The need for the Humanities

Wednesday 27 Feb 2019

Easter Island (Hanga Rui) is one of the most remote places in the world. It is also one of the most compelling and mysterious and I suspect features on many people’s ‘bucket lists’ – mine included – so it was with real excitement that I found it was a possible stopping off place between Auckland and Santiago and I was able to spend three days here. The brooding, mysterious Moai, around 900 of them in all and far more complex than I appreciated until seeing them close up, are all around the Island. They are testament to a civilisation that was significantly technically and socially advanced, but one about which we know very little – we don’t know what those Moai represent (other than a vague idea of ancestor worship); we don’t know how they were transported and we don’t know why the civilisation that created them came to such an abrupt end. 

What we do have is clear archaeological evidence and a rich oral history – legend, song and festivals – something similar to attempts to understand the history of most of the Pacific Islands and the story of the Maori settlement of New Zealand. All these cultures had clearly advanced skills in seafaring, engineering and so on, and belief systems to give them a sense of their place and purpose in the world, but there is no surviving written historical record. Since I got to New Zealand I have been reading Michael King’s excellent Penguin History of the country. The second half of the book reads like most histories but the first half explores the years before the arrival of the European settlers and King is faced with something of a dilemma – the absence of written Maori accounts from those early times forces him to resort to hypothesis in the absence of written evidence. King makes the useful point that he has plenty evidence without words (archaeology /geology /science) and plenty words without evidence (legend, song, memory) and when the two say the same thing you start to think you may be closer to the truth. But it challenges historical practice.

The continuity of Maori history allows for a good number of gaps to be filled in (though we still don’t know where the Maori settlers of New Zealand actually came from) but we don’t even have that backstop regarding Hanga Rui. There are plenty of theories and my guide whilst I was there, Lalo, explained things from the perspective of a local who still followed many of the traditional practices but was able to fit the stories and songs of his culture to offer potential explanations. When the science and the stories fit together then it makes for a better chance of having found the truth. A good example is how the enormous statues, 5-10m tall, were moved from the quarry across the Island. Convention assumed they were put on rollers made from tree trunks, but it didn’t explain why many of the discarded statues were face down, nor did it fit with the oral tradition that talks of these stone images, containing the ‘mana’ (prestige/power), walking to their resting places. Experiments since have shown that they could well have been moved in an upright position using ropes, an idea that would concur with both legend and archaeology. 

Understanding what the Moai were for and how they were produced and moved is one thing, understanding how the society came to collapse is a genuine puzzle. We know that some kind of conflict occurred, and that the Moai were pushed over by a victor of sorts (not, as I had assumed, tumbled over time.) We also know that by the end a tropical and lush island had lost all its trees and had been seriously denuded of birds and fish. Some commentators talk of a dramatic ‘ecocide’ where a society simply destroyed the environment on which it depended, certainly a moral tale for our times. It seems hard to imagine the person chopping down that last tree, but interestingly in Michael King’s work he finds a similar tension in New Zealand history where the European settlers had been so keen to recreate the agricultural conditions of Britain that by the middle of the 20^thCentury grasslands that had replaced indigenous species were no longer holding the soil together and New Zealand was literally falling into the sea. The point was made eloquently by New Zealand writer Helen Wilson in 1955 when she reflected on this agricultural challenge but noted that her country had then been ‘too desperately poor to deny the present for the benefit of the future.’ 

On balance, I felt that the more likely, but less dramatic, explanation of non-indigenous rats destroying both flora and fauna over time was the more convincing, coupled with serious piracy in the 19^thCentury that created an unbridgeable gap in the oral history by taking away all those who had the memories to pass down. But it seems unlikely, even with modern techniques, that we will ever know for certain. 

That doesn’t mean there are not lessons to be learnt and reflected upon. I certainly came to think again about the process of history, how we come to agreed positions on events we cannot know about for certain. And I reflected too on the power of faith and a values system and what motivates us. And how critical literacy is to the kind of national story we end up with. It was interesting to see how many of the stories involved groups of 12 or 7, as in so much western myth, how one king stealing another’s bride is a story to explain the settlement of Easter Island just as the legend at Troy, etc. One also becomes quickly aware of how fragile our ecosystems are, and can quickly collapse, whether for natural or man-reasons. I think most of all I felt my time here re-made the case for the study of humanities. Contemporary focus in the UK on STEM and numeracy has pushed humanities to the side in recent years; my time on Easter Island reminded me of the importance of history, geography and theology to making sense of the past, and so understanding the present. They were my last thoughts as I gazed on one lonely Moai (Hana Kio’e) as the sun went down, and, forgive the indulgence, even prompted a poem on the theme.

Hana Kio’e

That proud face

Cold, enduring, cruel

Speaks of a time when you did rule

But how, o’er whom and with what care?

Of written record all is bare

Your sphinx-like face May-be a clue

Or strong, Like Blair, ’til war and coup?

Were you a Thatcher, loved and loathed?

Or Cameron, so cruelly Gove’d?

Or was it fate

            passed you the crown

                        too late?

                                    like Brown

Or Major, Callaghan and Home

Unhappy, delayed, tainted, throne.

