's Internet activities and chat room "friends," and remind them never to give out personal information. Avoid posting identifying information or photos of your children online.
• Set boundaries about the places your children go. Supervise them in places like shopping centres, movie theatres, parks, public toilets, and don’t let your child do fundraising door to door.
• Never leave children alone in a car or stroller, even for a minute.
• Choose caregivers - babysitters, day-care providers, and nannies carefully and check their references. If you've arranged for someone to pick up your children from school or child care, discuss the arrangements beforehand with your children and with the school, kindergarten or the early learning centre.
• Avoid dressing your children in clothing with their names on it - children tend to trust adults who know their names.

Talk to Your Child About Strangers
Talk to your children often about their safety in different places – at home, at the shops or out playing, or coming from and going to school. Give your children the basics on how to avoid and escape potentially dangerous situations.

Teach them to:
• Never accept sweets or gifts from a stranger.
• Never go anywhere with a stranger, even if it sounds like fun. Predators can lure children with questions like "Can you help me find my lost puppy?" or "Do you want to see some cute kittens in my car?" Remind your children that adults they don't know should never ask children to help or to do things for them.
• Run away and scream if someone follows them or tries to force them into a car.
• Say ‘no’ to anyone who tries to make them do something you've said is wrong or touch them in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable.
• Always tell you or another trusted adult if a stranger asks personal questions, exposes himself, or otherwise makes them feel uneasy.
• Reassure children that it's OK to tell you even if the person made them promise not to or threatened them in some way.
• Always ask permission from a parent to leave the house, yard, or play area or to go into someone's home.

Keep these other tips in mind, too:
• Make sure younger children know their names, address, phone number including area code, and who to call in case of an emergency.
• Review with your child how to use ‘triple 0’ – what to say, what information to give.
• Discuss what to do if they get lost in a public place or store - most places have emergency procedures for handling lost children. Remind your children that they should never go to the parking lot to look for you. Instruct your children to ask a cashier for help or stand near the registers or front of the building away from the doors.
• Point out the homes of friends around the neighbourhood where your children can go in case of trouble.
• Be sure your children know in whose car they may ride and in whose they may not. Teach them to move away from any car that pulls up beside them and is driven by a stranger, even if that person looks lost or confused.
• Teach your children not to ride with anyone they don't know.
• If your children are old enough to stay home alone, make sure they keep the door locked and never tell anyone who knocks or calls they are home alone.

Parents as a school we do whatever we can to ensure your son or daughter’s safety. All teachers have spoken to students about the importance of being safe and staying safe while away from their parents. We have also spoken to children about road safety too and given the recent accident and death of a cyclist not far from the school, this has brought home how important it is for young people to take good care while riding bicycles or walking to and from school.

What can you do once a precious life has been taken forever? Accidents happen in the blink of an eye. Once the damage is done, nothing can turn back the clock and make it right again. Lives are destroyed. Heartache and remorse follow and for some families the healing process takes a long time; sometimes the pain stays with them all of their lives.

Let’s do all in our power to keep our young people safe and conscious of some of the dangers in life, without overwhelming them with frightening stories. Sensible strategies are a good starting place for discussion with our sons and daughters. Remember: ‘forewarned is forearmed’.

Karon Graham
Principal

Lessons learned from the colour palette in choosing the best school.

"The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't need to be reformed -- it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education, but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions."
(Sir Ken Robinson, from The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything)

I was recently in an art class learning the finer art of finding the right way to mix colours for skin tones. Does it surprise you, like it did me, to discover that skin colour is a mix of colours as diverse as red, blue and yellow? Oh yes, and there is some white in the mix too, though white is not considered to be a colour. Now as someone who has often experienced a ‘Picasso or da Vinci’ moment, I have tried my hand at painting – not to any degree of success I might add and given that I did not know that white, red, yellow and blue make up skin colour, this is not surprising. I freely admit though, that art is one of my passions. I love nothing more than walking through an art gallery admiring the work of great painters and artists or trying my hand at drawing and painting when the mood strikes.

Discovering that such a small mix of colours can produce very life like skin tones was something of a revelation to me. Red, blue and yellow are of course primary colours and from these three colours, most other colours are derived. Wikipedia lists hundreds of colours by RGB, hue, saturation and value, because colour ‘naming’ is somewhat arbitrary and ambiguous to say the least. It’s estimated that there are 16 million colours that can be simulated by a 20 bit RGB computer, which bears no resemblance to the infinite numbers of colours that our eyes can recognise. Don’t you find it amazing to think that from so few primary colours, a world of colours is created?

