Live It. Learn It. Love It

THE MAGAZINE OF LAURISTON GIRLS’ SCHOOL // September 2012 Live it. Learn it. Love it. FROM THE PRINCIPAL Learning from discomfort Lauriston Life The magazine of She spoke of the importance of lives, they require an education that classroom, and students accept that ensuring that young women leave enables them to develop critical learning requires commitment and an Lauriston Girls’ School school as ‘agile alumni’, who, she said, evaluation skills, together with deep investment of effort, as it will not always should be: knowing and understanding, and be smooth sailing. Lauriston Girls’ School gives them opportunities to develop • skilled in, and beyond, one Lauriston teaching staff have 38 Huntingtower Road their character. Importantly, it is in discipline completed a professional learning Armadale Vic. 3143 developing their character that our program on John Hattie’s research Australia • highly literate and numerate young women will develop their on teaching practice as a key factor intellects, moral capacity and sense of in improving student outcomes. We t: +61 3 9864 7555 • keen and sceptical learners civic responsibility. will continue to provide professional f: +61 3 9822 7950 • risk-taking, welcoming error and A number of Lauriston staff members, learning opportunities in this area and e: [email protected] complexity as part of their professional learning, will also continue dialogue between www.lauriston.vic.edu.au have been reading the recently teachers with regard to their practice. CRICOS number 00152F • relentlessly curious published Visible Learning for In this context, it is valuable to consider ABN 15 004 264 402 • productively nervous Teachers, by John Hattie. Hattie, a the nature of learning at our Howqua leading educational researcher who • team-oriented and collaborative campus, where both the classroom PRINCIPAL is well known for his work on how curriculum and the outdoor program Susan Just • technologically savvy; able to improve the quality of teaching offer our students learning experiences to apply tools to higher-order and learning, argues that teachers that stretch and challenge them. EDITOR thinking must present challenges to students Marina Johnson while also developing depth in their At Howqua, our philosophy is very • self-starting, self-managing, understanding. He identifies both much about experiential learning, self-critical and self-evaluating. PRODUCTION strategies as crucial to learning and to and there is no room for ‘lawnmower Katie Garrett excellence in student outcomes. I recently attended a presentation Those who have read The Blessings In Erica McWilliam’s view, educators teachers’. Our Howqua teachers provide guidance to our Year 9 by Professor Erica McWilliam entitled of a Good Thick Skirt will know that have forgotten about the value of Teachers who have a high level of CONTRIBUTORS students and establish safe learning ‘Choosing Discomfort: Future all of the women travellers whose challenging students and allowing impact on student learning come into Robyn Ambler settings for them, but the focus is Trajectories, Present Realities and achievements Mary Russell celebrates them to make mistakes. Professor the classroom believing that every Jenny Bars on learning through experiences – the Lessons of History’. Professor chose discomfort over comfort, in McWilliam told us that our society is student can learn and improve – a including mistakes. Howqua is also a Ann Hooper McWilliam, a tertiary educator whose order to lead more fulfilling and creating ‘lawnmower’ teachers, who belief that is reflected in the teachers’ most suitable environment for ongoing Fiona Ireland role involves guiding university adventurous lives. They wanted to smooth the way for their students, attitudes towards and expectations of character building. The campus Marina Johnson students who will become teachers, experience independence and – ensuring that they experience success, their students. places a particular emphasis on Alicia McGain offered wide-ranging observations using their talents, skills and good but diminishing the rigour and value These teachers have a clear civic responsibility, in that, during their Nene Macwhirter on how we currently educate young minds – to discover more about of the curriculum in doing so. While a ‘lawnmower’ approach protects young understanding of what to teach and Howqua year, students learn to live Angela Mare people, focusing in particular on the their world. These were women who education of young women. rejected the restricted or confined people from negative experiences at what level of difficulty. They have a respectfully together in a community. David Morrison lives that society had mapped out for in the classroom, it also leads to deep engagement with the subjects Emma Neal In educating our young women, we A fascinating aspect of the low-challenge classrooms where there they teach, and they have the ability them. need, I believe, to build ‘discomfort’ Sam Ridley presentation was Professor McWilliam’s is indiscriminate promotion of