If known still now you’d wished to be

And not long lost to History

Rue not Maths, STEM or numeracy

You should have widened literacy

The moment at which I was as far away from Ryde School as it is possible to be and still be on the earth’s land surface seemed a good time to beam into a school assembly which I had been all set to do this evening/morning. Assemblies this term have been focussing on ‘–isms’ so reflections on globalism and internationalism, from the other side of the world, seemed apt. I was keen to explore these two distinct but related ideas, both ones we hope our pupils will embrace, and also to make clear that they are linked to, but not the same as, globalisation. Alas, it was not to be. International connectedness does not seem to stretch as far as getting a link to work in the School Gym, even though the connection worked thirty minutes before and five minutes afterwards – disappointing perhaps, but in some ways I always quite like it when something about the modern world doesn’t quite work!

It was an apt day to do it too having spent the morning at Christ’s College, Christchurch, which, having been founded at precisely the same time as the city of Christchurch, 1850, must be one of the oldest schools down under. Like the schools I visited in Australia, Christ’s had that amazing blend of the traditional and the new but there was a closer synergy between town and school than elsewhere as Christchurch and the College were for a hundred years the very model of an English town, steeped in Anglicanism, gently conservative, traditional – I could have been in Canterbury or Salisbury, although some of the stone reminded me of Perth. Much changed in 2011 when the town and school were hit by a destructive earthquake from which the town is clearly still in the process of recovering. And in rebuilding it is consciously maintaining some of the old but adopting a more modern and outgoing approach too. This is something Mr Wynne, the Principal, is keen to see reflected in the School too and in the last two years the School has joined the Round Square, become consciously engaged with Positive Education and Well-being and is building exchanges all the time (I hope that will include Ryde.) He does this alongside a firm commitment to the Anglican foundation and rigorous character and leadership education, as well as leading an unashamedly ambitious school academically and on the sports field – it was an inspiring and informative morning.

I was especially struck by the terms in which his Deputy framed their commitment to Globalism – Think Globally, Act Locally – and it fit neatly into the themes I explored later in assembly.

Globalism and Internationalism have both become increasingly critical concepts with the acceleration of globalisation and the recognition I often repeat that those graduating from Ryde face competition for university places, jobs and personal relationships from all over the world. Of course, globalisation is not something new. Those war memorials I saw in Brisbane and now again in Christchurch, the story of the extinctions of numerous flora and fauna in Australia and New Zealand by the arrival of humans (and not just from Europe, it was the arrival of the Maori in New Zealand that did it for the Moa) and the fact that I have been able to use English for the last six weeks despite being thousands of miles away from England all serve to remind that globalisation has speeded up, but not begun, in recent years. That said, I think we can safely say that the impact of globalisation is more felt today, and demands a response, than ever before. Globalism and Internationalism are two ways in which we can try and deal with this.

By Globalism I mean the recognition that we all, as individual human beings, have global responsibilities by virtue of our being Global citizens. Put simply, what we do on the Isle of Wight has consequences felt around the world and we have a responsibility to recognise that impact and do something about it. Its why I have been so pleased to see the work that has originated with our pupils and their “green people” initiatives. There is no better place to understand the significance of global warning than on Heron Island, where I was last week. The ecosystem of the Great Barrier Reef, of which Heron Island is a part, supports highly rare and diverse species and is delicately held together by coral that is deeply sensitive to rising temperatures. Globalism doesn’t just mean understanding our geography and biology however. It also means recognising that if you are involved in a war that destabilises a region it might well be that a consequence is dispersal of people and pressures from both refugees and economic migrants that come back to affect you. It also means realising that your trade policies have a direct impact on small communities all around the world. And so on. Whilst I have seen for myself in the last few weeks the enormous advantage of engaging with some of these consequences directly (and also appreciating the ethical challenge regarding travel and tourism that implies) the urge to ‘Think Global, Act Local’ is a reminder that we don’t need to leave our Island to honour our world.

If globalism is about what unites us, internationalism is in a sense the opposite, for it is about recognising differences, in this particular case national and cultural differences, and learning to celebrate, learn from and thrive on those differences. I hope we achieve quite a bit of that at Ryde already – we certainly have a more diverse community at Ryde than many schools on the Island, and not just thanks to the boarding community. Our students’ exposure to other cultures via projects such as GhanaLink, the South African Rugby Tour and the Barcelona visitors is all part of that and I hope that will grow if we are able to join Round Square as Christ’s have just done. The most successful students who will leave Ryde in the next few years will be those who develop this cultural confidence and competence and comfortably embrace all that the world has to offer. They will understand themselves better too. The Norwegian friends I was staying with in Sydney are required to ensure their children do a couple of hours per week on the internet to keep up with their Norwegian education, but, as their mother said, they have become more aware of what it means to be Norwegian by going to an Australian school than from anything they learn online.

So, Globalism and Internationalism, one about recognising what we have in common, the other recognising and learning from diversity. My own journey these last two months, which has now brought me half way round the world, has been exciting for discovering new cultures and ways of doing things, but I have always been an internationalist. It is my heightened sense of globalism that is the greater change. Twice in the last two weeks, once, sitting on Heron Island, watching a Loggerhead turtle lay eggs in a habitat that could soon vanish, then, last weekend, seeing a rare rainforest parrot picking up a plastic wrapper it had found in the sea. These are quiet, important moments and I think there will be more.