Doug Keeley, a talented musician and one of the presenters at a recent principal’s ICP Conference I attended in Toronto, made the point that all music is derived from twelve tones, called the chromatic scale. All jazz, pop, rock, country and classical music is the outcome of variations in these twelve notes – a point that he proceeded to demonstrate by playing just a few notes from some well-known and well-loved pieces of music, within a few notes, most people in the audience recognised the music and the group playing it. This proved to be an interesting segue into the keynote presentation by internationally renowned, educationalists Michael Fullan, who is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and Dr Andy Hargreaves, who is the Chair of School of Education at Boston College.

Both speakers spoke at length around some of the fallacies in education. One of the key points that resonated with me, was the fallacy of prescription. Both Hargreaves and Fullan argued that the old industrial model of schools had passed its ‘used by date’ long ago and that prescriptions of what students should study was no longer relevant. Hargreaves argued that the old model doesn’t need reforming, rather it needs to be totally transformed- a sentiment shared by Sir Ken Robinson, another leading, international educational expert. As Fullan explained:

“Reform is like ripe fruit; it rarely travels well.”

Hargreaves stressed that high performing organisations are flexible, innovative, creative and fit the curriculum to the child. Parents, the reason that this resonates so strongly with me, is that at Caloundra City Private School we go to extraordinary lengths to be flexible, innovative, and creative in fitting the curriculum (the teaching and learning) to each child.

Schools may have similar ingredients – students, teachers and classrooms - but like the combination of primary colours and the combination of 12 musical notes, the outcomes for each student can be very different, and differ dramatically from one school to another. The same mix of notes can be a symphony to your ears – like Beethoven’s No. 5 - or a cacophony of noises. The same mix of colours can be a beautiful “Mona Lisa” or a child-like one dimensional stick drawing. What would you rather for your son or daughter? Of course you want what’s best for your child.

Making choices about the best school for your son or daughter's education is a tough decision at the best time, but making a decision, when economic conditions are difficult can be even more confronting for parents. As someone who has sent all three of my children to a private school, I know the sacrifices that parents have to make but can I say, in the long run, it's worth every single cent. A child's very future is dictated by his or her love of learning from a very young age. If the light goes out, it's very difficult to rekindle. The money spent on your child's education is an investment in the future and it's so important to find the very best school for your son or daughter. All schools are not the same. They may have the same few ingredients, but it's how you put these altogether that determines which school is the best for your son or daughter. I agree with Sir Ken Robinson:

"Our task is to educate our students whole being so they can face the future. We may not see the future, but they will and our job is to help them make something of it." I would add:'and succeed in that future'.

Karon Graham
Principal

Parenting Teenagers during the Tricky Times

Teenagers can be tricky at the best of times and for parents it may be one of the toughest challenges of all to stay calm (and sane), through those trying days, weeks and months and even years. Now please don’t get me wrong, the teenage years can be fun too, but of all the time periods for young people, the teenage years can be the most challenging and frustrating for parents.

When it comes to sorting out teenage problems or family conflict, there are no quick fixes, nor are there one stop cure-alls, nor are there strategies or solutions that work for everyone. There is no right way or right approach that’s going to work for every person or for every situation. As one comic quipped:

“Raising teenagers is like nailing jelly to a tree.”

Yes we recognise that teenagers are growing up and need more independence, more autonomy and more privacy but this should be a measured and balanced approach. The ‘fine line’ is letting your son or daughter have more privacy, you don’t need to know everything, but by the same token you need them to understand that you want them to be safe, and because of this, there are some things that you do need to know.

Parents understand protective behaviours but adolescents don’t necessarily see the risks that parents do. Teenagers can be at risk because of someone else’s doing. Teenagers can be very manipulating when it comes to going out with their friends. Where they say they’re going and where they end up going, can be completely different. Yes you want to build trust but trust works both ways and they have to demonstrate to you that they can be trusted. It pays to contact the other parents to get details and ensure that the other parents are there or supervising your son or daughter. While this does not always pan out, there is some peace of mind in allowing your son or daughter to go to someone’s place if you have spoken to the parents beforehand.

