Issue One June 2011 Bob Ellis on Glenaeon Our Story: Glenaeon, Castlecrag, Australia West Side Story AEON Issue One June 2011 1 Welcome to Aeon lenaeon’s origin lies in the initiative of the Anthroposophical AEON gives a glimpse into the Society to start a school in Sydney based on Dr Steiner’s rich learning community that G educational impulse. From the pioneering work of is Glenaeon, established as Lute Drummond, Marion Mahony Griffin, Eric Nicholls and Australia’s first school for Rudolf Bob Williams, the Society sent Sylvia Brose to Edinburgh in Steiner education. The magazine will be a record of school life, the early 1950’s to train in Steiner pedagogy: she returned to featuring people and events that Sydney after 4 years and the Glenaeon story began in 1957 are important in our community. with three students at Dalcross Kindergarten in Pymble. Glenaeon pioneered the vision of a creative and collaborative The school is a testament to Sylvia’s vision and dedication education in Sydney: we look over decades of striving to realize the ideals of Steiner education forward to a reinvigorated future in Sydney. The Sylvia Brose Hall at Middle Cove, a centerpiece where we can celebrate the of the campus, stands as a living memorial in her honour. unique community that has grown Glenaeon in 2011 is spread across three campuses, with around the school. AEON will close to 400 students from Kindergarten to Year 12: be a voice and forum for the rich learning that remains the school’s – a 34 place Preschool in Sydney Street, Willoughby; core impulse. Whether currently – our Castlecrag campus housing Playgroups, Kindergarten involved with the school, or one and Classes 1 and 2; of our many alumni families and – our Middle Cove campus with Years 3 to 12. friends, we invite you to enjoy in the following pages the unique vision of a Glenaeon education. 1. Sylvia Brose with her first class (circa 1957). 2. Sylvia Brose OAM with Year 8 2 students in 2001. Glenaeon Alumni and Friends is the new body bringing together our diverse community of present and former students, parents and friends of the school. We look forward to many events celebrating the Glenaeon community and our 54 year history. p14 Hannah MacGregor in Nikki Crow is our new Alumni Coordinator and she welcomes enquiries about Year 11's production of alumni activities and feedback about AeoN. For all details of alumni events, West Side Story which contacts and general information, including if you would like to receive AeoN played to two packed electronically, you can contact Nikki on: [email protected] houses in the Sylvia Brose Hall at the end of Term 1. AEON Editor: Andrew Hill Design: Campbell Van Venrooy (cvvdesign.com.au) Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner School Ltd ABN 94 000 385 768 5a Glenroy Avenue, Middle Cove NSW 2068, Australia Phone: 9417 3193, Fax: 9417 5346, www.glenaeon.nsw.edu.au PAGE 2 p16 p10 elcome to the first edition of AEON Magazine on behalf of the Glenaeon School CONTENTS WCouncil. We feel we are at the beginning of a new era at Glenaeon, one with renewed energy and excitement about the future whilst holding a 04 Re-imagining strong respect for and impulse from our journey the word so far. To all members of our community, current » Bob Ellis on Glenaeon parents, students and teachers, we look forward to AEON as a regular publication that will celebrate with you the rich and diverse life of the school. 06 Our story In addition, we have been keen for some time to » Glenaeon Castlecrag Australia reconnect on a more formal and regular basis with Glenaeon's alumni and friends – former students 10 Our place and parents, staff and others with a connection to » All these different ways the school – though it is only recently we have been of understanding... p10 able to dedicate real resources on an ongoing basis to this important aspect of our school community. 