I am sorry to report that I did not make a good impression on arriving at Brisbane Grammar. A twenty-minute walk at 8.00 a.m., albeit uphill, seemed a perfect way to start the day. I had reckoned without the wet heat of Queensland; it may have been 10 degrees cooler than Melbourne, it was a mere 30 degrees, but Queensland stretches well into the tropics and I was drenched on arrival. ‘You can always tell someone who’s not from Queensland as they’ll be walking around in a jacket,’ said my host, Chris, who has taught here for more than thirty years but still has a youthful enthusiasm for the School. He himself was wearing shirt and tie and informed me that the day before (the start of term) the whole school had roasted in the Hall together with all staff members wearing gowns. The quirky uniform of shorts and wide brimmed hats certainly made sense now and, several paper towels later, I was able to discard my own jacket in Chris’s office and spend the rest of the morning learning more about this Queensland School founded over fifty years before Ryde. It has just celebrated 150 years in fact, founded in 1868 not long after the city of Brisbane itself.

Brisbane Grammar is probably the best example of all six Australian schools I have now visited in its dramatic blend of modernity and tradition. In just the same way as the Bembridge Building looks across at Westmont, so their Lilley building, an ultra-modern learning hub with ‘innovation rooms’, open plan library and glass fronted classrooms, sits alongside a collection of C19th brick buildings including the chapel, original boarding house and memorial hall. Without the heat and ibis you could easily think you were in England, and the England of Malory Towers and Greyfriars at that. If Las Vegas were to open a hotel called the English Public School it would look like this, and with the heat too. Australian private schools really do seem to be managing to embrace innovation and change without turning their back on tradition and values. They have held onto many things that British schools carelessly threw away in the name of progress in the 60s and 70s. There’s a significant emphasis on character education, a recognition of the value of outdoor learning, strong discipline and moral codes, vibrant uniforms and clear statements of values that run through the schools and their communities. These are all things we are talking about again in the UK, but to some extent we are rebuilding them. And there is also, in rather a humbling way, a reminder of the debt Britain owes to the lost children of Gallipoli and Burma. All around the walls of Brisbane Grammar were the names of former pupils who perished far from home fighting for King and the Old Country, volunteers all as conscription was not introduced here.

For Chris, it’s a mixed blessing. The extraordinary stability of middle class Australian life over the last century is evident in this continuity and certainty but it has made for complacency, some lack of confidence in self and also difficult questions for Australian history. The stained glass in the Memorial Hall records the great writers, scientists and explorers of British history, with Queen Victoria in the centre; the influence of the Aborigines, here for centuries before any European, are few and far between. Their oral and visual traditions make for scant historical record and so a more complex historical understanding. It’s a relationship Australia has not yet resolved as the mixed responses to Australia Day showed. 

The continued links to the UK are evident everywhere. Anyone who has taught in British public schools knows the extraordinary way in which everyone knows everyone else but it extends out here too. I found myself swapping stories of shared colleagues from my Leys and Sherborne days and whilst I was in Melbourne I found the recently retired heads of both Frensham Heights and Bedales were staying with Australian educators I was visiting. It is also interesting to share experiences and warn of potential hazards borne of experience. There was a growing concern about the decline of amateurism in school sport, especially rugby, where something of an arms race in using scholarships to secure players is slowly pushing out the schoolboy player and making the game increasingly dangerous. Queensland schools are about to get their first external examinations – incredibly up to this point teachers have marked, assessed and graded all their own students work with no equivalent of GCSE, A level or IB to give external validation. Sadly Australia, like the UK, is also having to confront historic cases of abuse. This, alongside the work Australian schools are clearly doing regarding learning spaces and building learning communities, made for lots of shared ideas and conversation.

For me, as I prepare to move on to New Zealand, the overwhelming take away from Australia is this confident blend of innovation and tradition. The classrooms are more exciting than the UK, there is a greater sense that schools and teachers are engaged in and motivated by what they term ‘pedagogy’, there is a stronger sense of team here too – what one Head called the ‘de-privatisation of the classroom’ yet all this exists alongside a respect for the past and the timeless values of a liberal education. Australian schools should be more confident than I sense they are, and we have plenty to learn from them.

I write this safely back from the wonderful island and Australian state of Tasmania, now sadly suffering a spate of forest fires in the ancient wilderness region of the south west, the very area I spent the greatest amount of time in. The fires are especially troubling because those forests contain some of the oldest trees in the world, nearer a thousand than five hundred years of age, and with species not found anywhere else. The Gordon River, down which I sailed, and Strahan, the nearest place from which to do so, made the world news headlines back in 1982 when they became the centre of possibly the first significant environmental protests when the Government of Tasmania’s plans to dam the Gordon provoked outrage, protest and eventual capitulation. By doing so some of the oldest rainforest in the world was protected and the people of Strahan, who at the time supported the damming for the anticipated trade and growth, have been able to benefit from tourism ever since. It is one of the most remote and beautiful corners of the world I have ever been to. That remoteness was certainly used by the early settlers as Macquarie Harbour, one of the largest natural harbours in the world, became home to the convicts that were deemed too dangerous to stay in Hobart, Tasmania’s capital. Given Tasmania, then Van Diemen’s Land, was itself home to the convicts too dangerous to keep in mainland Australia it’s clear these were seriously hardy convicts – and stories of the treatment they received here suggests the Government responded in kind.