Listen and share time with your teenager as part of your daily and weekly routine. As a busy parent, we often tell ourselves it’s the quality of the time not the quantity of time that counts most. Unfortunately all evidence is to the contrary. What’s most important, in fact, is the quantity of time we spend with our sons and daughters. Listening to your son or daughter sounds easy, most of us think that we do this really well, but often the child’s interpretation of time spent listening to them is quite the reverse. It’s hard sometimes to listen without giving advice or asking too many questions and this is an acquired skill that parents need to master. Listening in silence does not mean that you agree with your son or daughter, but it does mean you are listening. Reflective responses are helpful when listening; lecturing, giving advice (if it’s not requested), or starting with “when I was young” is not.

It’s not a perfect world, (we get that), but equally we need to understand that our teenagers are not perfect. Things will go wrong and do go wrong. Yes, there need to be consequences for inappropriate behaviour and wherever possible make the consequences relevant to the situation. Acknowledge the mistake and as a family, move forward, because constantly reminding your son or daughter of the mistake is not going to help the situation. Apologising for inappropriate behaviour is a very important step for teenagers to take, in allowing everyone to put the incident behind them and move on in life. Take heart from the philosophy that your teenager will learn from the mistakes and while it doesn’t seem like they are learning at the time, over the longer term, they do learn the lessons.

Who’s the boss in your family? According to expert, Elizabeth Harrell, teenagers need boundaries and safe, secure situations in which to grow. Parents are the provider of both, and when you act like a friend, your teen will lose security. Teens who view their parents as authority figures and providers are more likely to be close to them in adulthood. Despite what appearances might suggest, teens do not respect parents who behave like teens. Relating to your teen, based on your own experiences, can be a successful method of working through challenging situations, but at no time should you lose your parent status. (From: “11 Mistakes parents make with teen discipline”).

Setting boundaries is essential. You may feel like the enemy from time to time (and yes, occasionally your son or daughter may call you this), but more than anything, adolescents need to know what they can and can’t do. You are the parents and you determine what the rules and boundaries are in your household. Don’t succumb because of the ‘tried and tested’ (very testing), ‘Linda’s mum or Jamie’s dad lets them do this or go to this place’ - or whatever it might be that they want to do. Stay strong, like the Rock of Gibraltar – don’t let your teenager manipulate you emotionally.

Talk to the other parents of your son or daughter's friends. No-one likes to be the last parent to know about what is going on between your own son or daughter, with another teenager. Please, if you are one of the parents who knows something about another teenager’s risky behaviour, talk to one of the teen’s parents about what you have seen or heard. You may save a family from a very painful situation or a tragedy. At worse your comments may cause the other parent to become miffed, but if it was your son or daughter involved in risky behaviour, wouldn’t you want to know? Of course you would. If this all seems a little too difficult or confronting, let someone else know either in the school or a close friend of the family. Please don’t be the one to spread the gossip to other parents, this may fuel a potential situation and make it even more difficult for a family to resolve the issues with their own teenage son or daughter.

Be around and let it be known that you’re around. Teenagers are notorious for getting themselves into strife and then having a hard time getting out of a bad situation by themselves. Sometimes teenagers will go out with a group of friends and either separate from them to be with ‘someone special’ or alternatively may have an argument and walk off from his or her friends. Either way, the consequences of separating from friends to be by themselves can lead to dangerous or risky behaviour or situations. Always let your teenager know you are available to give them a lift home. You will pick him/her up at anyplace or anytime, even three o’clock in the morning. You will do so without any consequences to your teenager on the understanding that everyone makes mistakes in judgment. You simply want your son or daughter to be safe, no matter what the circumstances.

Be positive and have positive intentions and above all keep a sense of humour. I say this in hindsight as a parent who has seen three of my children grow into adults and now laugh when we talk about some of their misdemeanours during the more difficult teenage years. Can I laugh about all of the difficulties? Definitely not , but some of the ‘darkest hours’ have been defining moments in turning around one of my then teenagers from the ‘dark side’. Remaining positive and looking forward to a positive and bright future was a struggle some days but in the end, that’s what happened. Have faith and trust that the values that you share with your teenager will hold them in good stead for the future.

Sometimes we need to get professional help, because despite our best efforts, we are unable to work through the complicated issues that are causing escalated family conflict. Finding a professional ‘third party’ to mediate and arbitrate through the mine field is sometimes the only way forward.

