At the last CI staff meeting

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Education Facilitator, Kate Stones will be running Kids and Carers, a lovely series of workshops for younger kids and their carer (a parent, grandparent, or auntie). The workshops support kids and carers to learn and explore together, and discover some of the wonderful paintings and sculpture at Castlemaine Art Gallery.

Kate will also run a workshop for older kids, taking them back in time to 1852, finding out about the different people who were on the Goldfields (it’s not just diggers!) and writing an imaginary journal entry.

Lisa D’Onofrio, the Director of the Castlemaine Children’s Literature Festival will be joining us to run a workshop called Put Yourself in the Picture! Participants will explore works using rhyme, words and drawings, and imagine themselves in the world of the painting….

We will also see the return of the fabulous Punch Professor, Mr Ken Harper. This year Ken will be putting on two performances of the traditional Punch and Judy Show.  With its origins in the sixteenth century Italian style of comedy, Commedia dell’Arte, this 40-minute show is sure to delight.

There are some slightly scary bits, not so good for tiny ones, but great fun for ages six and up, including the grown-ups. Ken will begin his season at the gallery with a wonderful workshop called Puppets of the World – an introduction to puppets from all over the world; including Indonesian, Balinese, Chinese, Indian, Japanese and the traditional English glove-style puppets.

The show includes a demonstration and opportunity for participants to have a go with the puppets. The Castlemaine Art Gallery Kids’ Summer Program will run from January 16-31 2012. Full details and booking information from the Gallery Front Desk, 14 Lyttleton St, ph 5472 2292 or at the website.

Music Makers includes a diverse range of songs, from the maddening warm-up ‘I know a song that will get on your nerves’, to Randy Newman’s ‘You’ve got a Friend in Me’ (from the Toy Story soundtrack). Musical styles are also wide ranging, from the calypso beat of ‘Jamaica Farewell’, to the ‘Pinky and the Brain’ cartoon theme song, Duke Ellington’s ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got that Swing)’ and one of John Howard’s faves – Midnight Oil’s ‘Beds Are Burning’. All tracks were recorded during the School’s weekly choir sessions, and all students have contributed their voices to the compilation.

Key to production of this CD has been Piano and Choir Teacher Deb Ferguson. “The recording and production of the Music Makers CD provided great stimulus for involvement in the school choirs,” says Deb, “and encouraged students to really focus on and commit to working towards a rewarding and ‘cool’ outcome.

“Enormous self discipline was demonstrated by all students ranging from attention and focus in the initial learning of the songs, and intense practice to achieve a high standard, to appropriate behaviour during recording such as silence before and after songs, and listening and attending to each other and the choir leader during recording.

“There was a wonderful sense of achievement and ownership as students listened to the recordings of each song, deciding if they were ‘up to scratch’ for the CD, and if not, repeating the recording process as often as was necessary to get a satisfactory result that the whole group was happy with.”

While Deb is employed to teach piano at NPS, all of her time spent with Junior and Senior choirs is voluntary. In addition to Deb’s incredible generosity another parent at the school, Ken Ford, donated his considerable editing and mixing skills to each track and produce the final CD; while art teacher Karen Pierce has designed a banner – painted by the students – to be used for the front cover of Music Makers, as well as for any subsequent performances.

Karen explains that as part of Newstead Primary School’s extensive art program, the students have been studying cartooning, which culminated in the colourful banner and CD cover.

“Grades 5 and 6 created the imaginative cartoons of musical instruments, while all younger students designed colourful star faces,” says Karen.

The music program at NPS includes weekly individual student tuition in piano, woodwind and guitar, and includes visiting music specialists, such as Andy Rigby, who worked with the students this year building beat boxes.

Karen Pierce continues: “NPS is very well serviced by music professionals. Deb is amazing with the piano and her time on the choirs … Adding to that we have Jill Rebien as a highly qualified and experienced woodwind teacher, and Roger Davies as a very talented and enthusiastic teacher of guitar. Roger also organises the Maldon Blues Club and is fully immersed in the music scene.”

The new Roland digital piano has been used throughout the Music Makers recording process, and is yet another example of the high regard in which the Newstead community places its Primary School, and the generosity it is willing to extend. A seeding donation of $500 by the family of Christina Lorenzen (in her memory) was increased by a further $214 raised through gold coin donation at the inaugural instrumental music concert at the Newstead Community Centre last year. The remaining $1,000 odd was collected by selling keys – 52 white notes and 36 black – to families, who have been recognised permanently on a poster display in the Music Room.

CDs are available for purchase directly from the School for only $10, with all proceeds to the School.

Mural at the Footscray City Primary School

By Andrew McKenna

Parents at Footscray City Primary School (FCPS) were shocked when in late October – and without consultation – the Education Department sacked the school council and declared they were closing the alternative Steiner curriculum.

One parent at the school said the reasons the Department gave for their moves were spurious.

“The Department implied there was disharmony in the community, which is far from my experience,” said Anna Ritman, who is also on the School Council.

“Some parents were unhappy about a recent event at school, but there has never been more harmony among the Steiner parents. And the Steiner and non-Steiner parents have been working together very well.”

No clear reasons

No clear reasons were given for the closure, and parents argue that the school council has provided effective leadership over the past two years, eliminating debt and establishing streamlined processes to address problems.

“None of which previous interim councils appeared to do when under direction from Western Metropolitan Region of the Education Department,” said Amelia Bartak, another parent at the school.

“Steiner parents have been particularly disappointed in the number of non-Steiner trained teachers appointed over the last couple of years for their classes. Similar schools in other regions don’t seem to have this problem, but such teachers at those schools are supported to undertake further specialist training as part of their contracts.”

The Department has told parents the closure “is in the best interests of the children”, but parents are questioning how – at just seven weeks from the end of the year – that can be the case.

Ms Ritman said she was devastated by the Regional Director’s “unilateral decision” to “cease the Steiner stream”.

FCPS in action

“This has a major impact on my four children and me,” she said.

“All of my children are currently happily enrolled in the Steiner stream and an integral part of the wonderful FCPS community.

“With no other Steiner choice available in Melbourne’s west, we are faced with making a major change in an incredibly short time – just seven weeks now until the end of the school year.”

She said that beyond the personal impact and inconvenience, she was affronted by the absence of process and consultation in the Department’s action.

“It is not consistent with what I believe a democracy is or should be,” she said.

“We have been given no reason other than that it is no longer in the best interests of student learning to run a dual-stream curriculum at the school.

“This has not been expanded upon or evidenced, and it is not my experience of the children at FCPS.

“It’s not just the Steiner families who have lost choice.  The families in the mainstream at FCPS chose the mainstream at FCPS – there are mainstream schools everywhere in the west, but only one dual stream school. This is about everyone’s freedom to choose. Freedom of choice and democratic right.”

Ulterior motives?

Another group of parents in Melbourne’s inner west has been campaigning for a high school in the region. The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) recently held them out some hope through a tentative agreement, although no site is currently available – apart from Footscray City Primary School.