Starting with such a history does something of a disservice to Tasmania, or Tassie as it is universally known down here, but helps to explain why it is perhaps less on the tourist track than it should be. Any university, as Hobart’s does, with a course in ‘Wilderness Studies with time out in Antarctica’ is worth a look and Hobart, the state capital on the south coast and as such one of the most southerly cities in the world, had plenty to offer, especially its food, wine and arts scene, supplemented since the 1990s with whisky and gin distillation that is giving Scotland a run for its money. The distilleries only started up when the process was legalised in the 1990s, having been banned under pressure from the Governor’s wife back in the 1800s who ‘preferred barley to be fed to pigs than be used to turn men into swine.’

Living on the Isle of Wight made me particularly keen to head to Tasmania – an Island off the south coast with no fixed link, associations with prisons and seen by many ‘mainlanders’ as the land that time forgot. It’s a superficial comparison in many ways – Tassie is Australia’s wettest rather than sunniest place, it’s clearly much larger than the Isle of Wight and a state in its own right. It looks more like Scotland or Cornwall than anywhere else – and clearly the earlier settlers agreed with names like Launceston, Strathgordon and Perth – which may well explain the whisky trade. But I still think the comparison is valid. The lack of a fixed link means you are always aware you are on an Island and has its impact on the economics of Tasmania – it was interesting to see just how competitive all the (excellent) vineyards were on shipping costs for example. There was also that habit of asking people just why they are there and how they are finding things. And, of course, it is the finishing point for one of the most famous races in the sailing calendar. But most striking was a similar tension between celebrating the traditional; the homely 1950s nature of the place; the safety, security and beauty of a ‘blessed isle’ with an entrepreneurial spirit that has seen a distinctly contemporary food and drink scene emerge, along with strikingly modern art and architecture, a lively music scene (in Hobart at least) and light and tech industries. Like the Isle of Wight, it also lures people across the Bass Strait, its own Solent, with carefully timed festivals. One local proudly told me that last year, for the first time since the 1880s, ‘Tassie’ had put more into the national coffers than taken out; another was keen to talk quietly about affordable housing with sea views and yacht moorings, not so loud as to alert the property hunting Sydney-ites, whilst the same concept of DFLs, overlanders and caulkheads exists, albeit with different names and the latter likely to have some early criminal blood flowing through their genes.

Unfortunately, the summer break meant I was unable to visit the Round Square school based in Launceston, Hobart’s northern rival, but I was able to meet someone who taught out here and he spoke of the same challenge of balancing the attractions of island life with educating pupils for a global future. I felt Tassie was perhaps a little ahead of the Isle of Wight in embracing this, but not much. What I took away was how much mindset matters, as well as a local political environment that celebrates and encourages ambition, enterprise and dynamism. Hobart’s suburbs host MONA, a startlingly modern and challenging contemporary art gallery that has become the number one attraction in less than a decade. The excellent Bangor winery came out of a struggling sheep farm west of Hobart and now produces award winning pinots and Riesling to be served in its modern and attractive restaurant that sits on a remote promontory. I found myself thinking back to the struggles we have had over the design and planning of our new boarding house, struggles other Island businesses can sympathise with, and I wonder whether we would be able to be so bold on the Island. It only requires the same boldness that coastal communities elsewhere in the UK have embraced, such as Margate and Newquay. And the irony is that, as I saw in Tasmania too, such contemporary confidence and vision actually helps preserve too. We have a lot in common with, and something to learn from, this Island. And the pinot really is great! 

I made the unwise decision to check in on what is going on in Britain today and, whilst I imagine the weather remains most people’s concern (and helps put into context the 40 degrees plus heat down here), it quickly became clear that Brexit remains the defining political question to which there remain as yet no answers. I imagine some are envying my time away from all the Brexit fuss even more than the Australian summer. I realise, then, that writing about Brexit is fraught with dangers, not least utter boredom for some, so before I start let me be clear all I say from now on is in a personal capacity. It is interesting, though, to consider Brexit from the other side of the world. I have spent the last month outside both the UK and the EU and indeed will remain so for two more months. People do talk about Brexit, or make reference to it at least. At the start of an opera performance in Sydney on Sunday the host joked about how British politics was rather fluid at the moment – though it was in the context of the US, France and Australia itself all being in an even worse state. Many people I meet are keen to ask me what I think is going to happen (as if I have a clue!) but don’t really know much other than it is going on forever. But it doesn’t feel existential down here, and I can’t help thinking that whatever happens in the next few months it won’t change the world as fundamentally as events in China, or the USA, or even Venezuela will.

