Lion Magazine

Edition 138 April 2020 THE WESLEY COLLEGE COMMUNITY MAGAZINE Wearing our purple with pride Purple is the colour of Wesley – and equality Knowledge, skills and attitudes The attributes of successful students STEM matters Find out why A True Education Contents Editorial Editorial 2 Remote learning. Until just a few weeks ago, this notion was exclusively linked to our Yiramalay/Wesley Studio School in remote far north-western Australia. Now, of Principal’s lines 3 course, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen to it that all learning at Wesley is remote, at least for the time being. Features Teaching is an intensely people-focused vocation. Many Wesley College teachers have face-to-face interactions with well over a hundred people every day, and at Wearing our purple with pride 4 the heart of this is the social dynamic of the classroom. Wesley students are happy to be in class; they enjoy the closeness with their peers while they are learning, and Attributes of successful students 6 the interactions with their teachers are genuinely warm and respectful. Uniquely for our school, many students thank their teachers as they leave the room at the end of STEM Matters 10 class. ‘Thank you, Mr Munn,’ ‘Thanks, see you tomorrow, Mr Munn!’ are things I hear routinely amid the end-of-class bustle. For now, all that is gone. College snapshots 14 I write this editorial at the end of our first week of teaching from home. My teaching is now entirely mediated through my laptop screen and WiSE, our online teaching and learning platform. The learning curve about what works and what doesn’t work Archives 20 when teaching remotely has been steep. Adapting lessons to be delivered online has been stressful and tiring, but also strangely invigorating as long-term benefits for both teachers and students start to reveal themselves. Ben Reeves’ timely and Foundation 24 thoughtful piece on the attributes of successful students in this edition of Lion is particularly apposite right now with our students learning from home. To be organised, to be reflective and, above all, to take control of one’s own learning: OWCA these skills are ripe for the developing while many of the distractions of normal Features and reports 32 school life are temporarily removed. This edition’s feature on STEM and project-based learning also brings home to us Contributors the importance of agency in one’s own work, and, when working with other agile Publications Manager: Steve Holden learners, just how powerful a STEM education can be. There’s no clearer testament Editor: Paul Munn to that than the work of Dr Julian Druce (OW1982) and his team to help the global Features writers: science community move towards an understanding of COVID-19. Dawson Hann, Paul Munn We’re in the midst of the greatest social upheaval since the Second World War, OWCA Editor: Lucy Gilfillan and living through it is stressful for all of us. I love how, in her article on page four, Design and layout: Robyn&Leon Kim Bence describes the students and teachers at Wesley as ‘a lot of daring purple College correspondents hearts’. It’s a reminder that all of us in the Wesley community can dare to be wise – and resilient – as we face this challenging time in our school’s history. Jacinta Janssens: Elsternwick Campus Dean Triplett: Glen Waverley Campus Our learning may have been remote, and in the coming months may continue Paul Munn: St Kilda Road Campus to be remote, but the lessons we learn about ourselves will be very close to home, Ben Marsland: Clunes and enormously valuable. Kate Hogarth: Outdoor Education Paul Munn Dawn Anderson: Yiramalay/Wesley Lion Editor and features writer Studio School Front cover image: Annika Ridd and Amelie Bayliss: project-based learning is a natural part of the STEM approach at Wesley. See feature, page 10 Old Wesley Collegians’ Association T + 61 3 8102 6475 E [email protected] Wesley College Foundation T + 61 3 8102 6385 E [email protected] A True Education Admissions To find further information and news about Wesley College, T + 61 3 8102 6508 visit our website at wesleycollege.edu.au E [email protected] Like us @WesleyCollegeMelbourne Follow us @Wesley_College Follow us @Wesley_College_Melbourne We acknowledge and pay respects to the Elders and Traditional Owners ISSN: 2209-3699 / Print Post: 100018730 of the land on which our Australian campuses and Studio School stand. 