With the Steiner stream gone, low enrolment numbers at the school could compromise FCPS’s viability. It would be a convenient excuse to close the school at at time when demographers are warning the government that there is a critical shortage of schools in the inner city when planned developments for Footscray Road and further development at the Docklands will add to the burden on infrastructure.

A study by KPMG and Victoria University found that Melbourne’s so-called ‘Latte Line’ – the boundary of an aspirational and professional inner-city middle-class - is headed west.

This growth creates annual demand for 6,000 new houses, $1.2 billion in new mortgages, $200 million in new retail spending, scope for two new cinema screens, and demand for around 150 new nurses, 28 extra doctors and nine new dentists. And, presumably, new high schools.

One parent at FCPS wrote to Martin Dixon, Minister for Education:

To portray us as divided and unruly or unreasonable is unfair and a poor reflection on your department. This department does not like or want diversity. It has used a very heavy hand to control and circumvent our school council many times in the past. This department is not living up to the policy that the government wishes to deliver and the closure of the stream is the very worst example of this.

Rally to save the school

Ms Ritman said the parents at the school were not accepting the Department’s moves as a fait accompli, and were planning a rally and other actions to save the Steiner stream.

The rally will take place this Sunday, 6 November at 12 noon. Meet outside the Ministry of Education on Treasury Place, overlooking Treasury Gardens, before families gather for a picnic in the adjacent parkland at the Treasury Gardens, Melbourne.

“Keep the date free,” she said.

“And please encourage your friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, everyone who cares about your children and their education – to be there.

You can fill out an online petition.

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Read more.

In a continuation of the La Trobe University’s Behind the Curtain program of seminars, Dr Robertson newly appointed lecturer in Global Histories at the Bendigo Campus, will present a paper further exploring these hidden histories by taking up the story of the BBC World Service, and the role it played in propagating British values as the Empire was unwound. The Big Ben Point of View will lift the curtain on this fabled iconic service providing fascinating insight into its hidden histories.

A Big Ben Point of View will be held at the La Trobe Visual Arts Centre, 121 View Street, Bendigo on Wednesday September 21 at 6pm. The program is free with refreshments after the seminar.

This presentation is part of program of series of a seminars organised by La Trobe University, Bendigo titled BEHIND THE CURTAIN. One of the coordinators of the program, Dr Sofia Ahlberg, said that the series is ‘responding to the massive revolt against the conspiracy of silence and the proliferation of spin in recent times.’

Dr Emma Robertson, lecturer in Indigenous Studies, joined La Trobe University’s Department of Historical and European Studies in July 2011.  She is a published author with Chocolate, Women and Empire published in 2010 by the Manchester University Press and Palgrave MacMillan.

Second year pharmacy students Bronwyn Capewell, Dhruiti Leekha and Annie Sharp, who returned recently from a two-week study tour of India have spoken enthusiastically about their experience.

Ms Leekha, who came to Australia four years ago as a final-year high school student, said identifying the different perspectives of pharmacy education between the two countries was interesting.

‘The pharmacy program here is more focused on the clinical and practical applications of retail-based pharmacy. In India, it’s more about manufacturing pharmaceutical products and getting them out into the marketplace. It was interesting to see the huge machines that they use in the manufacturing process,’ Ms Leekha said.

Ms Leekha said that 90 per cent of La Trobe’s pharmacy graduates enter retail outlets or work in hospitals. In India, 95 per cent of students go into the medications manufacturing industry.

For Ms Leekha, the trip also provided an opportunity for her to compare university life in the country of her birth with that of Bendigo.

Ms Sharp said that having a Hindi-speaking companion on the visit was a bonus. ‘There’s a whole different culture with various religions in India and every state has a different language as well as Hindi, the national language. It was very handy having Dhruiti with us.

‘English is quite widespread within the more educated population but Hindi is spoken in many communities. Getting around was easier with Dhruiti. Australian colloquialism is not so well known and she had to translate some of the terms we use. The Indian students found it humorous once they understood,’ Ms Sharp said.

While Ms Leekha and Ms Sharp have both experienced overseas travel, this was the first time their fellow student, Ms Capewell, had ventured beyond Australian borders; an experience she thoroughly enjoyed.

‘The two week trip that we went on was an invaluable experience for us. I especially enjoyed the herbal component of the trip, because in Australia this is not studied in near as much details as it is in India. It was great to get away from the cities and spend a day in the village with the young ladies who are learning about herbal medicines,’ said Ms Capewell.

‘We were very well looked after by all staff and students. We made many great friends who we will hopefully see in Australia in the coming years. I can definitely see a future for a partnership between JSS and La Trobe in the future,’ she added.

Head of La Trobe University’s School of Pharmacy, Dr Michael Angove said the partnership with JSS University adds an extra dimension to pharmacy studies in Bendigo. He said the trip was made possible by the generosity of JRR University, who covered the costs of the students’ accommodation, food, local transport, sightseeing and other activities throughout the trip.

‘It’s evident that the students have gained a great deal of knowledge through the student exchange program that they would otherwise not have been possible. Experiencing first-hand the cultural and practical differences between pharmacy studies in India adds an extra dimension that can only enrich their learning,’ Dr Angove said.

‘It’s been a wonderful and positive experience for our students and we hope to build on exchange programs such as this in India and Malaysia to enrich the pharmacy program that we offer here and to offer the same opportunities for students from those countries.’

The call follows revelations primary school students have been offered prizes for singing the Coles ‘prices are down’ jingle during school events.

“We send our children to school to learn, not to earn more money for corporations like Coles and Woolworths,” Senator Xenophon said.

7,500 schools around Australia have signed up for the chance to receive free sports equipment through Coles’ latest school marketing program, with thousands of schools reportedly displaying giant Coles banners as part of the promotion.

The promotion has led to thousands of schools displaying giant Coles banners, while students have also been urged to create Coles posters.

Senator Xenophon will write to Federal Minister for School Education, Peter Garrett, urging for any Federal funding for schooling to be tied to the total ban on this type of commercial marketing to students and their parents through schools.

Under the promotion, parents are urged to shop at Coles where they receive vouchers for every $10 they spend. Schools can then use vouchers to earn free sports equipment, although the rate of returns are incredibly low, with parents having to spend more than $100,000 to receive a tennis kit worth less than $2000.

Woolworths has a similar ‘earn and learn’ marketing campaign that provides educational resources.

“Coles and Woolworths aren’t charities, they are businesses ruthlessly involved in the pursuit of market share,” Senator Xenophon said.

“And this is a cheap, cynical way for Coles and Woolies to get their brands into the minds of impressionable students.”

Senator Xenophon said he was concerned that the decision to allow marketers into schools was at the discretion of school principals.

“I understand many principals at cash strapped schools may see this as a way to get their hands on some free footies and a few textbooks,” he said.

“But we need to consider the impact these kinds of extreme marketing blitzes have on our children. Schools should be selling the benefits of eduction, not selling the merits of one supermarket chain or another.

“The more we allow crass commercial messages into our schools, the less credibility our kids will give to proper educational messages.

“Our schools should be safe places dedicated solely to the education of our children. They should be free from the self-interested, commercial campaigns run by these massive supermarket chains.”