It is interesting to spend time in Dubai, Indonesia, Singapore and now Australia with friends, enjoying the company of people who are all in different ways British, all maintaining links back to the UK, all enjoying gainful employment and, of course, none being in EU countries. Everything seems rather trivial from this perspective, and a parochial discussion back in the old world. That’s not to say these friends I am staying with don’t care. My guess is that all of them would have voted Remain, and maybe some actually did. But I think that is because of how they see themselves – as modern, progressive, internationally-minded citizens of the world. Will Brexit, or no Brexit make any difference to them? Will today’s Ryde pupils not have the opportunities they have had if we leave or stay? I have stayed with four families: a British couple I met when working in Prague, now in Dubai, whose son lives and works in London; a British family living in Singapore whose children all go to international schools locally; a British man married to an Australian working in independent schools in Melbourne and an English man I knew in Greece, married to a Norwegian with children attending Australian schools but continuing some Norwegian education on-line. They are the epitome of modern, global citizens. And that is how I like to see myself. I identify with many values of Remain voters, but I also believe Leave’s argument that life outside the EU allows us to pursue a more global and outward-looking strategy than within. As a Leave inclined internationalist I know I am in a minority, but it is not a minority of one. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, voted Remain, yet in her policies on immigration and national identity she identifies culturally, I sense, with a large number of Remain voters.

We talk of tribes but those tribes are complex – as a white male over the age of 45 living on the Isle of Wight you can predict a Leave voter, as a liberal arts graduate in teaching you expect a Remainer. The majority but not all of my friends voted Remain; the majority but not all of my family voted Leave. I am both who I have become but also where I have come from. And so are we all – yet we were forced to make a binary choice in 2016 and it seems most of us have not changed our minds.I have taken a risk and drifted into politics because over the last few weeks I have started to question not my actual views on Brexit – like almost everyone I am quite sure I am right – but from where I am I wonder what the debate really is about and how important it actually is. So much debate about a trade treaty and market access? Really? And so I question whether the real problem is not who is right and who is wrong but rather whether we have made rather too much of all of this. Which is why I was really interested to hear of the so-called Malthouse Compromise emerging this week. The details are complex, but the interesting thing is the apparent coming together of people on opposite sides of the debate and one senses a British compromise emerging; just like the Elizabethan Church Settlement it won’t include the extremes – the Puritans and Papists of 2019 will be outside. And it is especially interesting that it should be happening today, January 30^th, as this is not a great date in History. It is the day Charles I was executed, Gandhi was assassinated and Hitler became Chancellor – lessons if needed of the dangers of political extremism and what happens when sensible people get pushed aside or surrender the political centre. Brexit has helped me understand better than ever before how countries fall into Civil War; January 30^thhas produced events that show how such divisions can end up. It would be really wonderful if in 2019 it marked the coming together rather than the pulling apart of political positions, and looking at it all from ‘down under’ doesn’t half put it in perspective. ‘Full of sound and fury, signifying….?’

I have managed to time my visit to Melbourne to coincide with the last full week of the summer holidays which makes me all the more grateful to the three schools that let me through their doors. Just like Ryde a week before the start of term, they were a hive of activity as heads and bursars decided which projects to pull and which to double down on and academic staff started to trickle back to work and ask difficult questions like where has my computer gone and can I have the new set lists.

Melbourne is one of those cities that frequently wins the best place in the world to live awards and you don’t need to be here long to see why: easy access to long sandy beaches; a love of sport and the outdoors that is recognised in the many green parks and cycle paths, as well the iconic MCG and Olympic area (which was hosting the Open whilst I was there); two fabulous wine regions less than an hour away and a confident, modern city skyscape with great ethnic food and Aussie wine. 

It also has an enormous number of excellent private schools, many of which are fellow HMC members and feel in some ways more English than England. I was told that Kew, where I was staying, has the highest concentration of private schools anywhere in the world. Some of these schools are real venerable institutions dating back to the nineteenth century, many are world famous such as Scotch College and Geelong Grammar (where Prince Charles once studied.)

There is much about the schools that we would recognise – an appreciation of the importance of character education, a strong belief in sport, drama and music, robust house systems – and they are facing some challenges familiar to UK heads – affordability, balancing academic and pastoral demands, mental health and well-being. There are other areas, though, where Melbourne schools were clearly ahead of us. I also felt a strong sense of schools and teaching bodies willing and indeed eager to reflect on best practice and embrace research and technology. The most explicit example of this, and it is building on what I saw in Singapore, was the clear thinking in classroom and working areas design. Harkness tables to encourage discussion, strong open plan floors, a rejection (explicit in two of the three schools I visited) of teachers having dedicated classrooms, easy sight of what was going on in classrooms, varied break out areas in libraries. 

Melbourne, or more specifically Geelong Grammar at the other side of the bay, can also lay claim to being the place where ‘Positive Education’ was born. It was here that Martin Seligman, the US psychologist who first sought to translate Positive Psychology to an education setting, did his early research and work. It was instructive to look around and see evidence of ‘Pos Ed’ all around – most impressively in the well-being centre that combines sport, physical and mental health, counselling and a medical centre; the emphasis being on all elements contributing together to living well. Whether pupils (or staff) were going to the gym, for a swim, for a counselling session or some coaching, they all headed in the same direction. ‘Pos Ed’ has been around long enough to have its critics now too and it was interesting to hear from one school chaplain who felt it was really just a secular, and inferior, version of the teaching of the ancient Greeks and major world religions. It’s evident too that in some schools dedicated lessons don’t necessarily work and encourage rather than dispel cynicism. My own instinct is that Positive Education does have something to offer, especially in our secular age, but the emphasis on ‘living it’ and its significance to teachers and school leaders is more important that it being something to teach per se. Better it informs us, than we feel we need to teach others?