2 APRIL 2020 Principal’s lines terrible conflict. Their parents experienced, as young people, the twin catastrophes of the Great War and the Spanish Flu. As young adults, they experienced the Great Depression. During the Second World War, Wesley College endured an existential threat of its own, with the occupation of the College by the military and a consequent move to Scotch College. The College responded magnificently on that occasion, and with a real sense of community. The College abided. These events are not as distant as they seem. Society has changed, but people have not. We shall, no doubt, see schools affected for a period of time, sporting events cancelled, normal life disrupted. There may well be shortages of goods more essential than toilet paper. We will, I greatly fear, see many people die. It may well be a tragedy. But we will endure this moment of history, and the veneer will hold. We Principal Nick Evans (OW1985) and Year 12 students at the Glen Waverley High Achievers Assembly: will have stories that will lift the spirit. please spare a thought for our Year 12 students, whose year is in the process of being disrupted’ There are already wonderful indications of the strength of the Wesley College Having begged from an indulgent Editor an extension on community, from the way in which our students have responded through to the my deadline for these Principal’s lines, I find myself writing many messages of support from the wider them in a world unimaginable from when they were first Wesley community that have flooded in. due. The pace of the impact of COVID-19, both in pandemic One story that has reached me concerns an OW who contacted his former, terms and in the subsequent social and economic fallout, now retired, teacher. The OW offered has been astonishing. I have made decisions this week unconditional support to his old mentor. that I wouldn’t have thought likely last week. It was a heart-warming story to hear. In the meantime, please spare a thought The health crisis has also seen behaviour I am, however, prepared to make a for our Year 12 students, whose year is in in Australian society that has been prediction about the thin veneer of the process of being disrupted. Events disturbing. People fighting over rolls of civilisation and its durability. People which have been keenly anticipated for toilet paper in the aisles of supermarkets will, almost without exception, rise to years, such as the Head of the River, gives us a glimpse of how thin the veneer whatever challenge COVID-19 throws have been cancelled. Let’s hope that this of civil society can be. I truly hope this against us. Society has been remarkably disruption passes quickly, and that they veneer can prove durable over the weeks resilient throughout the ages when can enjoy the normal rhythm of the last and months ahead. confronted with such moments. It is year of school. It is the only last year they worth remembering that this isn’t the first will get. It is always dangerous making predictions challenge faced in the lifetime of those and, as a historian, I am loath to do so. alive today. It is during the lifetime of But mostly, yet still with sadness, I hope This health crisis could yet prove to my parents that the catastrophe of the that the disruption for our Year 12 students be a blip or it could be a tragedy. The Second World War unfolded. Australians, is the worst thing that happens in 2020. associated and as yet nascent economic and Australia, coped with an existential I wish all of you and your families good crisis could prove to be short lived and threat. Other societies responded health over the coming months. transient, or deep and painful. Right now, magnificently, and in unexpected ways, no one knows. to the tragedy heaped on tragedy of that Nick Evans (OW1985) Features Hardwired for learning: from left, Asher Ronalds, Allyce Sturge and Maddie Temple problem solve together, with guidance from teacher, Lorna Holmes Purple is the colour of Wesley College, but it is historically also one of the Wearing our colours of suffrage and equality. It combines the calm stability of blue and the fierce energy of red, representing purple with pride both genders. Both of these energies must unite if our school is to achieve Wesley’s holistic approach to learning develops the what is truly needed in the future. whole child in an inclusive, coeducational environment, Whenever the distinctive purple of a Wesley blazer catches my eye, I imagine and empowering girls is crucial, not least to deliver a world in which gender equality is a better world for everyone, as Kim Bence explains. not merely a quest but a human right that we must stitch into the rich fabric of our great school. Our students literally wear our purple with pride. Metaphorically, so must we all. 4 APRIL 2020 Whenever the distinctive A proud history of coeducation purple of a Wesley blazer Wesley has a proud history of empowering girls since the inception catches my eye, I imagine of coeducation in 1978.

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