For more information please call Rohan Wenn on 0409 696 531 or Nick Xenophon on 0411 626 677

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In May of this year Darryl Coulthard, a board member of Castlemaine Secondary College, invited people on CI to a forum at the college where they could provide community input. It was too late for me to attend the meeting but I was able to visit the school’s website, read their proposed Student Engagement Policy, and offer them the following recommendations on how it might be improved:

1. The school’s “Vision Statement” should be changed (from “…we are a creative community of independent learners etc…”) to “We take young teens whose skills are (fill in the blanks) and produce young adults whose skills are (fill in the blanks).”

2. The Student Engagement Policy should be rewritten so that lots of students want to read it.

3. Awards should be automatically given to students for their achievements. The policy should provide a long, varied and detailed list of the types of activities that qualify.

4. You describe many lofty goals (eg. Students to become independent learners, positive school culture). Either explain how you’re going to achieve these goals or remove them from the policy.

5. Give an optimistic but realistic assessment of the jobs that CSC students will likely get after school/uni. Students will enjoy school more knowing that they are learning skills that are directly relevant to their future employment.

6. Students can be engaged by understanding life outside of school. What do tradies think about being a tradie? What do their clients think about tradies? What do people who work with tradies think about tradies? Do the same for shopkeepers, accountants, retirees etc, etc.

7. Technology opens up many new opportunities to engage students. Where’s your detailed plan for making the most of these opportunities? What has the process yielded thus far?

These suggestions were presented to the school’s “leadership group” who summarily rejected them.

Now if there’s been any other serious feedback to the school regarding the new policy, there’s no mention of it from my contact at the school, and none on their website. You’d think that if this was their only bit of feedback they’d have made a show of being interested – so as to encourage others.

There was community feedback on another matter, which apparently the school leadership found very valuable because it appeared as the lead article of the school’s newsletter.

I invite readers to think about how these two different types of feedback have been received by the school, what that says about how serious the school is about improvement, and what that means to 800 teens who have to live it for six years.

On a side issue, this letter appears in Castlemaine Independent and not in the local newspapers because the editor of those newspapers has in the past made it clear to me that he won’t be publishing anything that “upsets people”. Given the circumstances in which he said this, I’m inclined to speculate that when he says “people” he means “aligned interests who, by placing a steady stream of large advertisements, contribute substantially to the newspaper’s profitability”.

Yours etc.,

Phil Bachmann

Share your favorites with others to inspire their own commitment to a just, thriving, and sustainable life.

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This is the human possibility as viewed through the eyes and ears of storytellers from dozens of countries, creatively unfurled in color and sound. Prepare to unleash the spirit of possibility and innovation!

Art teacher Bernadette McKenna with one of her students

On Wednesday 20 July a special exhibition will be opened by landscape painter Robert Maclaurin at the Castlemaine Art Gallery. For the first time in many years, school students’ work will be on display at the gallery.

The exhibition – Local Landscapes – shows the work of year 5/6 students from Maldon Primary School. These students have participated in an exciting program called Local Landscapes, Art and Literacy which is run by Castlemaine Art Gallery as part of the Education Program.

At the beginning of Term 2 the students spent a day at the Gallery studying the Australian Impressionist landscape paintings by artists such as Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin, and listened to a talk from local landscape painter Robert Maclaurin, whose work featured in the recent exhibition Scottish Painters in Australia.

In the afternoon they went out for some hands-on experience of painting en plein air under the watchful eye of Robert, Kate Stones, the education officer at the Gallery and their art teacher Bernadette McKenna.

Back at school the students spent the rest of the term working on their own landscape paintings of places that are especially meaningful to them. They wrote their own artist statements about the process and the place, which will be displayed along with their paintings.

Local Landscapes is run at the same time at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Ocean Grove Primary has been selected to do an exchange with students from Maldon. The students from both schools have had fun exchanging letters and ‘skyping’ each other during the course of the project. After the exhibition at Castlemaine, the students’ work will go to Melbourne for a joint exhibition with students from Ocean Grove at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Local Landscapes – paintings and writings by students of Maldon Primary will be on display and Castlemaine Art Gallery, 14 Lyttleton Street Castlemaine, from 18 – 24 July.

The project was generously funded by Maldon & District Community Bank Branch.

Paintings and Writings by Year 5/6 students of Maldon Primary School

Castlemaine Art Gallery, 18-24 July

Opening Wednesday 20 July

In a study released this week, Victoria University researchers working with six Melbourne schools found that arts-based programs fostered wellbeing, created a sense of belonging and assisted students in their studies.

The New Moves study was conducted by Associate Professor Michele Grossman and Associate Professor Christopher Sonn for The Song Room, an educational organisation that provides music and arts-based programs for children in disadvantaged communities.

The research confirms earlier studies pointing to positive results for disadvantaged children who participate in arts and music activities. This is the first time that the impact of these programs has been assessed specifically on refugee school children.

“We found that newly arrived refugee young people respond particularly well to these kinds of activities for a variety of reasons,” Associate Professor Grossman said.

“Language is one factor – this program does not require high level English-language skills. But it’s more than that. Singing, dancing and storytelling are universal art forms, which allow young refugee people from diverse backgrounds to express themselves more freely than they can through conventional studies.

“In the classroom setting these activities provide a ready means for young refugees to have fun, and to form strong relationships with their peers and with their teachers, which in turn help them settle in at school and in the community.”

The report calls for The Song Room program to be embedded in the curriculum so it can be offered to schools more widely across the nation.

“The positive benefits of this program cannot be underestimated,” Associate Professor Sonn said.

“Refugee-background kids found new ways of sharing their own cultures through the arts while simultaneously broadening their educational and creative horizons through learning about other cultures.

“Some of the strongest impacts were in their learning overall, including in subjects such as English and maths. There were flow-on benefits for their schooling and their confidence from doing The Song Room classes.”

CEO of The Song Room Caroline Aebersold said the research provided undeniable evidence of the benefits of art-based learning, but there was more work to do.

“The study also highlights the inequity in educational outcomes for too many young Australians, particularly those from socially disadvantaged areas,” she said.

The New Moves report was launched this week as part of Refugee Week activities at BMW Edge in Melbourne’s Federation Square with support from the Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Senator Kate Lundy.

“Over the last 20 years, our student numbers have halved,” said Maldon Primary School principal Claire Bayliss.

“We are an award-winning school providing excellent educational programs, but are losing local students to schools in Castlemaine, Bendigo or Maryborough. We are hoping through this project to raise awareness of our achievements and attract more students.”

The project also includes the redesign of websites for both schools and new signage. Workshops are planned for later in the year to explore ways in which the local community can be more involved in school programs and activities.

“We realise websites are one of the first places parents go when researching schools for their children. Ours currently does not tell the whole story or paint a complete picture of what we have to offer. We are really looking forward to upgrading our site,” Ms Bayliss said.

Newstead Primary School principal Andrew Frawley also welcomed the initiative.

“We have a specialist arts program run by local artist Karen Pierce,” Mr Frawley said.