Geelong also gave the world Timbertop – an outdoor campus in the hills beyond the Yarra Valley. It’s a model that has been copied elsewhere, but not to the same extent, and it is fascinating. Essentially, all pupils in Year 9 (UK Year 10) spend a year in the outback. Whether boarders or day pupils they are away from their families, live in huts of 14, are denied access to social media and emails and have to chop their own wood to heat their huts (as well as do all the other duties such as washing up, tidying etc.) If that wood isn’t chopped they also learn how to take cold showers. It’s a DofE trek in extremis, and also involves running every day so that by the end of the year they can run 33km in one go. It’s tough, and it’s a programme the teachers also are expected to embrace (each hut has one teacher i/c and lessons carry on as normal each morning.) When I was there the new crop of pupils were being shown ten different snakes they might encounter when doing their wild camping and how to deal with them. The Head here was clear that plenty of education was taking place, but in particular pupils were learning ‘how to live together.’ He also noted that the break from social media was more difficult to manage than any of the physical hardships. Is it tough? Undoubtedly. And students were way from their comfort zones. But it is also popular – the Year 9 is the most subscribed in the School.

So, as I head south to Tasmania, Melbourne has given me plenty to think about. These schools have embraced some very modern ideas, but all are really re-working of timeless principles, and in a pretty traditional setting – no compromises on uniforms, chapel or compulsory sport here.

It has been good to spend some decent time in Singapore, and to visit one of the international schools there. Conversations with ex-pat parents never take long here to get on to schooling and I was massively informed by the excellent Lucy Crehan’s ‘Clever Lands,’ a great read for anyone interested in how top performing education systems operate. Indeed, I am indebted to her for much of the insight that I was able to apply when here in person, and in the rest of this particular blog.

Education is big in Singapore – the country is frequently at the top of the PISA tables (which compare educational performance across the world) and outstanding schools for the local population sit alongside some serious international schools such as Tanglin Trust (operating since 1925) and more recent additions including what seemed to be the current ‘must-go-to’ for ex-pats, Dulwich. The competition for places is fierce and a very selective approach at a relatively early age (10-12) in state schools puts huge pressure on young children and their parents, many of whom will take agreed leave when it comes to their children taking their primary school leaving exams. The pressure is understandable when one discovers that the routes available to children after primary school are very much mapped out as a consequence of the school they then go to, with different assessments, and therefore employment and higher education opportunities, according to the type of school you get into. It is like the old 11+ in the UK, but more rigid in terms of routes then available and little chance to change tack.

The downsides and problems of such a system are obvious. There is an assumption that intelligence is fixed and measurable so that once one classifies pupils as of one intelligence you then run the ‘correct’ route for them. There is little scope for late developers. Parents with time, intelligence or money can prepare their children better for the exams so it is harder for bright working-class kids to do well in the PSLE. The pressure on young children is not healthy – a 2000 survey Crehan quotes shows one third of 10-12 year olds feared their exams more than their parents dying, and 1 in 3 said life was sometimes not worth living. There is also a social concern that an academic elite turns into a social and cultural elite that lacks the empathy necessary for social/national cohesion: Crehan quotes a recent academic graduate saying, ‘we are a tyranny of the capable and the clever.’

And yet… one cannot ignore the clearly outstanding performance of the Singapore system on a number of levels. The education system has been at the centre of Singapore’s remarkable growth since it found itself unwillingly embracing independence when it broke from Malaysia in 1965. The irony of my being in Singapore at the moment Theresa May’s own ‘independence deal’ was defeated was not lost on me and our politicians would be well advised to note the resolute focus Lee Kuan Yew put on education at that point – realising that, alone and with limited physical resources, the one thing Singapore could and did invest in at that moment was the human resource of its people, through education. It is a lesson Dubai also seems keen to learn. Just because the system categorises pupils early, probably too early, does not mean of itself it is wrong to prepare pupils with different skills for different roles at some point. In fact, Crehan cites evidence to suggest the vocational education provided via Singaporean schools, especially in the last twenty years, has been of a high and relevant quality and low unemployment rates see people being prepared for all necessary jobs. I would like to think our approach at 16+ at Ryde, with three pathways and a personalised pathway is borne of similar principles – the key for us is to make decisions later and ensure there is flexibility throughout. Most critical is ensuring the quality of each route is equally resourced and valued. It is also the case that performance in the key PISA indicators of reading, maths and science is good for all pupils in Singapore, not just those selected for the top schools, and the performance of weaker Singaporean students relative to other pupils in the world at the same level is strong.

