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