“We think a large, artistic sign on Lyons Street could draw attention to this program and spark an interest in parents to learn more about our school. We also see opportunities to work closer with our community. For example, links between our kitchen and kitchen garden facilities and the Newstead Community Garden could be explored.”

To learn more about how parents are making their schooling decisions Mez Woodward, director of local company The Futures Factory will host four discussion groups in July.

“We are blessed with some wonderful schools in this district, yet a number of parents are bypassing their local school. We are very interested to discover what factors are influencing these decisions,” Ms Woodward said.

Ms Woodward is inviting pre-school and primary parents, carers and interested members of the community to participate in these discussions, including those who have chosen schools outside of their own community.

“We would also like to explore ways in which our schools are or are not meeting the needs of local parents,” she said.

“A healthy school is a critical community support and a key indicator of a healthy community, so we are keen to better understand parents’ needs and perceptions”.

To register interest in attending one of the workshops, contact Elissa O’Connor on 0402 322 556, or collect a registration form from Maldon and Newstead primary schools. Discussion group participants will receive $50 for their time.

Students from Preshill would like to invite a group of 5-10 students from your school to participate in this free forum. The event is being held on Friday 29 July 2011 from 10am-2.30pm at the Hawthorn Town Hall, 360 Burwood Rd, Hawthorn. They are inviting students who are enthusiastic on any of our topics of discussion to present a keynote speech on the day.

If you can’t make the day, they welcome your written or recorded thoughts on our questions, which will be on display at the event.

The aims of the Student Voice Conference:
• Bring students together to express their ideas about education
• Gather these ideas into a format that can be presented to schools, education journals and University Education faculties.
• Have this created by, and involving, student voices only.

The topics for discussion:
Key Question: What is the ideal 21st century education?

1. Is it a school’s place to teach ethics, values, morals, confidence, self-esteem?
2. What are the effects of a uniform national curriculum?
3. How can we make education more engaging?
4. Should students be compared and ranked against each other?
5. What is the place of social networking and new media technology in education?
6. What is the best way to determine student knowledge?

Visit their Facebook page (see below) for updates, to communicate with organisers and other participants, and to indicate your interest in making a keynote speech.

The Student Voice Organising Committee
Facebook Page URL: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Student-Voice-The-Student-Education-Conference/101834233239391?sk=info

Prague in less happy times

Bendigo’s next crop of town planners is in Europe to learn lessons that can be applied to regional Victoria. Andrew Butt, lecturer in Planning at La Trobe University’s Bendigo Campus, left Australia last week to travel to Freiburg, Prague, Berlin, Copenhagen-Malmo and Hamburg with 23 students studying a Bachelor of Urban, Rural and Environmental Planning.

‘Travelling to Europe offers the students a chance to see cities with many of the same, but also many different issues to those of Australian cities,’ Mr Butt said.

‘Many of the ideas we see in planning and city design derive from European experiences and approaches to dealing with issues such as housing and transport. Issues such as local public transport, higher density housing and renewable energy production feature heavily in development and redevelopment of old and new parts of cities making this a good opportunity for students to learn from.’

For growing Australian cities these lessons are important. Bendigo is expected to grow at about 1.5% per year over the next decade – higher than the average in Victoria.

Students began the trip with a visit to Freiburg’s Vaubaun district. This district is seen as a model for sustainable urban development in terms of design, energy use and community involvement in these issues.

“The road hierarchy here is very different; cars are seen as secondary to other more active forms of getting around,’ said Steven Abbott, a student in Mr Butt’s group.

‘Trams, buses and bikes are everywhere, and it works! There’s a real sense of safety on the streets for cyclists and pedestrians, interestingly with less infrastructure of curbs, signage and traffic lights.’

La Trobe students will also partake in planning workshops with other students from Ireland and Germany.

The students are now in Prague, where they will look at heritage issues in post socialist Prague and the strong role of heritage buildings and tourism. Next they will head to Copenhagen to see a bicycle-friendly city and on to Malmo to look at how a cross-border city-region operates.

Michael Grose was in Kyneton last week

By Andrew McKenna

‘We need small town mindsets with our kids. We need to look out for each other’s kids. Child raising needs to be shifted back to a group endeavour.’

Those words are comforting to those of us living in small towns, but also reassuring to anyone who has thought that a nuclear family is inadequate to raise children.

Nationally renowned ‘boy expert’, international presenter and author of eight books Michael Grose presented a talk at Sacred Heart College in Kyneton last week with the topic ‘Raising Mighty Boys’.

He is the Body and Soul parenting columnist, and reaches six million Australians every Sunday.

His latest release is Thriving!, and his books include the best-selling Why First Borns Rule the World and Last Borns Want to Change it.

He has an education background, and holds a Master of Educational Studies with research into what makes healthy families tick. He has conducted over 1,500 parenting seminars over the last two decades.

Kyneton’s presentation was wide-ranging, and there was a goldmine of information in there for parents of boys. He probably knows his material so well he jumped around a bit, but CI captured as much of it as we could.

DADS: Dads need to build up frequent father points. You have to be interested in your boys otherwise you won’t get far. Good relationships at a young age will give you leverage as they get older and enter their own world. At age 15-16, some boys are breaking from their fathers, and may not want to be with their Dads at this stage. Some men experience real grief about their sons.

Grose trained as a teacher in the 1970s and he says the training was lacking in one important point.

‘What was left out of my training was that boys and girls are fundamentally different,’ he said.

‘The differences are fairly obvious but sometimes we forget. What is important for boys in learning is behaviour and confidence building.

‘Boys are heuristic learners – they learn by trial and error, which can be a hard gig for parents. The best way to parent kids is to get into their space. Boys live in the now. The best way is to walk along beside them.

‘It’s what you do with kids, rather than for them. What we lack is time, and sometimes it’s easier to do something for them rather than with them.

‘You’ve got to be patient to grow a boy. Boys are approval-seeking missiles.’

He says you have to get comfortable with your boys, and while they don’t come with a manual, we do – our own experience and baggage as adults.

‘I open my mouth sometimes and my dad comes out,’ he said.

Many of us who are parents have heard that, no doubt.

FAMILY LIFE: Small families bring intimacy. Finding space is hard, intimacy is easy, but boys – like the rest of us - may not always want intimacy. Parenting styles change with a small family, but the constant is: do things with your boys if you want to have influence with them, especially as they get older. You’ll have capital in the bank you can draw from. ‘Look for entry points in their world to talk to them,’ says Michael Grose. ‘That’s why I don’t like tv in bedrooms. Modern homes are set up for individual enjoyment, not group activities. There’s a difficulty with boys often in those transition periods from one school to another, but it’s also a journey for the parents. ‘I always work from strengths, as boys are more visual and spatial. Boys are hightly kinesthetic, they like to fiddle. ‘So when a boy is angry get him to focus on a red light. When that fades think of a yellow light, what was it that made you angry? When that fades think of green, and then you can talk about it.’

Draw a box

Work life balance. They can see it. Boys (as they get older) need practical structural things if they are to find their way:

Growth/development

0-5 early

5-10 middle

11-18 adolescence

19-26 ‘adultescence’

In the early years the pre-frontal cortex is developing.