As a school we support both students and parents through this difficult and trying time. Research shows that when the school and parents work in partnership, the resilience and protective factors of your child are enhanced. Our Life Skills Program and Outdoor Education Program, give young people effective strategies for dealing with a wide range of social and emotional issues as they grow and develop into young adults. Together we can work towards resolving many of the issues facing you as parents or your children. Yes, the teenage years are amongst the most challenging but they are also amongst the most rewarding and satisfying years of your life. Yes they really are; trust me on this point.

Karon Graham

Why are Some People so Lucky?

Do you ever wonder why some people are so lucky? I recently read an article about some incredibly lucky lottery winners. Hard to believe but Texan Joan Ginther, has actually won four jackpots since 1993 for the amazing, grand total of US$20.4 million. Experts say that the odds of one person winning four lottery jackpots are unbelievably difficult - more than 200 million to 1. Joan Ginther isn’t the only one to get so lucky; Ernest Pullen won US$1 million in June of 2010 and then won another $2 million in September. Doesn’t seem fair does it?

Of course being lucky in winning money does not necessarily guarantee being lucky in anything else and I have heard of some sad tales about people winning lottery, only to have a series of misfortunes befall them or their family. Being lucky in love or lucky in your work or in sport of course is a little different from winning money on a lottery ticket or a scratchie.

I am very sure that neither Cadel Evans, winner of the Tour de France nor James Magnussen’s, amazing winner of the 100 metre freestyle FINA world championship would be thinking that their recent wins, were ‘just lucky’- far from it I suspect. There is an element of luck in small decisions at a particular point in time but on the whole, to be successful in anything, there has to be a great deal of effort, preparation, commitment and perseverance. I don’t think there was much room for error or luck in Magnussen’s 100 metre race in the incredible time of 47.63 seconds. Who has time to even think in that length of time?

As Thomas Jefferson said:

“I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

In his research into why some people are lucky and others unlucky, Professor Richard Wiseman has distilled his research down to four basic principles which explains how some people create their own good fortune. Professor Wiseman shares the following principles in his book, “The Luck Factor”:

Principle One: Maximise Chance Opportunities
Lucky people are skilled at creating, noticing and acting upon chance opportunities. They do this in various ways, including networking, adopting a relaxed attitude to life and by being open to new experiences.

Principle Two: Listening to Lucky Hunches
Lucky people make effective decisions by listening to their intuition and gut feelings. In addition, they take steps to actively boost their intuitive abilities by, for example, meditating and clearing their mind of other thoughts.

Principle Three: Expect Good Fortune
Lucky people are certain that the future is going to be full of good fortune. These expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies by helping lucky people persist in the face of failure, and shape their interactions with others in a positive way.

Principle Four: Turn Bad Luck to Good
Lucky people employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and often even thrive upon, the ill fortune that comes their way. For example, they spontaneously imagine how things could have been worse, do not dwell on ill fortune, and take control of the situation.




Surprisingly, it seems, luck is more about your attitude to life than it is about divine forces conspiring to bring either good or bad fortune. Yes I know this is contrary to many people’s perceptions but on the whole, it’s my belief that we make our own luck even when it seems the odds are stacked against us.

Best selling author of, “The Winner’s Bible”, Dr Kerry Spackman believes that those people with an absolute and resolute self belief, will be and usually are the people who succeed most in life. While it might be that there was a serendipitous moment where everything seemed to fall in place, it is usually the culmination of consistent and persistent effort, hard work and belief in yourself that brings ultimate success.

This is an important message for our young people, who from time to time doubt their own ability and may question why they are not doing as well as they would like to or maybe not achieving their goals. A good positive attitude and a healthy perspective about life and its shortcomings and the resilience to keep moving forward in the face of adversity or setbacks, will ultimately lead young people to a more successful future. As parents and teachers we can help this process by encouraging, inspiring and motivating our young people to always work to the best of their ability and to persevere, even if they don’t succeed at first (or second or third).

As William James, American psychologist and philosopher wrote:
“The greatest revolution of our generation
is the discovery that human beings,
by changing the inner attitudes in their minds,
can change the outer aspects of their lives.”

In essence, James is saying that we can not only change the outer aspect of our lives but we can also change our luck. Stay positive, think big and believe in yourself, no matter what - even when you don’t win the lottery – darn!

