PUBLISHED FOR THE GLENAEON SCHOOL COMMUNITY Issue 11 December 2018 The Grand Canyon “Don’t Follow Your Dreams…!” Drawing makes us better humans AEON Issue Eleven December 2018 p9 p16 p23 p30 CONTENTS elcome to AEON 11, our Summer 2018 03 All that childhood AEON gives a glimpse into the edition. This year marks Glenaeon’s can be rich learning community that is 61st year, and the 99th year of Glenaeon, established as W 04 A World First Australia’s first school for Rudolf Steiner education. There will be celebrations » 2017 Year 12 End of Year Steiner education. The magazine around the world next year for Waldorf 100 Grand Canyon Trip is a record of school life, featuring and Glenaeon is planning how to mark this 06 2018 Year 12 people and events that are centenary in a number of ways. There will be Graduation Address important in our community. a Youth Conference at Samford Valley Steiner Glenaeon pioneered the vision School in Queensland at which we will be 08 Playgroup of a creative and collaborative represented, plus a number of local offerings 09 Preschool at Glenaeon education in Sydney, and we to celebrate this milestone. celebrate the unique community 10 Primary School that has grown around the school. AEON is a voice and forum for The year has been one of significant 10 Castlecrag campus 12 Drawing makes us better the rich learning that remains the construction on the Middle Cove campus with humans school’s core impulse. Whether the completion of our Café and deck, and the 14 In the Garden – currently involved with the school, construction of a gate and walkway that will Biodynamics: Life in Motion or one of our many alumni families separate pedestrians from vehicles. What a 16 High School and friends, we invite you to enjoy difference these new structures will provide! in the following pages the unique We also began planning for new buildings 16 The Little Mermaid vision of a Glenaeon education. 18 SunSprint and facilities that will realise the vision of our 19 Exchange Program masterplan for Middle Cove, a very exciting 20 Co-Curricular Sports Program process indeed. 22 Welcome to MacFarlane Primary School 23 School Projects 24 Glenaeon Foundation 25 Reunions 26 GlenX 28 School Council 30 The Magic of Marion Mahony Griffin 32 Waldorf 100 GlenX is the body bringing together our diverse community Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner School Ltd of present and former students, parents and friends of ABN 94 000 385 768 the school. We look forward to many events celebrating the 5a Glenroy Avenue, Middle Cove Glenaeon community and our 60+ year history. NSW 2068, Australia For all details of alumni events, contacts and general Phone: 9417 3193, Fax: 9417 5346 information, contact us at [email protected], www.glenaeon.nsw.edu.au p4 or follow us on facebook, twitter or instagram. 21 Year 12 Glenaeon students and ten staff went facebook.com/GlenaeonRudolfSteinerSchool AEON Editor: Michele Harris on a life-changing trip down twitter.com/glenaeon Editorial Assistant: Anette Babula the Grand Canyon . instagram.com/glenaeonrudolfsteinerschool Design: Campbell van Venrooy Photo, Nick Covelli. A L L THAT CHILDHOOD CAN BE) Education has been in the news all year: in fact it never seems to be out of it. 2018 saw the release of a second Gonski review at the national level, and at the state level the NSW government is reviewing the curriculum for the first time in 25 years. But is there is a genuine desire to understand those on the receiving end of these reviews? hat, in short, is our national on to great achievements with vision of childhood? The the unique foundation of a healthy Wconstant reviewing of childhood. education suggests a lack of understanding of the unchanging 2. Have we a consistent strategy essentials of the child. to deal with healthy child The Gonski review recommended development? A recent article an ‘instilling’ of literacy before the age documents research showing of eight, meaning that the ‘instilling’ the unhealthy levels of inactivity should start as early as possible. among young children in Australia. But where is the mention of all the A key reason for the lack of elements of a healthy childhood such healthy movement in general as play, movement, creativity and is the move to more formal immersion in Nature? learning in preschools and early Anyone aware of the increasing years of primary schools. The body of research around health and author quotes Sandra Hesterman, childhood would be asking some Director of Early Childhood serious questions: Education at Perth’s Murdoch University “Our concern was the is to ‘instil’ literacy by age eight, 1. Have we learned anything about demise of