It’s important to talk a lot to boys at age 0-5.

‘Little kids are all arms and legs, the synapses are developing. It’s an age of language development. A high indicator or reading at a later age is their language development at a younger age. Mothers are better to help boys at this age as they do a lot more talking.

‘Children can hear 600 words an hour. They’re developing gross motor skills, visual and spatial skills.’

At age 5-10 they stop saying no and start asking why. This is a latency time between two periods of brain development. They grow taller and that will let them learn what they can do and fit in. It’s a competency and self-esteem time.

MOTHERS: Strong boys require strong mothers, but mothers who’ll also let boys break out. Praise must be private, but do encourage them: ‘I reckon you can do this’. Be a strong mother and talk to your kids as much as you can. ‘Women talk more to kids than blokes do.’ Also talk up the men in your life and the others around you. Shame is not far below the surface in boys. Let go. Don’t always step in and rescue them: sometimes it’s better to stand still and watch.

US psychologist Martin Seligman set out on a project in the US to depression-proof America, to teach people how to be optimistic, but the theory didn’t hold as there are physiological – and no doubt environmental – issues at play.

He found a correlation between boys and girls and the mother’s explanatory style by the age of eight, about how children see, view and explain the world. Be very careful how you explain the world to children.

You need to have a ‘talking home’.

It’s a time to be with them, a time they are downloading the software about how to be a male.

At 11- 18 they’re the ones not smiling.

Boys drive parents crazy up to age 10, girls do it from 11-18. (Grose explained of course, that these are generalisations.)

Girls convert their feelings to words, boys convert theirs to movement.

At 10-13 boys battle with their brain to a degree, and it’s not an easy time for them. They grow with testosterone, get gangly. Parents may need to be the boy’s brain for a while on adolescence. And you have to stand up to them.

LEARNING: The best knowledge you can give boys is self knowledge. Use positive language. If we want better behaviour, we need to catch it when it happens and praise it. Boys will often shut down if they don’t like their teachers. As learners, confidence is the key, far more for boys than girls. Boys are often organisationally challenged (which you can see by entering a boy’s bedroom). Many work at diminished capacity. With a purpose they’ll do the job, but then can go back to a diminished state again, whereas girls are generally more steady. Early success is important. Let them score well with easy work before you introduce more difficult work. Let them experience their success. Give them reason and structure. Shorten their timeframes, such as for music practice. (With our boys we’ve said now they need to practice for five minutes. This invariably lasts longer, especially if we participate and play with them. But it’s not the insurmountable ‘half an hour of practice’.) Your job is to help your boys remember, not take the responsibility for them. Give kids responsibility. One of the reasons boys go into being chefs is because it’s highly structured. The biggest predictor of a reader at 14 is how he’s reading at 6-7, and the predictor of that is his language ability at 2-3. John Marsden has said it’s not so important if boys do read, as long as they can. Michael Grose had a ‘no lights out’ policy at his house, meaning he let the child decide when to turn the lights out, getting to see reading as a normal part of life. In a study in the UK they found that men needed to be seen to read.

Age 13-18 a boy’s brain decreases by 1 per cent. Boys are making decisions from their limbic or ‘reptilian’ brain – the fight or flight part of the brain. As adults our pre-frontal cortex usually controls our behaviour (maybe not on a saturday night outside many pubs), so we need to parent in a different way for our sons.

Age 15-16 is the next testosterone stage.

Boys may not want to be with their Dads at this stage and some men experience real grief about their sons.

Never say to an adolescent that thee are the best years of your life, because it’s ‘bloody hard’.

There’s a space for mentors at this age.

It can be easier encouraging other people’s sons now because with your own son all you see sometimes are the faults.

The pathway for adolescent girls is about relationships, but for boys it’s more about taking risks, testing yourself out.

They don’t assess risk very well.

From 18-26 boys are the most at-risk group, and they need adults to guide them: viz Ben Cousins and many other young men who get in trouble at this age. Ben Cousins ‘fell down to a fair degree’.

In males, the adult brain arrives by about age 28.

The amygdalae (singular: amygdala; also corpus amygdaloideum) (Latin, from Greek, 'almond', 'tonsil', listed in the Gray's Anatomy as the nucleus amygdalæ) are almond-shaped groups of nuclei located deep within the medial temporal lobes of the brain in complex vertebrates, including humans. Shown in research to perform a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the amygdalae are considered part of the limbic system. Amygdala is the reptilian part of the brain, and it’s 16% larger in males than females. (Thanks to Wikipedia)"

PARENTING: We are wimpy about setting boundaries. You have to 'take the heat' of adolescent boys, which is why single parenting is so hard as you have to take the heat alone. If you're a duo, be authoritative, form a pair. Family life has changed drastically but rituals are still important. One third of families in England don’t have a kitchen table. There’s far more media noise around these days. Boys need to help around the home without being paid, which is part of the move from self-interest to social-interest. We lack not resources as they did in the 50s and 60s, or food as in the 30s. We now lack time. 'Quality time' entered the lexicon in the 90s, and Grose believes the term is basically nonsense: ‘I’ve only got 18 seconds and it’s going to be the best 18 seconds of the day. I’ve tried that with my wife and it doesn’t work.’ You need to work hard with your family otherwise it won’t happen. Protect the rituals that bring you together. They anchor kids back to childhood. Boys will attach emotion to place, they’re like cats, and if they’re comfortable they’ll open up. Boys like one-on-one time. Five ways to have a relationship with them: talking, sharing time, acts of service, gifts and mementoes, and kinesthetic (touching, cuddling, wrestling). You need to build downtime into your family life. Effective parents are flexible, and at different times your son may need a different style of parenting. Families work as benign dictatorships. Someone has to be in charge and it’s better if it’s the parent. When boys misbehave mothers talk too much and fathers don’t talk enough. Let boys verbalise their behaviour. Ask them why they did something. What would have been a better way? What should you do now? Go and apologise?

GOALS: Boys are goal-driven. Play an instrument? Are you kidding? Play in a band? Cool.

ANGER: There are usually four emotions for boys: anger, happiness, sadness, fear. Help them tap into them all. If you don’t handle sadness and fear it comes out as anger. A lot of anger is sadness and fear. Open the emotions up. Let boys smash into a tree, go for a run, a walk, get it out kinesthetically.

Conclusion

Boys think two things: what are the rules and who’s in charge? Boys are born and it’s all about me. Our job is to develop them for society.

Be firm and interested, remove them from self to social interest.

You have to be interested in them otherwise you won’t get far. Good relationships at a young age will give you leverage as they get older and enter their own world.

‘Shoulder to shoulder parenting’ works with boys – that is if there’s a pair of parents on the job. Be in concert with your partner – present a united front.

‘I feel sorry for children after their parents have been to a parenting seminar,’ he said.

‘Don’t go home gung ho.’

Go to Michael Grose’s website

By Andrew McKenna (9 June 2010)

There is a huge contrast between material success and social failure in rich countries. Not all rich countries. The ones doing worst are those that are most unequal. So, why is equality good for us? Countries perform far worse over a range of factors if they are unequal, and what matters is the scale of that inequality. 