Karon Graham
Principal

Qualities of a good friend

Where would we be without friends? For most people, life is made all the more bearable because of friends. Sharing time with someone is a sure fire way to build up a friendship, particularly when we are good listeners. Sharing stories, sharing little snippets of our life, revealing our ‘real’ self to another person requires a ‘leap of faith’. How will someone react when we tell them about a problem worrying us, or sharing a secret that we have kept to ourselves? Fair weather friends may dessert us in times like this, but good friends stick by us until the end. How do we know if it’s the end? If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.

Good friends don’t give advice unless we ask for it. Good friends listen more than they talk. Good friends know when to stay silent and when to speak up. Good friends don’t make value judgements about your life choices. Good friends, as someone famously said, walk in when others walk out. Elbert Hubbard, author, artist and philosopher, humourously put it this way:

“The friend is the person
Who knows all about you,
And still likes you. "

Good friends are there when we need them most; they are there on our doorstep when tragedy strikes; they stand by us through thick and thin, particularly when our world is turned upside down. The amazing thing about good friends is that they really don’t need to say or do very much at all. Just being there to listen to what has happened can be the greatest comfort of all. Famous philosopher and author, Henry David Thoreau wrote:

“The language of
Friendship is not words, but Meanings.
It is an intelligence
Above language.”

Good friends show kindness, above and beyond the call of duty and often it’s not in grand gestures but in simple acts of kindness that we appreciate the most. Helping out by making a few frozen meals when a friend has a new baby to care for or offering to pick up our friend’s children from school when they are caught late at work. Friends help smooth out the ‘bumps’ in our lives and ease our burdens and bring greater happiness because they are there for us when we need them most.

One of our parents recently had a very distressing situation, her husband was away and she was confronted by a very agitated and menacing man at her front door. It was a frightening situation and one that was so unexpected in the local area where she lives. Within days, she had received many phone calls, emails and kind words from many of the parents at CCPS. She told me later that she was quite overwhelmed by the kindness and thoughtfulness of her friends and families of CCPS. It made a huge difference to her psychologically to have that kind of support from the school community and she wants to say thank you to all of those friends.

Some friendships happen spontaneously, as if there is an instant recognition of a like mind or personality; there is a connection that transcends time and place. Hard to explain the feeling and explain why this happens but I ‘m sure there are many experts out there who swear that we connect to people because of their face shapes, or pheromones or personality type or some other chemical or physical attribute. Surprisingly, these friendships are often the most enduring.

Mark Nepo writes in “The Book of Awakening” (no this is not a book about coming out of a coma, rather it is a collection of thought provoking quotes and stories which are motivating and inspiring) about a verse written in the 700s in the Tang Dynasty in China by the great poet Li Po. In the famous poem: “Letter in Exile”, Li Po talks about his deep, lifelong friendship with So-Kin of Rakuyo and he explains that even though they have only been together a handful of times, Li Po feels his friend’s presence even from afar. He eloquently writes:

“What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking.
There is no end of things in the heart.”

Nepo questions how it‘s possible for two friends who have spent more time apart than together can be such close friends? Yes, life is a mystery in matters of the heart. In spite of so much time apart, another person, who we rarely see, can still shape one’s entire life. We are very fortunate if we are blessed by such friends, I know my life has been all the richer because of distant friends.

There is something about travelling to a new country that awakens within us a new perspective on life; it broadens our horizons literally and metaphorically. People we meet overseas are probably no different from the people we meet in our daily lives at home but it seems to me, that when you travel with someone away from home or meet new people overseas, we tend to bond more strongly with them. In some ways I think it happens because we realise that we may never have this opportunity again. Our new found friends become all the more precious because we know that what we share in those brief moments of contact or passage of time, we may never experience again.

With such amazing adventures of new worlds, new cultures, new friends in store for our young people, it is no surprise that lives are altered forever by the experience. At a higher level I agree with Woodrow Wilson who opined:

“Friendship is the only cement that will
Ever hold the world together.”

The challenge for each of us in life is to care for and tend to our friends like we would a garden. We have to pull out the weeds, the hurtful words spoken in haste; nourish the friendship frequently with kindness and thoughtfulness. If we can do all of this, then the friendship will blossom and grow over time and with such strong roots this precious friendship will help us and sustain us, all of our lives.