I imagine some of this is cultural – aspiration is in the national psyche – and some is, according to Crehan, due to a positive attitude to teacher professional development with a strong emphasis on continuing professional development throughout a teacher’s career. That professional development particularly encourages teachers to collaborate and learn from one another. I was struck in my own school visit on the way in which the classrooms were laid out – with much common space and relatively small spaces for individual teachers to operate in/retreat to. Even then, these spaces were very easy to see into and there was a constant flow of people. The criticism in Britain that teachers can too easily be territorial can create a competitive rather than collaborative environment, and limits the chance to learn from sharing. I also noticed very strong reflective elements to work, so next to a piece of art in the junior school, for example, were a series of questions; how did you create your work? What is the big idea? Did you learn anything new? Are you pleased with what you produced? Why? I found myself more interested in and impressed by the commentary than the work itself and so saw process as well as product on display.

A permanent challenge for schools is how we balance academic rigour with pastoral and emotional development. I would like to think they are not mutually exclusive, but there was a sense from what I have seen, read and heard here that in Singapore the former does at times compromise the latter and that may even have wider societal challenges with an unempathetic elite and with children growing up having missed some of their childhood. For the Singaporean children it is the challenge of the educational system, for the ex-pats the danger of growing up in an unreal bubble. I heard of girls unable to walk on uneven ground when faced with forest walks because all had been so perfect up until then and of pastoral staff on 24-hour suicide watch during exam periods. But I also saw a city state impressive in its confidence and having turned itself into one of the healthiest, most innovative and economically successfully countries in two generations, an achievement it could not have managed without the absolute commitment, from parents, pupils and politicians, to education at the highest level. Children growing up in Singapore today have some of the very best life chances anywhere in the world; does it matter if they quickly find themselves on preordained routes or don’t know how to walk in the woods? I’m not sure I know the answer, but it is a question that should be put.

Yogyakarta, Indonesia. 

With my plans to visit the British School of Jakarta foiled at the last minute I decided to head to what is described as the spiritual and cultural heart of Java, rather than its overbearing business and government centre, the city of Yogyakarta. Whilst sorry to miss learning more about the only Round Square school in Asia that I had planned to see, the bonus was a thriving historic and religious city with inspiring Buddhist and Hindu temples just outside at Borobudur and Prambanan – think Angor Watt without the tourists. I also stayed in a fabulous hotel that Agatha Christie would surely have had someone murdered in had she ever travelled this far. Anyone planning a visit to these parts would be foolish to miss Yogyakarta and the Hotel Phoenix.

But the real surprise of the place, which shouldn’t have been a surprise at all and was also somewhat unnerving, was to find myself very much standing out from a crowd of Asian faces. There were tourists here, but from India, China and Korea. It was hard to believe that Bali, whose tourists owed more to Southend than the South China Sea, was only an hour away by plane. I became, for two days, a curiosity. 

It first became apparent when I had lunch in the centre on my arrival day. Feeling the 30 plus heat I headed to an air-conditioned shopping centre for lunch but chose the Japanese fast food outlet to at least play lip (or mouth) service to being in Asia. I had just sat down in a half empty restaurant when a student I would guess aged about 17 came shyly over and asked if he might sit opposite. For a moment, he tucked into his dubious looking soup in silence, but slowly I discovered his parents were teachers, he wanted to study Pharmacy and he intended to do this at Cardiff University – why the latter I never fully gathered. 

The next day, when visiting the temples, I was frequently stopped and asked if I would have my photograph taken with people – groups of school children, families, couples – whilst the less bold I could tell were trying to capture me alongside a stone Buddha (at least I hope it wasn’t merely for a compare and contrast photo!) At various times, and depending on my mood and the heat, I felt flattered, annoyed, interested; but always conspicuous. As a white, middle aged, middle class man I have never experienced this before but I suddenly got a feel for what it must be like to be different, and for me this was in a place where I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. I was reminded of a school trip to Russia I led in the 1990s when two Nigerian boys were never left alone by Russians gazing for the first time on Black people. And it has made me think about how we engage with those who, externally at least, are very much ‘the other’ in our own society. For me I consciously stepped out of my western world for a few days; for some, especially in the homogenous Isle of Wight, they are distinct every day. I have always promoted and indeed been excited by diversity in our School and on our Island; I want us to celebrate it and I think I still do. But I learned as I walked around those temples, that there are times when you would prefer just to blend in and I am left reflecting on how easy that must be for some of our community and what, if anything, I can do about it. 

It wasn’t the only thought of the day – the power of religious image; the comfort that Buddhist symbolism in particular was giving; the idea that this 17 year old in Yogyakarta wanted to go to Cardiff – all made me think. But what it means to stand out, always, was what struck me most today.

January 2019, Dubai

 Time to file my first blog of 2019, and it’s also the first of my sabbatical term, a good moment to thank those who have made this possible. It will, of course, reveal the inconvenient truth that the one person in a school who can disappear with very little immediate consequence, for a short while, is the Head, and that’s not to belittle the work that Ryde’s Deputy (Academic), Philip Moore, will be doing as Acting Head in my absence. I write, ‘immediate consequence’ advisedly, for one of my prime responsibilities is to ensure Ryde School has a meaningful ethos and set of values, and that this is informed by current research and experience as well the enduring principles of our founders. I hope, therefore, that my temporary absence will make for doing my job better on my return.