CI staff attended the Communities in Control conference in Melbourne this week, and after all the talking was over we adjourned to our favourite Footscray Vietnamese, Sapa Hills, to discuss some of the speakers. By far the ones that left the most impact on us were Richard Wilkinson, Emeritus Professor at the University of Nottingham Medical School, and Professor Kate Pickett, Professor of Epidemiology at the University of York.

Rather than write a straight editorial piece on their presentation, CI recorded our dinner table conversation. Here it is.

Lorne (IT): What I found really interesting about Richard and Kate’s presentation about the damaging effects of inequality, was that the more unequal a society is, the more dysfunctional it becomes. If a society gets richer it doesn’t increase the life expectancy of that society’s citizens. Overall.

Pat (Canberra): To a certain point. You get these great increases in life expectancy and then it tails off. And it’s the same with happiness. There are big increases in happiness with increases in income, but then interestingly enough that tails off too. We’re the first generation to get to the end of what economic growth can do for us. What are you having for dinner?

Lorne: The fried quail look good.

Pat: Quail? Good grief, they look like sparrows. I could eat a horse.

Lorne: I did see a German deli down the road.

Pat: Boom boom.

Lily (OS correspondent): The most deprived areas of rich countries have lower life expectancies than life expectancy in that country overall. I suppose you’d expect that. Can you pass the peanut sauce? They were pointing out that there is a huge contrast between material success and social failure in rich countries. Countries perform far worse over a range of factors if they are unequal, and what seems to matter is the scale of income disparity.

Lorne: I found that extraordinary. You’d expect poor countries to do worse, but it’s the inequality that messes the figures up on all these factors.

Pat: Not just the figures, Lorne. It’s the fabric of the society.

Lorne: Sure, that’s a given I suppose.

Lily: Levels of trust are higher in rich countries that are more equal, and levels of trust really matter. They encompass that young kid who walks down the street at night and encounters a group of guys on the street corner. Or a woman going out at night by herself. Trust is something we’re losing and it’s to our detriment.

Lorne: And what about Australia taking the gong for the highest prevalence of drug use of any developed nation? Mental illness? We’re right up there too. Not that it’s a prize you’d want to be proud of. Drug use is more common in more unequal rich countries.

Pat: There’s more obesity in rich countries that suffer from more inequality. Teen birth  rates are higher, homicides and imprisonment are all higher. What about the graph they showed with the US incarceration rate going off the scale? If you look at the scale along the side they had to adjust it so the US would fit on the page.

Lily: And not burst through the ceiling. I know. And the social mobility issue as well. That was funny what Kate said, if you wanted to live the American dream go and live in Norway.

Lorne: I liked the way she paused. If you want to live the American dream … go and live in Norway. The quail are great!

Lily: Social and income mobility in the USA is the lowest in the world. The Scandinavian countries win out just about every time in every factor.

Lorne: Could you pass the peanut sauce? How’s your bean curd?

Pat: Mmm. I like these things. What are they?

Lorne: Slugs? I don’t know.

Pat: Thanks for that. You trying to put me off? Life expectancy in more unequal countries is shorter, infant mortality higher, obesity, incarceration, drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, homicides …

Lily: And trust is lower. Pass the peanut sauce. Is it spicy?

Lorne: Yes, very.

Lily: So why are we so sensitive to inequality? What were the reasons they outlined again?

Lorne: Are you diss’n me?

Lily: Oh, that’s right.

Lorne: A child that starts life in an unequal society – or is it inequal? – will have vastly different emotional and cognitive development to a child that begins life in a more equal society. Kids are brought up not to trust, that it’s a dog eat dog world out there, it’s violent and their backs are to the wall. So the roots of violence are in disrespect. They gave the example of the study done in the States where the researcher found that every crime, every crime, in this particular study, at least, had been committed on the grounds of losing face. Someone thought they were being put down.

Pat: Losing face.

Lorne: That’s it. Are you diss’n me?

Lily: No, but can you save me some spring rolls?

Pat: There’s status competition amongst societies like that. You have to fend for yourself. They’re very egocentric societies. I mean I have to keep pointing to America.

Lorne: We’re following!

Pat: Don’t interrupt me!

Lorne: Don’t raise your voice. I’m not diss’n you.

Pat: Lorne you can be a pain in the arse sometimes.

Lorne: Thank you.

Lily: Ok. I  am always intrigued by competition. You know we have ‘competition policy’ in Australia. What about ‘cooperation policy’? I’d like to see a government introduce that. And you were talking about egocentric societies? A society can’t be egocentric, can it?

Pat: But it can encourage that in its citizens. Buy this product, you’ll look cool/get the girl/ be the biggest shit on the block.

Lily: As opposed to a society that’s cooperative, where levels of trust are higher.

Lorne: Well I’ve finished mine, I could have eaten more than that.

Pat: I told you it wouldn’t be enough. So what’s the answer?

Lorne: Order again?

Pat: Lorne you’re such a boy!

Lorne: Well, you know, I haven’t been that offensive.

Lily: Cut it out you two. I think the answer was we have to stop thinking that more economic growth is the answer to improve the quality of our lives. The way to improve our quality of life is to improve our social lives.

Pat: Reducing income and status differences. They’re divisive and socially corrosive. What about the data they had showing that it didn’t matter how those differences were broken down? In Sweden there is a big disparity in wages and incomes, but it is levelled out, pretty much, by taxes. Japanese wages are more equal in the first place. Both countries fared well and were at similar positions on most of the scales.

Lorne: Social cohesion, trust and equality are all beneficial to economic growth, it would seem.

Pat: Thank you. And to having a civil conversation, Lorne.

Lorne: More equal societies are probably more public spirited, and are more aware of the greater good. And social cohesion, trust, a society working well, it makes for a better economy as well.

Pat: You were listening. I thought you were playing with your iphone the whole time.

Lorne: I’m just going to let that one go, Pat. I enjoyed my meal. I don’t want to make a scene. Or for you to make a scene. More to the point.

Contrast the CEO of General Motors addressing Congress in 1953 and saying what is good for GM is good for the country and what is good for the country is good for GM … with the responses of big companies these days after the GFC, that their only responsibility is to their shareholders.

Lily: What it seems to boil down to is whether people feel valued. At the bottom rung, with little pay, people feel devalued. Their status is low. They feel worthless.

Lorne: And the solution?

Lily: It’s to move to the leisure economy.

Lorne: Look, I missed this bit. The what?

Pat: Oh come on, Barry Jones was writing about that thirty years ago in Sleepers Wake. And it still hasn’t happened.

Lily: We’re hooked to the notion of growth, to keep unemployment down. But the benefits of the increase in productivity must be realised with more leisure for us all. We’re all working harder, those of us who have work. No more unpaid overtime? I’d like to see that at CI.

Lorne: Me too.

Lily: We need to convince the politicians about these data, and stop slavishly thinking economic growth is the be all and end all. Life can be better for all of us if we don’t pursue that goal.

Pat: And the politicians have to convince the great unwashed.

Lorne: Life will be better if I have a bit more to eat.

