I was recently reading an article in an educational journal and the author posed this question: What would I teach, and how would I teach if my goal were to best prepare my students for life – the life they live today and the one they will live for all the time that follows school? Immediately, I began to formulate my own personal and professional response. My top six were:
- Empathy
- Resilience
- Kindness
- Responsibility
- Work ethic
- Open-mindedness.
The attributes I describe are essential for collaboration, entrepreneurial approaches and good citizenship. Highly developed people skills are the discriminator for future success and leadership.
I was really interested in the fact that the knowledge or content of any description did not feature in my top six. Before being a Principal, I was a Geography and English teacher and, of course, valued knowing facts and the content of my subjects. I still like to visit glaciated landscapes and know how they were created or understand the nature of vegetation's adaptions to harsh climates and don't get me started on cloud types!!
Yet, these did not rate in my thinking. Superior literacy skills and solid numeracy skills would be in the next tier of my response as would the capacity to think deeply and critically. These are very important skills for making sense of all the information with which we are surrounded.
In my view being able to cite facts and figures is a skill of the past – pre-Google times. Within the school context, they are now often a means to an end, to teach the skills of writing, reading, and critical thinking, for example. At JPC, it is these life skills that remain a focus for us.
This is a topic I think we could all debate. As employers, fellow collaborators and community members, I wonder which skills would be on your list?
Around the College
It was a delight to enjoy some degree of normalcy back on campus in the last few weeks. I hold the view that COVID-19 is a 'below the line' issue for us now. By this, I mean that we must take the global pandemic and our community's health and safety very seriously and ensure that we are compliant with all precautions and guidance. At the same time, we have to live our lives and get on with providing a dynamic, challenging and enjoyable education for our students. I think we will be living with COVID-19 for a while yet and so we must consider the new normal of running the school.
Recently, we enjoyed our Primary and Secondary Interhouse Carnivals and the return of TAS and JTAS sport. We also celebrated the Class of 2021 Leadership Induction for student leaders with the formal handing over of the mantle of leadership from this year's Year Twelve students to the Year Eleven's. This will allow the students in their final year of studies additional time to focus on preparing for their external exams later in the year.
Celebrations of academic achievement and scholarly effort also occurred through our Cum Laude, Semester One Academic Awards assemblies. These were live-streamed to parents and family members.
Performing Arts students are fully back to rehearsals and looking forward to some external performances and competitions as well as our annual Cabaret Night in August.
Open Day on Wednesday 12 August provides us with the opportunity to provide a glimpse of student life here at JPC.
All the best for this month. Stay safe.
Kind regards
Karen Spiller OAM CF