“True friendship is a plant of slow growth,
And must undergo and withstand the
Shocks of adversity before it
Is entitled to the appellation.”
(George Washington)

Portrait of a Friend
(author unknown)

I can't give solutions to all of life's problems, doubts or fears.
But I can listen to you, and together we will search for answers.
I can't change your past with all its headaches and pain, nor the future with its untold stories.
But I can be there now when you need me to care.
I can't keep your feet from stumbling.
I can only offer my hand that you may grasp it and not fall.
Your joys, triumphs, successes, and happiness are not mine;
Yet I can share in your joy and laughter.
Your decisions in life are not mine to make nor to judge;
I can only support you, encourage you, and help you when you ask.
I can't prevent you from falling away from friendship or from your values.
I can only pray for you, and talk to you.
I can't give you boundaries which I have determined for you.
But I can give you the room to change, room to grow, room to be yourself.
I can't keep your heart from breaking and hurting.
But I can cry with you and help you pick up the pieces and put them back in place.
I can't tell you who you are.
I can only love you and be your friend.
I promise to try to do all of these things and be the best friend I can be for now.

Karon Graham


Principal CCPS

The Lost Art of Showing Kindness

“Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier.” (Mother Teresa)
We know life is not always a bed of roses and many of us get caught from time to time, by the thorny parts of life. Sometimes an angel in the guise of a friend, or loved one or even a complete stranger for that matter, comes along to rescue us or helps ease our burden by listening to our plight. It may not have been a grand gesture or a big thing that this person did or said but they helped us, when we needed it most.

How many times do we wish after a situation like this, that we had taken the time to thank that person properly for the kindness they showed us. Sometimes circumstances prevent us from showing our gratitude at the time and the opportunity of thanking them passes by and then before we know it, so much time has elapsed that the kindness has been all but forgotten and we have not made the effort to thank them. It can be tricky finding a way to thank complete strangers, but it is possible if we take the time and effort.

There is a lovely true story about Charles Plumb, who was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane as destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent six years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.
“I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!”
Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good morning, how are you?’ or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.”
Plumb thought of the man hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.

Now, Plumb asks his audience, “Who’s packing your parachute?” Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory-he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.

With family and friends, it is much easier to say thank you and to show your gratitude, yet surprisingly, many people forget to do this. Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.

I like to think that developing positive relationships is like a bank account. We all make deposits and withdrawals. The deposits are the things we do to help someone, like a simple gesture of cleaning the kitchen up or taking them out to dinner or lunch. Withdrawals are when we need a favour or help and the other person does this for us out of the goodness of his or her heart (or maybe a little prompting in the case of our spouse or partner). In positive relationships, it’s always best to be on the credit side – to have made more deposits than withdrawals and if this is not the case, then it is very unlikely that both people in the relationship are happy.

Showing kindness and gratitude seems to me to be a lost art, don’t you think? Reading and hearing horrible stories of the verbal or physical cruelty that humans can inflict upon one another at home, or in business, on the road and even in schools is appalling and it would be very easy to become despondent about the lost art of good manners, thoughtfulness and kindness. Whatever happened to the adage that our mothers constantly repeated to us, ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? Yes, what has happened to the simple act of showing kindness?

One person can make such a difference to someone else’s life and believe it or not, to thousands of other people too. Ann Herbert may be an unknown name to you, but Ann started something big by one simple action. In 1982, in a restaurant in Sausalito, California, Ann wrote the following words on a place mat, “practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” Sounds simple and inconsequential don’t you think? Before long, it spread to bumper stickers and for some reason the simplicity appealed to many people and the practice of random acts on kindness became a world-wide phenomenon. From this one action grew mass action. True stories and books were written about random acts of kindness which has continued unabated since that fateful day in 1982 when one person made a simple but remarkable statement.

I am in awe of the number of ordinary heroes within our midst. Yes it might seem like an oxymoron to talk about ordinary heroes because a hero after all is someone venerated for heroic acts like putting their life at risk in order to save someone else’s life or many lives. Ordinary heroes, on the other hand, are more common but in my mind, every bit as heroic in the real sense of day to day living.

She or he is the kind of person that gets on and does a job without any fuss. Often they are the first to put up their hand for a new task, nothing is too much trouble and it seems as if they infinite time to go around. Now we know of course, that they have busy lives too, but somehow these people magically make time for other people and put their own needs second. If you talk to such a person they will tell you that they get more out of life by helping someone else and showing kindness to others, than if they had just gone on with their own lives. Debi Mazar puts it this way:

“A hero is somebody who is selfless, who is generous in spirit, who just tries to give back as much as possible and help people. A hero to me is someone who saves people and who really deeply cares. “

There are so many people around us who are ordinary heroes. Let's celebrate these people by showing our appreciation for their actions and kind words. We all benefit by showing gratitude and not only do we make someone's day by this simple thing, but we feel better about ourselves too.