Pat: The politicians have to convince the mass of the electorate. About that. And we have to convince the politicians.

Lily: No easy job.

Lorne: I think I’ll order again.

www.equalitytrust.org.uk

Local students get down to it

By Craig Watkins*

Leadership vision appears to now be present at Castlemaine Secondary College, through Principal Mary McPherson and her team.

In many sectors of our society, be it council, government, or private enterprise, true leadership is difficult to spot. The demands of more mundane “administrative matters” often take up so much leadership time there is precious little left for the critical forward-thinking, visionary, and strategic aspects of these roles.

Castlemaine Secondary College appears to be showing signs of active leadership. Critically, a renewed vibrancy is appearing in students at the school and many parents. A series of regular community forums is helping to cement engagement with the community. The most recent of these was held on Wednesday evening, 25 May. A modest-sized group of just over 30 people was treated to some insight into where the school is headed.

Having attended most of the recent community forum events, I can say that a culture of clear positive engagement with the community is emerging.

There is a sense of the school being honestly interested in input from the community, and working in real partnership with the community toward setting objectives and achieving them. The interests of school students in our region are clearly paramount and the school appears willing to accept that these interests can only be well-served through both the community and the school acting in concert.

The school has been building relationships with regional enterprises where there is clear synergy. Of particular note are activities with the Central Victoria Solar City Program and the Castlemaine Hot Rod Centre. Students are already benefiting from these associations and many more. In the not-too-distant future we can expect to see many exciting things happening in broad school engagement in community enterprises.

Of substantial excitement within the school and community is the real prospect of new school facilities over the next few years. The school is engaging the community in planning through the community forum process and through invitations to the community to attend visits to selected schools. The college is looking for inspiration from all quarters as to how the moderate funding available for construction of a new school can be used to provide maximum impact to the community of our shire for the next 50 years or more.

It is Our School and Our Community and I would like to encourage as many in the community as possible to support the school in their efforts to find a winning school design.

There are valid reasons why school education is funded and controlled not by local councils, but at the state level. However, there are equally important reasons why the local community and potentially even the local council should have input and involvement with what is happening in our schools.

The design and construction process of school facilities which will exist for half a century or more, is one such opportunity for the local community to ensure that working together we create something special in Castlemaine and the Mount Alexander Shire. The college is effectively the only senior school in the shire, but without community involvement now, the prospect of creating some real benefit to the community over the coming decades is far from guaranteed. With passionate input from all sectors of the community we can hope to create something special in Castlemaine. Ideas and vitality from enough people is basically all that is required to ensure smooth cooperation between the council, local enterprises, the Education Department, and school leadership.

There is no reason why the shire needs to accept a mediocre second-best school, but this outcome is easy to imagine without input from many aligned forces. We owe it to our school and our community to achieve more than this. Most importantly we owe it to our students to show them what is possible within society when real leadership combines with enthusiasm from many sectors.

Just one such possible outcome for the school centres on the concept of co-location of a future shire aquatic centre with the school. The council has already undertaken an analysis of various sites in the region, including both school sites. This analysis was performed on the basis of selection criteria which now appear to need major reconsideration and refinement.

The school’s architectural master planning process and a willingness from school leadership to consider the big picture of benefits to the school and community as a whole make now the right time to more fully consider our options as a shire.

There is already a loosely connected group of residents canvassing ideas relevant to co-location of the aquatic centre with the school.

Within the next few weeks this group expects to provide solid options for the community and council to consider. Given the extent of understandable community resistance to the loss of the Western Reserve, this serious alternative site proposal is possibly already overdue. The ideas are still being pieced together and the discussion is continuing, but already clear tangible benefits to the community are starting to emerge from such a proposal. Watch this space!

Location of an aquatic centre next to the new school is not the limit to what is possible with positive action within our community. Many within the shire appreciate the need for performance space in the form of a moderately sized theatre. The provision of a theatre would seem to be difficult from a number of perspectives, but if it is worth considering at all then it is worth considering now. When building a school to last at least 50 years, if full consideration is not given now it may be a very long time before a similar opportunity emerges again.

Castlemaine Secondary College appears to have a vision that is coming into focus. This vision clearly has the college and community fully engaged in many ways. As members of the community we should be fostering this vision and helping to make a bright future for our shire a reality. The time is now to invest in supporting the cultural capital which will serve our shire proudly for decades in the future.

(CI welcomes your input on these pressing issues – Ed)

* Craig Watkins is an occasional writer for CI and he has a research background in telecommunications: PhD from ANU; several years of experience working in the US in large and small companies; some lecturing experience at ANU. He has recently undertaken a DipEd (Maths, Physics) and taught at the local high school. He has a passion for many areas of technology, the environment, and all levels of education. He lives in Harcourt near Castlemaine.

One of the most seminal pieces of Australian sociology was a piece by RW Connell: Yes Virginia there is a working class. I remember the piece well as a young student and what struck me most was the finding that when eight year olds were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, they would all go for the exciting and prestigious jobs, but by 13 years of age ‘working class’ children’s horizons had lowered considerably. No budding doctors and lawyers there. This was the making of the Australian working class according to Connell.

I write this to remind us of what is at stake for children’s education and the need to provide and raise the aspirations of all children. One of the school system’s key roles is to raise the aspirations of children and assist them to attain them. Are our schools fulfilling this role and what is the community’s responsibility to see that it does to the best of its ability?

Beginning with a school review, the Castlemaine Secondary College will set its goals for the next three years. It is important to identify the strengths and weaknesses of our school and to work out what we want for our children. It is, however, imperative that we work it out as a community rather than just leave it to the educational bureaucrats in Melbourne.

They are not only removed from the community and what we might want to achieve, but to use that wonderful line of the Australian digger’s song about the WW1 generals “they are (were) playing leapfrog”.  That is to say, their own career needs, circumstances and fashionable statements tend to circumscribe what they want out of the school and what they think is possible.

Our job as a community is to test and temper their views and to come up with better ones. To borrow a phrase, we get the school we deserve. Democracy and community engagement in the school improves outcomes. It keeps the bureaucrats, the school and its board accountable to the community that the school serves.

What can the school do better? What should its priorities be? What does it do well? These form the start of the review. Come along to the community forum to discuss these views, to be held on 25 May at 7.30 in the Music Room of the Etty Street Campus.

I’m sorry about the short notice but then the school didn’t get much of a notice about this either! If you can’t make it, why not respond here?  I’m sure the Castlemaine Independent won’t mind a robust expression of opinion. After all, it is more important the location of a pool!

We would be delighted to receive comments, letters and opinion pieces about the school review, the future direction of the school and further comments on education in this region – ed. Send them here, leave a comment below or use the contact form.

The dismissal of a new public pool as part of the master-planning process for a new secondary school in Castlemaine is premature. I want to outline why this proposal (pool-at-the-high-school) needs to be given serious consideration- not as a ‘freebie for the local high school’ but for the long term economic , social and educational benefits for this community for the next 50 plus years. The argument isn’t from a teacher or on behalf of the school, but from a parent, local resident and ratepayer.

