Chair of the Governing Council Speech Day Address

Shanti Berggren

Chair of the Governing Council CHAIR OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL SPEECH DAY ADDRESS

Good morning - my name is Shanti Berggren - I am the Chair of the Governing Council and I welcome you to the 2020 Senior School Speech Day. Today we come together to celebrate the achievements of our senior students and to formally congratulate and farewell the Year 12 class of 2020.

It was Helen Keller who said ‘character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.’

Helen Keller lost her sight and her hearing when she was 19 months old. She was so frustrated by her inability to communicate that she would frequently fly into rages. Then, at 7 years old, Keller met her miracle teacher – 20 year old Anne Sullivan. Keller would later mark the day they met as the most significant moment in her life. At the beginning the young Helen Keller pinched and kicked her new teacher, and even knocked out one of her teeth but Sullivan persevered, patiently teaching Keller to use her hands to interpret and connect with the world.

And so began a relationship between teacher and student that lasted 49 years and led to Helen Keller’s array of academic and literary achievements. It is appropriate that I open my address today with a true story demonstrating the life changing impact of a selfless teacher, of her dogged perseverance and an orientation to action. Those traits apply to every member of staff at Wilderness School.

In 2020 the world changed at a breathtaking pace. The dislocation in our lives that started at the beginning of this year and continues even now distorted our understanding of time, days felt like weeks and weeks felt like years. Systems, processes and communication cadences were superseded by a need to act quickly and decisively while operating with ambiguity and incomplete information. But everybody knows for true cool in a crisis you want a woman. Our Principal, her leadership team and her staff navigated a new landscape of hard decision landmines.

They made a Herculean effort rethinking every aspect of their practice to move to an online education delivery model while maintaining Wilderness standards in the quality of teaching and learning. In the face of a global pandemic, they collectively resisted looking upstream at what was coming their way and instead focused downstream on the students who depended on them. It is the teachers at Wilderness School who have given so many of us a head start. We remain indebted to them for their labours and their kindness. We thank them all.

Time spent in close quarters has nurtured families, friendships and communities. We came to appreciate the joys of being part of a tribe. In Jane Danvers, the tribe of Wilderness School has a leader that I want to anoint a Viking with a mother’s heart. Great leaders trust the people on their team and coach them well. They set clear vision and values and direct others to work according to those guiding principles. Jane is not simply best practice; she is leading practice in education and leadership. Because she is so clear about her ‘why’ the ‘how’ is something she translates easily to her tribe.

I want to congratulate the Year 12s for the way you have conducted yourselves this year and the contribution you have made as the leaders of this school.

Our school’s Business Manager Ms Paula Jolly continues to manage for all eventualities because sometimes the costliest disruption takes place when something you take for granted stops working. This year we had to rethink all our assumptions about running a school starting with our financial modelling, keenly aware that the responsibility for the solvency of Wilderness School rests largely with our community. On behalf of the School’s Governing Council, I want to thank Paula for her tireless efforts ensuring that we are fiscally robust and ready for whatever crisis presents itself. I also want to formally thank the members of the Governing Council in providing guidance and support over the course of a tricky year, especially to the Council Executive, Will Abel Smith and the now retired member, Andrew Seaton who both made themselves generously available this year for meetings at short notice. The governance structure of the School is supported by committees representing our different communities, the Old Scholars, the Parents and Friends and the Foundation.

This year the Foundation Board Members contributed to a new Prize which will be awarded for the first time to a girl who is an agent of change using her voice to enlist others in a common vision while enacting ethical advocacy and practising altruistic behaviour. To the members of all the Committees thank you for everything you give to this school – it is immeasurable and enduring. In a difficult year there has been more to be harvested from the coronavirus than just being fortified by adversity. The crisis brought opportunity welcoming us to a very different environment demanding a very different response. The term ‘new normal’ implies moving from one relatively stable state through a period of flux to another recognisable form of stability but we should be wary of this thinking. We know we are moving into an increasingly dynamic environment. So, the ‘new normal’ approach is unlikely to cut it. The alternative is ‘shift’, a genuine evolution to a way of thinking and working that is adaptable enough to enable us to thrive in any environment. Even without COVID, most organisations recognise that the way work gets done today isn’t for the future. People need to be led with a focus on flexibility, trust and collaboration. And this significant maturity – with its focus on personal evolution is the crux of a new part of the Wilderness curriculum called Artemis which will be a learning entitlement for our girls across Years 3 to 11 in 2021. Artemis investigates the many aspects of self and conflates them into one – myself - exploring the connection between myself, my relationships, my communities and my world. Artemis will cultivate capabilities and dispositions to support each girl to emerge as a connected and engaged learner, prepared to succeed in and contribute to a complex, rapidly changing world. It is this complex rapidly changing world that the Year 12s are about to step into. Excitingly you stand at the dawn of a new decade but terrifyingly the pandemic appears to have disproportionately impacted women, who provide the majority of childcare and whose careers in the health sector have put them in pole position at the frontline of the disease, but history never goes in a straight line, it zigs and it zags. What is important is to look at the trend lines. While COVID has highlighted the fragility of women’s progress, it has also reinforced their reserve of resilience and I believe that reserve is rising and trending more strongly. On behalf of the Governing Council, I want to congratulate the Year 12s for the way you have conducted yourselves this year and the contribution you have made as the leaders of this school. This ceremony is your last rite of passage before you take your place as formidable and phenomenal Wilderness women. Lean into causes that are bigger than you – stay connected and pay attention to them now as grown-ups. When you are presented with new information take time to examine the facts on their own merits, question the source, identify your own bias and challenge your preconceived notions. Model self-determination, lift up your voice, take ownership and play your part in remaking the world for the better. If you want to go faster, go alone, if you want to go further, go together. I know you can, you know you will and we both know you must. I wish you all the very best.

Shanti Berggren Chair of the Governing Council