The Purpose of Education
2024 to 2025 Cadet Under Officer and 最新麻豆视频 Youth Alliance leader Jessie, reflects on how educational opportunities have evolved across four generations of women in her family, challenging us to consider not just what we learn, but why we learn.
Each week our student leaders share their insights with their peers in Assembly.
I would like to tell you a story.
The story begins with a book.
Now before you panic, I am not going to reference vague philosophical quotes or interrogate your skills in textual analysis. I'll leave that to the English department.
In fact, my story has absolutely nothing to do with this book's title, contents, symbolism, context or author. Instead, it has everything to do with the inscription on the front page:
鈥淒ulcie Anderson. 1930. First in Class.鈥
This book was given as a prize to my great-grandmother Dulcie, or GG as I knew her, because she achieved Dux of Year 6 in her school.
Dulcie was born in 1918 and was incredibly bright. I only knew her briefly, but I have a distinct memory of visiting her in her nursing home, and challenging her to a high stakes competition. Whoever drew the straightest line in my notebook would win glory. I went first, and admittedly my line was a little wobbly, but for a five-year-old it was pretty all right. I was confident. There was a reason I had chosen this particular competition. But when Dulcie did her line, she drew it straight down the middle of the book's printed margin, which of course, guaranteed her success. Whilst I maintain this was probably cheating, it shows her sharp wit even at the end of her life, suffering from Alzheimer's.
When we look at this book, we can imagine the life we think Dulcie would have had. Graduating high school, maybe even Dux of Year 12, a strong career, and by the fact that I exist - motherhood.
But less than a year after Dulcie achieved this award, her life shifted. When she was in Year 7, her mother got very, very sick. I can imagine how she felt, because when I was in Year 7, my mother was diagnosed with a very serious illness. But there is a big difference between me and Dulcie. Despite outperforming her two brothers in school, because she was a girl, it was Dulcie who left school to take care of her mother and do the housework in her mother's place. It was Dulcie who, despite her clear intelligence and aptitude, went from topping Junior School to never even beginning high school. I continued my studies, but my GG could not.
My Nana, Betty, was similarly bright. She left school at 16 to get a job so that she could pay for a secretarial course. She didn't even consider going to university. What good was a university degree to a woman?
My mother, who attended the local public school in Castle Hill, attained an offer to attend James Ruse for high school. Yes, the very school that tops the state each year in the HSC, and whose trial papers I actively avoid because of their difficulty. But before my mum enrolled, the primary school's principal spoke to her dad. Do you really want to bother? She is a girl. And so, my mum did not go to James Ruse, she stayed at Castle Hill High (and was Dux over there instead!). She was the first woman in our family to attend university.
My story is different. In my 17 years of existence, I have been educated in seven schools and preschools spanning New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Australia. I have been able to learn an assortment of both incredibly useful and deeply random things. (I am still unsure if knowing that 'the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell' will ever help me in a job interview, but thank you Science Department).
I have been given these opportunities not because I am more deserving than my GG, my Nana or my mother, but because I just happened to be born into very specific circumstances. The opportunities we are given, we should not waste but embrace. For circumstances can change rapidly, as every one of Ms Poole's history classes reminds us.
As Year 12 is busy getting our dreaded trial results back, we are all trying to remind ourselves that education is not just about class content, assessments, ranks or report cards - even though these things feel like the be all and end all.
Mr Gasprindatos probably doesn't remember this moment, but he gave me some advice in Year 9 that completely changed my outlook on school. I was complaining about my woeful workload and terrible assessments - a plight I find laughable today in the lead up to the HSC. Ah, the nostalgia for Year 9.
And Mr G said, "Yes, the work is hard, but this is the one time in your life that you will spend six hours a day with your best friends". Of course, we will have university friends, work friends, pilates friends, all sorts of friends throughout our lives.
But the unique and valuable sisterhood we have here isn't a coincidence. It is a culture that we choose to build. It is created by every person who joins in with an Undercroft dance party, those brave enough to wear crazy costumes at the carnivals or showing support for fantastic music performances. Give more, grow more.
I used to look up to the special unity Year 12 cohorts all seem to magically have. It's not built because we cross some fairytale portal entering into Senior College - it's the liberation that happens when you realise being a 'penguin' or an 'iceberg' isn't even a real thing.
In under a week, Year 12 will walk past the Cressida statue for the final time as students, and when that happens, the baton of enthusiasm will be passed on to all of you. Please embrace it.
For we must all ask ourselves, what is the purpose of our education?
My mother's goals for me aren't simply academic, and were inspired by this quote, from legendary Scottish Boys School Headmaster J F Roxburgh, "the true purpose of an education is to ensure our students are an asset at a dinner dance, and invaluable in a shipwreck".
So, young women, you must now ask yourselves, how can you 'learn to think' and how can you make the most of your opportunities? And where is that dinner dance?
Good luck to you all. May the circumstances be ever in your favour. Thank you.