12 The power of I say quite deliberately that you are very important one (teacher) to us and we want you to feel connected to the school – in ways that suit you – and our plan 14 West Side Story is to facilitate and nourish that connection. It is with this objective in mind that we have recently established the Glenaeon Alumni and Friends Association and have hired staff to focus on reconnecting with you (you may have heard from us recently in this regard) on an ongoing basis. We are hoping this magazine, which we p6 plan to make a periodical, will assist you to understand what is going on at the school and 16 Glenaeon 2011 in the Alumni and Friends community so you can feel connected and choose how you wish 18 Where are they to be involved (even if it is simply reading, now? remembering and reminiscing). We want you to feel welcome to attend many school events Alumni and festivals, and we are also beginning to plan » Luke Fischer for specific Alumni and Friends events – at a » Paul Beasly class, era and general level and from casual » Tamlyn Henderson get-togethers to more formal ‘happenings’. » Jonathon Notley We are very excited about the future for » Mia Westcott Glenaeon and equally keen to celebrate our » Monique De Jong past – including all of you whose lives have been touched by the school and who have Teachers helped shape Glenaeon into what it is today. » Ruth Purves We very much look forward » Scott Henderson to reconnecting with you... Ian Davis Chair, Glenaeon School Council PAGE 3 AEON Issue One June 2011 The inaugural Glenaeon Art Show got off to a stirring start with a festive opening that featured a speech by former Glenaeon parent Bob Ellis, one of Australia’s leading writers and public intellectuals. Bob has written over 20 books, most recently Suddenly, Last Winter. His two children Jenny and Tom graduated from Glenaeon in 1997 and in 2002. Bob’s speech was warmly received by the large opening night crowd. RE-IMAGINING THE WORD: BOB ELLIS ON GLENAEON Address to the opening evening of the inaugural Glenaeon Art Show hen I first went to East The Dam Busters and Reach for Bill believed in reading, and soon Lismore Primary School in the Sky. We were God’s peculiar I was through David Copperfield, W1947 there were still bomb people, Pastor Breadon said and, Kidnapped, White Fang, The Dam shelters in backyards and a fear that boy, I felt that way pretty often, Busters, Boldness Be My Friend a new big war with the Russians sneaking out of the cinema and and The Sword and the Stone and, would soon break out. There were wondering who had seen me go on. as it were, on my way down the morning assemblies with oaths of I was saved, if that is the word road that goes ever on and on, loyalty to the King, rote-learning, I want, and civilised and made the life of the mind that, through rote-spelling, a national whole as a human being by the dreaming to order, nourishes our anthem, God Save the technological accident of radio sympathy and takes us through King, routine schoolyard which filled my mind with images lives not our own to the forks in bullying and a few sharp and stories I cast myself in as they the road of those lives and their thwacks of the cane each came by night into my crystal set, beautiful and terrible destinations. month – on the hand, and a microgroove record of the There were such teachers as not the bottom – which Marlon Brando-James Mason Julius Bill in those years, often men who we saw as a ritual of Caesar, which I can recite by heart had been in the war and in flapping manhood in those days. – As Caesar loved me, I weep for tents in monsoon rains had read As was being in the him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice Thucydides in the original Greek cadets, playing war at it; as he was valiant, I honour and Orwell in orange Penguin games away from home him – and a teacher, Bill Maiden, paperbacks, but the culture did at age eleven, which I, whom I still see once a month not favour them. The heroes of from a pacifist religion, at the Woy Woy fish restaurant my day prevailed at rugby, and could not do. War was to discuss the world’s news, the swimming races, and the Bob Ellis everywhere in our thoughts, and and our long, long memories. hundred yards sprints. It was the the atomic bomb, whose worst He taught me three times, for sissies like me who joined the effects we were trained to evade two weeks in 1951, for all of 1952, drama groups, and the debating by getting under the desk. and in Modern History classes at societies, and drew in charcoals I felt, as a Seventh Day Adventist, Lismore High in 1957 and ’58. He and wrote satirical poems, and an outsider. I could not play cricket made us sing, and write stories. were more or less reviled for it. on Saturday, nor go to the Saturday He got the class of ’52 to write I did not know that at that time matinees at the cinema with my a novel, A Journey to the South the first Steiner Schools were friends. I could not theoretically go Seas, in ten chapters, and read beginning in this country and the to the movies either – there the it out week after week to our kind of education I could barely Devil with heathen images tempted peers.