student to foster in their students appropriate into our curriculum and into the Rachel Steele-MacInnis discussion of the book The Blessings Professor McWilliam moved from tales self-esteem. levels of surface learning as well as learning experiences we offer. The Nick Thornton of a Good Thick Skirt (1986), by Mary of adventurous women to provocative the deeper understanding necessary world is not always a comfortable Russell, which tells the stories of women questions about the education we It appears that ‘lawnmower teachers’ for improved student outcomes. These place, and our students are future DESIGN AND PRINTING who travelled to remote and often are providing to our young people, are working in concert with ‘helicopter teachers know their students, are parents’, who hover over their children leaders. They will be responsible for Impress Print Management dangerous foreign lands when they particularly girls. keenly mindful of the progress that resolving problems and designing could have stayed within the familiar and then ‘fly in’ to save them from they are making, and provide them new initiatives and breakthroughs in bounds of their homes and families. having to deal with any difficulties with feedback that will assist them to every field of endeavour. The capacity that may arise at school, such as not continue to progress. Such teachers Among the more than 120 women to thrive on discomfort will be an achieving an A on a test, or not finding are also able to evaluate the effects of profiled by Russell are Ann Davison, important quality to have, and the it easy to negotiate a friendship. their teaching on student learning. COVER who in 1953 became the first woman education that our young women Mountain bike riding at Howqua. to sail solo across the Atlantic, and I would like to suggest that in order for The classrooms established by these receive should be preparing them the nineteenth-century traveller and girls to become risk-taking, relentlessly teachers are an environment in which both to meet future challenges and to writer Mary Kingsley, who was the curious, and self-managing young it is acceptable to make mistakes, benefit from future opportunities. first European to visit certain remote women, who are more likely to find because mistakes help individuals to Susan Just regions of West Africa. success in their careers and personal learn. There is a climate of trust in the Principal 2 3 SENIOR SCHOOL HOWQUA Real world, real skills, real-life learning Pushing the boundaries • Why does women’s sport have a • promote social awareness and an build on their personal strengths, and lower profile than men’s sport? understanding of social justice. to draw upon these strengths in all (Relevant subjects would include areas of daily life. In a setting where The Experiential Learning Project will Politics, Economics, Sport, Health, they are not using social media and take place in Term 3. To prepare, the Ethics, Science and Mathematics.) mobile phones, the students have students will spend several weeks the opportunity to focus on what The Experiential Learning Project learning a suite of research skills, which is really important – to the Howqua will provide a structure that allows they can then use immediately in a community, their own house groups, students to demonstrate mastery meaningful context. and themselves. of a subject area by creating, The project itself will involve five days and ultimately presenting, a At Howqua, the academic of preparation and research, spaced research-based project that is driven environment also pushes boundaries. out over five weeks. The composition of by their own interest in a particular The Howqua campus is a place where the groups in which the students will topic. In developing their projects, classroom learning and real-world work will be determined on the basis students will be encouraged to think learning experiences are closely of the girls’ areas of interest, and a deeply and analytically, and they integrated. In Environmental Science mentor teacher, with relevant expertise, will work within the same parameters and in Humanities, for example, will be allocated to each group. The as those that ‘real’ researchers work learning is more hands-on and ‘real’ role of this teacher, not unlike that of a within. than in a typical classroom: the Master’s or PhD supervisor working with students have the opportunity to learn In addition to fostering the individual students, will be to guide There are few places in the world of The Howqua fitness program sees in the natural environment, where development of analytical and critical and probe the thinking of the group. education that push the traditional the girls begin the year with a 2.2 they study living flora and fauna, as thinking, the Experiential Learning boundaries more than Howqua does. km run. They then gradually increase well as creeks and rivers, and land Students will document their research Project will: Howqua is unique. To my knowledge, their distances, and by the end of use.

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