Lights out March 2016
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Issue 01 | March 2016 Vol. 09 | Quarterly Journal The Power of Mentors Creating a Home Away from Home Parents Impressions Matter Lights Out Contents Use the Force How to Embrace the Power of Mentors in a Residential Community 02 Use the Force 04 Hale@home 06 The Future Direction of Residential Programs 09 Helping Senior Boarders AUTHOR A reflection on the impact of heroes, frustrated lives. They exhibit a desire to be cushion the blow of reality but yet listen Perhaps you know of a padawan wishing to 11 Right Now Bond Students Achieve Dr SJ Middleton, mythology and a mystical life force from something more, to embrace life and grow and provide another perspective, one who embrace the force, hoping to destroy a ring Success with Personalised Learning Director of Leadership George Lucas’s ‘Star Wars,” may seem to on levels unavailable to them. Of course, either formally or informally can provide a or merely just wanting to defeat "he who 12 Creating a Home Away from Home The King’s School be an interesting place to start an article fate intervenes and these characters are gentle nudge now and again in the right shall not be named" before prep. More on residential communities! However, often thrust into situations they can’t control direction. Considering ways in which we can likely there are heroes out there needing 14 QCAT Gives Guidance on Physical some readers, particularly English teachers - a tornado, a magic ring, a quest, a journey. harness our very best assets and educators, some guidance and direction on the bumpy Contact (like myself) may be familiar with Joseph They are taken from their ordinary world our students to assist in the development road to adulthood, encountering fabulous 18 Tangles in the New Safety Net Campbell’s seminal text "The Hero and placed in extraordinary settings where of other students can be an essential forces and seeking decisive victory. with A Thousand Faces.” An American the rules and regulations are confusing and component in enhancing the culture and 19 Outback Mum anthropologist with an interest in mythology, alien. Sound familiar. However, into their environment of a boarding house. There Campbell, Joseph. 20 Parents Impressions Matter Campbell conducted an analysis of legends lives by chance or design come the guiding may well be a student in your House seeking The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 22 How Social Media is Evolving from all over the world, identifying common hands of Merlin, Obi Wan Kenobi, Gandalf guidance and needing some mentoring. Princeton University Press, 1949. p.23. 26 First Year Teacher, First Year Boarder elements to eventual articulate the and Albus Dumbledore who become so “monomyth.” This framework, well known influential in directing the emergence of 28 St Pauls College for its application in literature and cinema, each hero. 30 Boarding Life reflects the commonalities that exist in the 33 Anna's Reflection journey of all heroes. Campbell describes These characters can easily be recognised 34 Knit for Newborns Campaign this framework as one in which: as mentors. Individuals who guide, teach and direct the endeavours and efforts of 36 New Principals “A hero ventures forth from the world of a young student (or padawan!) eager to 39 New Heads of Boarding common day into a region of supernatural learn and willing to emerge stronger from 47 from the Chairman wonder: fabulous forces are there their mistakes or frailties. Having mentors from the Executive Director encountered and a decisive victory is won: is so important for young people in real the hero comes back from this mysterious life, especially those who are potentially far adventure with the power to bestow boons removed from their families and homes. A ON THE COVER on his fellow man.” quick scan of our learning communities will Girls from St Catherine’s School, Kew on reveal that our students have a range of What a wonderful description for the mentors in their school lives, ranging from the Yarra River in Melbourne experiences of a hero. If we look a little teachers, sports coaches, a near-by relative closer, and perhaps apply our own level of or member of the broader community. Yet, CONTACT US creativity to this perspective, what emerges? my view is that often the most powerful Australian Boarding Schools Isn’t this just a wonderful description of form of mentoring can occur in the vertical Association. the experience of residential schooling? streaming of a boarding house where Postal: PO Box 5569, Brendale, Qld. 4500 Well maybe, or maybe not depending how younger students are guided, directed Office: Unit 6, 3 Hinkler Court, creative people are feeling, but certainly and coached in the ways of the force Brendale, Qld. 4500 there are some similarities. Not that I have (what is required to achieve one’s best in P + 61 7 