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing: it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” (Voltaire)

Karon Graham

If You're an Optimist, You're Not Alone!

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? A plan as simple as organising a day out with your family or cooking a great meal or more significantly, organising a special surprise birthday party or escaping to your favourite holiday getaway can make your day and put you on top of the world, so long as, all goes well. Why the proviso? English poet, Robert Burns once wrote:

“The best laid schemes of mice and men oft go awry…”

Yes, sometimes our best laid plans can come unstuck and in spite of our best efforts, all does not go well. Making the best of a bad situation is often all that’s left for us to do, because the situation is, what it is. I recently came across some funny statements made on actual insurance claims that give some indication of how bad a day can go in the blink of an eye (apparently). In the drivers own words:

“Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have.”
“I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision and I did not see the other car.”
“As I approached the intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no sign had ever appeared before, making me unable to avoid the accident. “
"The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him."
"I was thrown from my car as it left the road, and was later found in a ditch by some stray cows."
And my favourite:
“In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.”

I am a self confessed optimist and always try to look on the bright side of life. I have discovered though, that I am not the only one who thinks this way. Hard to believe that in this day and age of instant bad news, 24/7 and despite the barrage of bad news, it appears that most of us believe that things will turn out okay. While the world around us might be disintegrating, our personal view of our own life is still amazingly optimistic. Rather ironic don’t you think or maybe not. Maybe we are just far more complacent about our own personal circumstances than those of people around us.

I was heartened to read in a recent article by Tali Sharot in the June 6, Time magazine, called ‘The Optimism Bias’, that most of us are optimists. It turns out that we are hardwired to be this way, because of the evolution of our brain over time. Recent research shows that we expect things to turn out better than they wind up being and we seriously underestimate the chances of bad things happening to us, while we tend to overestimate good things happening to us and our family.

The fact that we believe the future will be much better than the present is called the ‘optimism bias’ according to Sharot and transcends all races, religion, socioeconomic status and cultures. This optimism bias actually protects us and inspires us and gives us hope. This faith helps motivate us to achieve our goals. No wonder our vision of our future is rosier than the reality of the situation. Take for example our perception of our own driving ability. Did you know that 93 percent of people surveyed believed that they were in the top 50th percentile for driving ability? Perhaps not so surprising given some of the statements made on the insurance claims up above.

Scientific evidence shows that where people are more optimistic, their chances of recovery from serious illness are more positive that those people who are pessimistic. According to Sharot, a study conducted with heart-disease patients showed that optimistic patients were more likely to take vitamins, eat low-fat diets and exercise and were more likely to reduce their overall coronary risks. A study of cancer patients revealed also, that pessimistic patients were more likely to die within eight months than optimistic patients of a similar age, status and health conditions. These studies beg the question,” Can optimism change reality?” Well according to another study conducted with students, it seems we can effect change in our reality.

Cognitive neuroscientist, Sara Bengtsson found that students’ brains responded differently to the mistakes they made depending on whether they were primed with certain words. She found that when she induced certain expectations with college students by using words such as ‘smart’,’ intelligent’ and ‘clever ‘just before asking them to perform a test that these students performed better than those students who heard words like ‘stupid’, and ‘ignorant’ before their test. Not surprisingly then, students performed better after hearing an affirmative message and she found that the brain activity was greater after a word like clever was used because the student was primed to perform well. When the word stupid was used, the brain expected to do poorly and did not show signs of surprise or conflict when it made an error.

Interestingly, the research shows that optimists work longer hours and tend to earn more. What are the implications of all of this information? Well as Sharot argues, the good news is that awareness of our optimism rarely shatters the illusion. I guess we are just better prepared for any eventuality. The glass remains half full, because we still believe that we will remain healthy, yet most of us take out health insurance and while for some of us the sun is always shining, we still take an umbrella with us, just in case.

Life’s not perfect but as Nicholas Butler points out:

“Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.”

Karon Graham

What's the Most Effective Form of Feedback? What does the research say?

Queenslander!
Don‘t you feel proud to be a Queenslander? After great wins by the Brisbane Lions, Queensland Reds, a fantastic State of Origin game where the Maroons continued their winning streak against the NSW Blues and the win by the Queensland Firebirds in the ANZ Netball Final Championship game after an unbeaten record of wins during the season, state pride is at an all time high. Nothing builds state pride more than winning at the games we love against our arch rivals south of the border.