New schools don’t happen every day in rural communities. On average they’re built to last 50 years, so this new school decision needs to argue the best possible, I repeat – best possible – outcome. What we are presented with is a one in fifty year opportunity for a local government and a state government department to collaborate and get a greater outcome than either could get working individually. Its a concept called linking social capital, and wherever I see it, I see ‘big picture possibility’. It doesn’t become the school’s pool, it doesn’t become the shire’s pool, it becomes OUR pool.

A similar partnership opportunity arose at a school I worked at in Richmond in 2002. Lynall Hall Community School was being relocated to the site of the Jeff-Kennett-closed Richmond Girls’ School that had sat dormant for nearly a decade. The site was adjacent to the Richmond Pool complex with associated outdoor netball/tennis courts. An impasse was reached when it was discovered that the said courts were built in the 1920’s on Education Department Land. What was potentially a Mexican stand-off between the local school and the local pool was turned into a win-win with State Government $60,000 recreation funding provided for refurbishment of the courts once a partnership agreement had been reached.

A part of the deal was that Lynall Hall students have access to the pool as part of their health curriculum, when needed. The decision provided a good educational outcome for a bunch of kids that had been previously failed by ‘the system’.

Today, both parties access the court facility during the school day via a civilised booking system, and after hours it has significant community use until sometimes 10.30pm on weeknights. In 8 years there’s never been an overlap or booking collision during the school day.

But apart from the ‘warm-and-fuzzy’ share- the- pool concept, let’s dissect the economic implications of such a facility.

Last year I took a group of CSC students to Ballarat Grammar for a chess tournament (that we won!). While walking across their manicured oval, to their cafe-style canteen, I stopped and paused at a large building with large windows. Inside the building was, you guessed it, a swimming pool.

I stopped and pondered.

It doesn’t matter how good our programs are, how can we compete? They have a pool, we don’t. It hit me that we in fact live in an education apartheid in Australia: a two-tiered system defined by socio-economics. And it’s no secret (or perhaps it is!) that the correlations between academic achievement and socio-economics is clear and accepted. Those that can afford it (often) choose to send their kids to private schools because of some perception that what they provide is ‘better’, and because of that the results are ‘better’. There is a strong, evidence-based belief in educational research that kids would end up with the same results regardless of what school they went to.
(Don’t get me started, but I digress. Back to economics.)

The first argument goes like this. Every student that enrols in a local secondary school attracts $6,500 dollars towards the school’s operating cost. So, 10 kids bring with them $65,000, 50 kids bring with them $325,000 etc.

I’ve often wondered how many kids catch buses out of town each day to get their schooling elsewhere. Castlemaine students are educated at Catholic College & Girton Grammar (both in Bendigo), while others catch the bus to Highview in Maryborough and a small number to Sacred Heart in Kyneton. I’ve heard varying bush telegraph reports (and admit I need to be wary of all things bush telegraph) from somewhere between one and three busloads of kids leave town each day.

So, conservatively 50 kids leave town each day, or $325,000 each year. If it’s 150 kids, then that equates $975,000 being sucked out of the local high school. I’d imagine most principals would like to get their hands on that amount EACH YEAR.

The second argument goes like this. Of our imaginary $975,000 injection into our local high school (each year, for 50 years?), somewhere between 10 and 15 new teachers would be employed. Now, speaking from experience, teachers aren’t always great hoarders of money and most tend to spend their income on things like…food, clothes, rent, entertainment, petrol for their car (or an upgrade of their bike). Some even book a holiday at the local travel agent. If they’re a home owner they might employ a tradie or buy a gadget. Suddenly our extra bunch of local enrolments doesn’t just inject money into the school, it injects money into the local economy, bigtime. But it doesn’t stop there.

The third argument goes like this. How many local residents buy a lifestyle and send their kids to, say Girton, and pay the associated yearly fees of $15,000? I’d hate to think. Let’s be conservative and say, maybe 30 students enrol at Girton. That’s another $450,000 not being spent in the local economy…EACH YEAR.

There’s a fourth argument, though not economic, that needs to be covered as it encompasses a sense of community well-being. By having so many students leave town each day they possibly aren’t developing a strong sense of civic participation and civic connectedness to their local community. Both of these represent other measures of social capital.

By the Shire and DEECT collaborating, our unpopular 25-metre pool might materialise into the 50 metre nirvana that most people want. At this point we need to learn from the Kyneton experience. They built their pool smack in the middle of their education precinct. But for the sake of a few bucks, they didn’t build it deep enough, so Kyneton kids still have to be bussed to Sunbury for their school swimming sports because their pool isn’t deep enough to dive into.

Thats a big, dumb mistake. We don’t want 50 year blunders like that in Castlemaine.

But, back to the social capital argument. There are different types of social capital, and academics are always arguing over the finer points. But what can’t be disputed is how powerful it is. The higher the levels of social capital, the healthier the community is in almost every measure, including educational outcomes. (According to social capital theory, our NAPLAN results would improve by having a pool!). Studies have been replicated around the world that confirm this.

So the benefits of having a 50-metre public pool, located on a school site, might not be immediately obvious. The social capital benefits of this concept include: increased enrolments, students having a higher levels of well-being through connection to their peers and connection to their local community (bonding & bridging social capital), a 50 year annual injection of over $1million dollars into a local economy, and an exponentially better 50m pool by two departments putting egos aside and getting into bed together.

The real question is: why wouldn’t you consider it?

Read more stories on the pools

Council to reconsider? (26 April 2011)

Time for better community engagement on aquatics (20 april 2011)

Q&A on the new pool (20 April 2011)

Saving the ‘village green’? (12 April 2011)

A tale of two towns? (11 April 2011)

From the Mayor in March

Friday satire: Where’s the Circus gonna go? (11 March 2011)

Where’s the Circus gonna go? (10 March 2011)

The pool: a decision to regret for generations? (9 March 2011)

Council votes yes to pool (9 March 2011)

Chewton Pool good to go (25 February 2011)

Chewton raises over 17K (7 December 2010)

Cross purposes at Chewton – the ‘Aquatic Facility’ juggernaut rolls on (3 December 2011)

Dring to saving the Chewton Pool? (19 November 2010)

Fundraising weekend for the Chewton Pool (16 November 2010)

The pool saga continues (plus ca change) (4 November 2010)

Pool to stay (29 September 2010)

Stay the course, Cameron advises (28 September)

Don’t plan the funeral, we’re not dead yet (8 September 2010)

There’s a whiff in the air from Chewton (24 August 2010)

‘The issue is the dangerous and dilapidated condition of the pool’ (2 August 2010)

Who voted which way? (30 July 2010)

Concerned about the loss, but … (29 July 2010)

‘Only fools close pools’ (28 July 2010)

Proposed closure and demolition of Chewton Swimming Pool (26 July 2010)

Chewton is agitated (21 July)

A letter to Councillors (14 July 2010)

Surprise! Consultants find Chewton Pool ‘not serviceable’ (8 July 2010)

A protester speaks. Pic: Matt Wobbly. CLICK TO ENLARGE

Excuse me, you’re supposed to represent me, don’t do this (21 June 2010)