play in favour of more then it is simply demonstrating genuine child development? We schooling, more testing, more that children are seen as mini, still assume that children learn adult-direction of children,” says incompetent adults waiting to like adults, and that you can only Hesterman. “Play-based learning receive the adult secret code that learn if you start early, at five, or is being marginalised and parents is literacy as early as possible before. Finland, and our Steiner are getting caught up in the spin.” so they can become literate school practices, demonstrate The early childhood sector is consumers. But where is the that learning after age seven takes calling for more emphasis on play wonder-filled world that childhood on a different shape to learning and movement. Calls to ‘instil’ can genuinely offer, a world of before age seven. That children literacy by age eight will only open creativity and a source of who start literacy later can catch strengthen the drift away from joy that is a treasure for life? up so powerfully demonstrates play and healthy movement in the that when the time is right, early years. Reviews may come and go, but learning is faster and more at Glenaeon, 2018 has been another efficient. Horses can be taught 3. As a culture, do we have a year of fulfilling our vision of a to dance, seals can be taught to national vision of childhood? healthy, creative and meaningful catch a ball, and children can be Traditional cultures gave children childhood, a powerful foundation for taught to read at age five. But is rich food for their souls: stories, a meaningful life. it natural, healthy or efficient? If play, poetry, song, movement you start later, when the brain has and beautiful imagery so their Andrew Hill developed in more sophisticated imaginations are enriched. As Head of School and interconnected ways, the a culture, what can we offer learning is quicker, easier and them? If the best a review of more efficient. Our students go our education system can offer PAGE 3 AEON Issue Eleven December 2018 lenaeon’s Outdoor and 2017 YEAR 12 Environmental Education Gcoordinator, Scottie Williams, led the group of 21 Year 12 students and nine other staff and says it was a life-changing trip for all involved. Scottie’s aim with Glenaeon’s Outdoor Education program is to change each student’s expectation of a ‘school camp’ from something regular to something unforgettable, and in the Grand Canyon, he says he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. At a time when many of their Year 12 peers were celebrating schoolies week, these students spent 23 days and nights rafting down the Colorado River, camping under the stars, cooking their own meals and remembering what life was like without wi-fi! A WORLD FIRST YEAR 12 END OF YEAR GRAND CANYON TRIP The Grand Canyon is 1.6km deep, up to 29 km wide and over 400 km long, but its ‘grandness’ is sometimes difficult to put into words. Blaise Miller Hill rafted down the Grand Canyon’s Colorado River, along with 20 of her fellow final year students at the end of last year, and said that rafting and hiking through the canyon accentuated human being’s insignificance against the backdrop of thousands of years of erosion and history. “It’s definitely made me appreciate everything in life more now I’m home. I feel like a completely new person. It was the best trip and the best way to finish Year 12.” Blaise Miller Hill PAGE 4 Scottie previously kayaked down The students rode hundreds of on the journey – adventure books the Colorado River in 2014 after rapids with only a couple of flips and about the Grand Canyon and some winning the Grand Canyon Weighted all became much more proficient of a more general nature. There Lottery, used to assign launch dates rowers. was soon a makeshift library lending for non-commercial self-guided river The days were cold and short, system in place with books about trips since 2006. He’d applied eight with the sun rising at around 6:30am the canyon on swiftest rotation. years before winning the lottery for and setting at 5:30pm. It took the As well as ‘onesie night’ where himself and a group of friends, and group about one and a half hours to students and staff donned the was cautious about Glenaeon’s pack up camp each morning, and at onesies they’d packed, there was chances when he entered the school the end of the day on the river, the a formal night and a fancy dress in early 2016. But after losing out students were divided into groups Mexican-themed night (again, in the first round, Glenaeon won and sent out to fossick for firewood everyone had packed accordingly). two separate launch dates in the or cook the evening meal.