Personal: Welcome to AEA

 

Australian Education Advancement Pty Ltd emerged as a core idea after the decades of Headship at SCECGS Redlands came to a close. Never satisfied, always doubting carefully, certain there are always better or sounder ways forward I decided to launch the company to assist in any way needed, to advance the cause of liberal education in my own country. Why? Because schooling improvement across Australia was needed then in 2003/04 as it is today with all the opportunities the Covid-19 dissolution of certainty has brought.

 

Numb schooling is destructive. Rote schooling, ‘by the book’ diminishes potential inherent in the individual. Bad management accepting schooling or teaching as a ‘mass activity’, perpetuates pedestrian thinking. For those who have experienced the ‘Covid-19 crisis’ 2019 to 2020, there must be one central question: how is it that once schools have been re-opened for teaching, restitution of ‘lost lessons’ for each child has not been built into an extended school day, school week and school six months to the end of 2020? Does the ‘lost learning’ not in itself matter? Was it not needed in the first place? Schools must be more responsive, not sclerotic if the adult humans involved are to set the right example.

 

Better, brighter, soundly based insights are always available. They must be uppermost in mind, often. How are lateral thinking, sharp foresight to be encouraged? In the SCECGS Redlands years recall of moments illustrating ‘ the best’ recurred, were engaged actively. They informed debate and action alike. Fortunately in both Europe and Asia there had been many moments when the alternative view, the contrarian view had been laid out bluntly.

 

There was for instance the memorable time at Christ’s Hospital, Sussex UK when the Masters’ Common Room entertained at a ‘Dining In’. Sitting opposite Sir Barnes Wallis (Blenheim Bomber, Dambusters, engineer), an ‘Old Blue’ as CH Alumni are known, I found him an easy conversationalist. What was his view of the supersonic Concorde then in service with British Airways? He replied that he thought it the wrong design idea; the better design, which he had in mind, was for an aircraft to ‘launch’ from Heathrow, travel vertically, allow the world to turn in the usual way, and then land vertically at JFK New York.

 

Such a discussion in 1971 was surprising; but as on so many other occasions I was brought up sharply against the idea that the obvious, the ordinary were not the only options available. As in engineering, so in education. In the UK or Asia  so in Australia.

 

Happily working at SCECGS Redlands brought the joy of working with exceptional, often brilliant men and women, colleagues who chose to teach. It also connected with young men and women who responded to opportunities whilst finding their way towards chosen goals. It brought contact with many parents whose willing support for their children was utterly admirable. They deserved the best that could be offered.

 

Governance proved to be the same: voluntary, intelligent, positive, organised, focused, generous, with evidence of clear goals aimed at the stated goal of an education of the ‘highest order’. The dominant tone of the school community: selflessness.

 

Recovering from ‘zero’ after the financial catastrophes of the early to mid-1970s, caused by others, this school of the 1980s could not be – in any way – ordinary. The opportunity to recover, change, improve, lead was grasped firmly. Skilfully. Policies developed, results measured. This website, focused on 1973 to 2003 only, seeks to convey the splendour of that well deserved, hard won, community victory.

 

Reconstruction was not solely financial – that would not suffice. Reconstruction was also educational. As was necessary, as is always necessary. By access to this website the families and students 1973 to 2003 may wish to know what was done, why, and how. It may also help others who need to know what was done, why, when, and how. Techniques to give framework to courage are not easy to find.

 

Was the reconstruction simple? Not at all. From time to time uneven, cash flow management a critical ‘on watch’ at Board level, co-education sometimes controversial, collegiate development among independent schools sometimes awkward but usually helpful, government influence variable: the pathway was seldom level. However by 1987 strength had gathered, mission was being explained more clearly, staff development effective, and applications for enrolment increasing. In the Sydney community at large, co-education was gaining ground. SCECGS Redlands contributed and benefited.

 

However by contrast with schools in – for instance – the United Kingdom our Australian schools do not communicate well with the community at large. In discussions among early 1980s Heads of Schools many wondered why Australian television carried no programme similar to that on the BBC:  The Schools.(1980) which looked at, and into, independent schools and their history. Why were schools not noticed more widely and more often for their philosophies, history, different characters, different approaches to teaching and learning? Why was Head of the River reported, but HICES Music Festivals were not? Was the veil drawn because of ‘levellers’ in Australia? Why were media left alone to create their own ways of ‘measuring’ HSC results in New South Wales? Where were ‘facts’? Where was accuracy?

 

Part of the reason for dusty silence is that school archives gather, may be indexed and let moulder thereafter. Within a school community trophies may well be displayed – they glitter – honour boards may be well tended. All within the ‘bubble’, without analysis or productive scrutiny. The resulting problem then is with the meaning of ‘school’ being obscured, mythologies encouraged. The past is emphasised, the future presumed to be a replica.

 

Therefore this website has been made. Rather than archiving everything 1973 to 2003 people and actions to make schooling different, better are highlighted. Study of special work, philosophies, outcomes and tests the dynamic of recovery, of reconstruction, or expansion in education thinking and philosophy, along with the powerful integration of ‘business’ in support of  ‘education’ is essential. These foundations of the exceptional all are little understood.

 

The impression given therefore is that education at its very best and its most interactive with the individual student child seems to be of little interest in the wider community. The suspicion persists even at time of writing that in Australia education just happens, should be the same for everyone, makes no waves, seeks the ordinary.

 

This is wrong headed; education through schooling should be a ‘glory’ of the national community. Quality education must be measured daily, reinforced monthly, doubted regularly, revised reformed and refreshed often in light of new information, improved often. This much is obvious. Complacency destroys cognitive and intellectual lives. The best teaching never accepts that  inevitability implied in Gray’s Elegy written in a Country Churchyard (1751)

 

                     ‘Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,

                               And waste its sweetness on the desert air…’

 

Not if we who teach – the community on whom the child relies - have anything to do with it!

 

The accomplishments of SCECGS Redlands’ community 1973 to 2003 support the view that no matter the depth of difficulties in schools under threat – even to the point of sale – recovery and reconstruction can be accomplished. Any school ‘lost’ is a blow to all. As the 1973 to 1980 period described on this website though explains: a start must be made and determination fuel effort.

 

There is no formula. As the many records and commentaries included on this website confirm, synchronicity and sometimes serendipity are needed. However integration of ‘business’ with ‘education’, quietly managed with emphasis being for each child on the latter of the two, encapsulated in a clearly enunciated ‘mission’ to be better and then best, is inescapable.

As the history of SCECGS Redlands, 1973 to 2003, captured in large part by AEA here, tells all who would wish to know.

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        Peter J Cornish
        Sydney May 2020.