We have encapsulated our ‘mission’ in recent years in the phrase, ‘An island school with a global outlook’ and I have done all I can to encourage Ryde pupils and staff to look beyond the Island for inspiration and opportunity. Opportunities have been grasped by many and these have taken them as far as Ghana, Chile, South Africa, China, Canada and Costa Rica, as well as closer to home in Malta, Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands. In encouraging others to think global and to leave comfort zones, however, I have to ask if I am doing this enough myself; the next four months are partly an answer to this. I will be visiting schools and universities in other countries which will, surely, bring new ideas, but I also want to take this time to refresh and rethink things more generally, to consider more deeply how we can ensure Ryde School provides the education that will allow our students and graduates to live a meaningful life in a world where globalism and internationalism cannot be dismissed as concerns of those living ‘beyond the Solent.’ 

I saw Dubai as really just a jumping off point, a chance to catch up with old friends and prepare for the longer journey out east, but actually it has given real focus to what this trip is about. Many know this part of the world better than me, but two things struck me very quickly. 

Firstly, the very real cosmopolitan nature of the place. On a minibus tour of Abu Dhabi a Pakistani driver guided in English our small party of two Brits, a Korean family, an Italian couple, a student from Nigeria and a couple from India. The Nigerian later revealed he was headed to London the next day to start studying fashion whilst the Italian woman turned out to be Deputy Rector of Milan University, taking a break from setting up a permanent research alliance of five European universities and explaining to me the opportunities available (in English) to Ryde students in Italy. You don’t have to be one of Theresa May’s citizens of nowhere to appreciate that being comfortable with other peoples and cultures is a pretty essential C21st skill.

Secondly, behind the obvious glitz and glamour (and a hint of hubris too), Dubai has plenty of the traditional – these are citizens of ‘somewhere.’ Not just the obvious Arab and Islamic life that determines most locals’ day, but also the continued business of the taxis along and across the Creek, the scents and flavours of the Souk and the family businesses, peeping from behind the glossy skyscrapers.

That ‘island school with a global outlook’ motif is more than a shorthand for what we want to be. It also encapsulates, I believe, the challenge of our time – how do we embrace the threats, opportunities and excitement of the world without losing our distinct, local identity that can give us an anchor when the storms hit. That anchor can be family, nation, school, locale, but I believe we need it as much as we need a world view. It is partly to find how others achieve that balance that I have set out on this journey, in the literal rather than X Factor sense of the word.

I realise, looking back on this, it all sounds a bit worthy. I am planning on having fun of course – I’d be a poor teacher who thought enjoyment and education were mutually exclusive after all. I am looking forward to catching up with old friends – former colleagues, pupils and parents in Australia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Peru and the US – and to opening all senses to some of the most beautiful places in the world. I’ll be having some selective detoxes too – meat free New Zealand, booze free Peru and, ultimate challenge, social media free South Pacific. I hope I will have a few useful things to say en route, and I hope you might be interested in sharing in some of it.

No person working in education today typifies an all round engagement with school life more than our guest speaker, Sir Anthony Seldon, and it is a real pleasure and privilege to welcome him to Ryde. As Master of Wellington College, and before that Brighton College, and now in his role as Vice-Chancellor of Buckingham University, Sir Anthony has been an eloquent and energetic voice for many of the innovations we have been developing at Ryde over the last few years; indeed I realised when preparing for today’s speech that I quoted him last year when he predicted that 30% of teaching jobs would be automated within ten years, a prediction given perhaps wisely after he had ceased to be a Head. At the time we were introducing the PSB and our Skills Passport and embedding the IBCP, all programmes with developing skills, reflective practice and flexible minds at their heart and all unafraid to be explicit about the importance of character education. I am pleased to be able to say that all are now firmly part of a Ryde School education and we can honestly say that we seek to provide every young woman and man who leaves here with not just the qualifications but the skills, character, resilience and values that will serve them well as 21st Century citizens.

I first met Sir Anthony when we found ourselves sharing a taxi in Morocco on the way to an IB Conference back in 2006. I was working for the introduction of the IB Diploma at Sherborne and he was due to speak on ways in which the IB might be improved; it is a journey I remember well for his commitment to IB was clear, but not so unquestioning as to not be asking difficult questions about it.

Since then he was for too long a lone voice in believing schools could teach happiness and have a greater focus on well-being and making healthy choices, causes that are now, finally, moving to the mainstream so he is now a central figure in the  development of  Positive Education, Coaching and mental well-being. These are all areas that we at Ryde care about too and I am delighted to welcome here this morning someone we have been working closely with to achieve this at Ryde, Mackenzie Cerri of Graydin. I am pleased too that we have been able to work closely with the Isle of Wight Youth Trust who share these concerns and do such sterling work for young people on the Island. I am pleased that this year’s Trinity House Quiz will be fundraising for them.

Last week saw the opening of our Health and Well-being centre, the first stage of a project to bring together physical, medical, emotional and mental well-being. From there emerges our coaching staircase and over the course of the coming year we will be constructing a coaching walk around the School; all to help create time, appreciate the many positives in life but also confront and take personal responsibility for finding answers to our own challenges. These developments were made easier because of the conversations and visits we were able to have with colleagues at Wellington College, and had only come about there because Sir Anthony was willing to take risks and speak out against a sceptical and at times dismissive mood. It is, for that reason alone, a real delight to welcome him here today.