5 minute read
Ethics
Ethics matters
Over the course of such an unexpected year of cancellations and postponements, the Student Ethics Committee worked enthusiastically to ensure our important traditions of listening to and sharing the student body’s differing perspectives on contemporary ethical issues continued, even though COVID-19 restrictions meant we had to use innovative methods to connect with the School community.
Fortunately, our long-standing events, the annual Soapbox Competition and the Eat My Lunch fundraiser, were still able to run and were extra special as a result, opening passionate ethical dialogues about the current social, political and economic global climate. The Eat My Lunch fundraiser is an Ethics Committee initiative, originally intended to celebrate our School’s birthday. Eat My Lunch is a social enterprise in Auckland that, for every lunch bought, donates a lunch to a child in a low-decile school. This year we were unable to hold the event on Dio’s birthday as it was not only interrupted by the April lockdown, but our delayed celebrations were further postponed because of the August lockdown. However, when we were finally able to hold Eat My Lunch, it was supported by over 1200 Dio students and staff. This meant that over 1200 children in Auckland received a healthy school lunch as well.
The Student Ethics Committee decided that they would end the year on a high note, with a luncheon in School House. We invited Professor Peter Gluckman, the founder and head of Koi Tu - : The Centre for Informed Futures at The University of Auckland, to the lunch so that we could hear from one of New Zealand’s foremost thinkers. Professor Gluckman is well known to New Zealanders in his previous position as the first Science Advisor to then Prime Minister John Key, and globally as the founder of the Liggins Institute.
Koi Tu - is a think tank that is designed to counter the global rise of misinformation and declining public trust with accurate research and evidence-based findings. In particular, the committee was interested in hearing about the latest report from Professor Gluckman and the Centre on youth and mental health. The report described the deterioration in young people’s mental wellbeing as ‘a silent pandemic of psychological distress’. Poor mental health for youth has doubled in 10 years (as it has in other places in the western world) and is worsening. Further, there is an inequitable impact on Ma -ori, Pacific Island youth, rainbow and queer youth, and young women.
Professor Gluckman spoke informally to the committee and to Ms McRae, Mrs van Meeuwen and Mr Walker, who were guests at the luncheon, about the factors that he believed might be impacting young people’s mental health. At this point, the research does not point to one factor but to multiple influences that interact, such as changing economic policies in the last 30 years that have made employment and support for the marginalised less secure; the prevalence of social media and the dissemination of misinformation; the lowering impact of youth organisations in children’s lives; parents having to work longer hours, which takes them away from the home; and the role of alcohol and drugs in our culture.
Professor Gluckman is particularly interested in researching the role that maternal mental health plays during pregnancy and directly after a child’s birth, to ensure that young people can become mentally stronger with greater resilience, cultural identity and self control.
Students asked searching questions of Professor Gluckman and were keenly interested in what he had to say. The urgency of his message was clear and the impact of COVID-19 in 2020 on youth mental health is likely to make this problem even greater.
To conclude, Sir Peter linked his discussion on youth mental health with the issue of misinformation that, he says, has never been more important for the community at a local, national and global level to deal with and to be informed by evidence. The unhealthy boom in misinformation is a huge challenge to trust in the institutions of an ethical and democratic society. As the writer Jennifer Egan wrote recently in TIME: “Authoritative lying debases the truth. The resulting confusion of fantasy and reality is the definition of psychosis, a perilously vulnerable mental state… If reasonable debate devolves into my truth vs. yours, the winner is the one yelling loudest – or holding the gun. Beneath the false bottom of fraudulent news is the danger of tyranny.”
Sir Peter’s talk was a stimulating and provocative way to end the year for the Ethics Committee. A very big thank you to everyone who got involved this year. The School motto ‘Ut Serviamus’ has never been more important than during these challenging times!
Nina Blumenfeld, with Deborah Huang, Grace Cocker and Lauren Komie
Future problem solvers
left to right: Eleanor Christiansen, Mrs Suzanne Buswell, Pascale Vincent, Cassie Wood and Alice Wackrow.
YEAR 10 FUTURE PROBLEM SOLVING
Cassie Wood, Alex Wackrow, Eleanor Christiansen and Pascale Vincent have qualified to attend the Future Problem Solving national finals in late October. At this event the students will compete with another 10 Years 9 and 10 FPS teams from around the country, vying for the right to represent New Zealand at the 2021 International Finals to be held at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA.
Late in Term 3, the students sat the qualifying booklet online and critically analysed a future scene set around the topic of gamification. In late October they competed with other teams around New Zealand to critically analyse and creatively generate futuristic solutions around a scene that deals with the topic of living in poverty.
For the first time, the FPS National Finals will be held as a virtual competition and it is a testament to these students that they have persevered and trained throughout the year, despite the disruptions and changes COVID-19 has caused. They have shown resilience and commitment and we wish them well for the national finals.