Building a championship team or group – whether a sporting team, a musical band, or choir - takes time, effort, deliberate practice, perseverance, commitment and belief in yourself and your team mates. While we celebrate the great Queensland victories and marvel at their achievements, it’s worth keeping in mind that every single person started somewhere many years ago with limited skills, experience and understanding of how best to improve. To get to the top or to excel in our chosen field requires much more than talent and sometimes we can begin with no talent at all or limited talent and still succeed. How can that be, you may be thinking?

In a sporting environment or a musical group we often need a good coach or a good instructor to help us develop our skills to realise our potential. This is true in many aspects of life – consider some of the favourite reality shows – Masterchef or Biggest Loser. How do the contestants improve? They receive specific feedback on what they are doing well and not only what they are not doing well, but more importantly, what they need to do to improve on those things that they are not doing so well. It’s this constructive feedback and practice that allows contestants, sportspeople and musicians to improve far beyond what they may have been able to achieve if it were not for this constructive feedback and advice.

Why are Queensland coaches like Wayne Bennett or Mal Meninga so sought after in Rugby League ? It’s because they have a demonstrated record of success in bringing players together and training them into a championship team. It is rare for anyone to achieve to high levels without good coaching and mentoring. Whether it’s sport, music, acting, singing, career, business or even school achievement, very few excel without constructive feedback from good coaches or mentors.

In the school environment, feedback is every bit as important as application to class work and study and some researchers would argue that it’s even more important. In his groundbreaking book Visible Learning, researcher and Professor of Education at the University of Auckland, John Hattie, found that after looking at all the possible influences on achievement, it became clear to him that feedback was among the most powerful influences on student achievement.
Hattie has made some important observations about the best kind of feedback to students and some of these observations may surprise you. Hattie explains feedback in this way:

Feedback is information provided by an agent (e.g., teacher, peer, book, parent or one’s own experience) about aspects of one’s performance or understanding. For example a teacher or parent can provide corrective information, a peer can provide an alternative strategy, a book can provide information to clarify ideas, a parent can provide encouragement, and a learner can look up the answer to evaluate the correctness of a response. Feedback is a “consequence” of performance.

Hattie and his researchers found that some types of feedback are more powerful than others in raising student achievement. The most powerful forms of feedback provide cues or reinforcement to the learner in the form of video, audio or computer assisted instruction feedback or relate feedback to learning goals. The key to the success of this kind of feedback is that it is received and acted upon by students.

Despite common perceptions, the least effective forms of feedback for enhancing students’ achievement are praise, punishment and extrinsic rewards. Tangible rewards like stickers, awards and so on have little merit in providing relevant task information and have little impact on improving achievement unless they are accompanied with specific feedback. Tangible rewards actually undermine people taking responsibility for motivating or regulating themselves, according to researchers like Deci, (1999) and Ryan (1985). Hard as this might be to believe and accept, the bottom line is that extrinsic rewards can actually have a negative impact on student engagement according to all of the research conducted with thousands of students, teachers and schools.

So what is the right form of feedback to give? According to Hattie, feedback is more effective when it provides information on correct rather than incorrect responses and when it builds on changes from previous tests. The main purpose of feedback is to reduce discrepancies between current understandings and performance and a learning intention or goal. This kind of feedback can be used in a range of teaching and coaching situations.

The major feedback questions to ask, which focus students most, are:
• “Where am I going?” (learning intentions, goals, success criteria)
• “How am I going?” (self assessment and self-evaluation)
• “Where to next?” (progression and new goals)

These questions work best when both the student and teacher (or parent) seek answers to each of these questions. Closing the gap between where the student is and where they are aiming to be, leads to the power of feedback. The art of course is to give students the right form of feedback at, or just above, the level where the students is working.

There is one exception, and that’s in terms of praise, because praise is rarely directed at the three feedback questions and therefore is rarely effective in improving student performance. What is most important is to have a classroom environment that is engaging and challenging, fosters peer and self-assessment, and allows students to learn from mistakes. The fact is that students need to make mistakes to learn. As Tyron Edwards once said:

Some of the best lessons we ever learn,
We learn from our mistakes and failures.
The error of the past is the success
And wisdom of the future.

Karon Graham