SCAS News

We get to make choices in life.

Which would you choose:

• Outrage, literacy, education wars, “sack the teacher” comments and the view that our educational “sky is falling“!, or

• Leadership, football, “smart stuff” and pizza.

The first option was all over the papers recently in their articles on education.

Minister calls for primary school sacking over ‘brainwashing’ anti-police posters.
The NSW Police Minister has accused a primary school of “brainwashing” students, and called for the teacher’s sacking, after anti-police posters were produced.
The Education Minister has ordered a review into Black Lives Matter posters created by students and displayed at a primary school on the North Shore.
Police Minister David Elliott told Ben Fordham the teacher responsible should be sacked. Daily Telegraph

The second option was what I saw here at St Columba.

• A student leadership forum where students from all our local schools presented to and asked questions of their political representatives, local, state and federal, in a mature, respectful and courteous manner.
• Football games (soccer for the old-schoolers among you) played with vigour and good spirit between schools from the different educational groups – state and independent.
• Hundreds of students from all three educational groups, large, small and in between schools, working on puzzles, tasks and ideas at the 2021 da Vinci Decathlon.

While some of our responsible adults rant and rage about the failings of education, it appears our students are smart enough to ignore divisions and get on with being educated, respectfully and collegially.

Instead of conflict and division, I saw:

• Positivity
• Teamwork and collaboration
• Integrity and respect
• Challenge and imagination at play
• Pizza

Sometimes I think adults can learn valuable lessons from our young people.

Terry Muldoon
Principal