3205 4940 heard schools referred to as regions of arrange of situations.) We now in our own F + 61 7 3205 6567 supernatural wonder, but then again Harry busy professional lives that the power of E [email protected] Potter fans may be able to see the link. having a mentor can be so critical in our www.boarding.org.au Suffice to say that if we employ the journey own heroic journey with all of its trials, metaphor articulated by Campbell we may triumphs and tribulations. Having someone EDITOR see some similar patterns to the experience who provides honest, realistic and reliable Richard Stokes, Executive Director, of our students. advice and guidance is central to knowing who we are, as individuals and as leaders Australian Boarding Schools Association When we start to consider the experience within communities. Even more importantly of heroes within texts (legends, myths, films, in a boarding context is the mentor who GRAPHIC DESIGN novels) we may note the striking similarities models appropriate values and behaviour. ddprint of central characters. For example, reflection [email protected] on well-known protagonists including There is something very authentic and Arthur, Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, rewarding for individuals to discover their PRINTING Dorothy from Kansas and Harry Potter will strengths as well as limitations and to be Clikprint lead some of the sharper readers out there provided with consistent feedback about [email protected] to suggest that these characters are initially how to improve. The right mentor can be alone or isolated, leading ordinary yet a critical friend, one who doesn't need to 2 3 Lights Out Hale@home AUTHOR Hale@home, where the boys undertake We have also undertaken genuine An innovative and ambitious teaching & are to be celebrated. Even more so in the Michael Valentine a weekly synchronous connection with collaborative projects online with boys learning dynamic Hale@home programme; where the focus Hale School the Hale@home teaching team (myself contributing responses on a shared In its short history, Hale@home has been is about designing tasks where boys tell us and a colleague) in the year before they OneNote page with stunning impact. celebrated as an example of 21st century about their communities and homes rather commence at Hale School. In this virtual teaching and learning. Hale@home is a than experience or perhaps endure a year- classroom each week they gain confidence The project-style curriculum invites the boys good idea, but as former Head of Hale’s long induction course. with technology, get to know their future to present video, audio, artistic, graphical, Junior School and Middle School, I knew house-mates and enjoy a wide range of written or verbal responses to tasks which the challenge was going to be designing The vision for Hale@home is ambitious: to engaging and interdisciplinary weekly have a weekly theme and are essentially an online curriculum that would capture the create a teaching and learning dynamic projects. literacy, maths and science based. Their attention of boys who have already spent that is vibrantly interactive, characterised individual progress with basic technical skills the day attending classes at their local by authentic learning and designed to The boys participate in Hale@home for learning experiences designed to create and verbal presentation is significant. A lack schools. Interactive-online teaching is a inspire confidence and optimism. I have the entire year before they begin life as a opportunities for the boys to explore how of technology skills and general computer fascinating dynamic – more than ever it is relentlessly pursued and championed this boarder in Year 7. It is proving to be an technology can be used to personalise confidence has been a significant issue for a context that requires teachers who cater vision because it is essentially the perfect initiative that has transformed the complex their learning and ultimately enhance previous generations of rural boys as they for and inject a sense of colour and theatre educational paradigm: the needs of the traditional transition experience. We are their optimism about their prospects for move to an environment where every boy into their lessons. It requires teachers boys determine the outcomes we seek, now preparing for our 4th year of Hale@ academic life at Hale School for the next has a computer for classwork from a very who recognise that creative solutions and and as teachers we construct the discourse home in 2016. Hale@home’s vision is to year. They are also working in our connected young age. unique responses to tasks they design and the tasks which inspire the innovative Hale School is an independent school for engage the boys so that they see themselves community with their future roommates, thinking, increased confidence and skill boys in Perth, Australia, founded in 1858.