Lucy M. Gowdie, Head of School
17 November 2023
As we come to the end of another week, there has been time for our community to give thought to the contribution that Allison Ochs made to our school over the past week.
It is true that the content of her conversations can be confronting, and can make us all uncomfortable, but these are necessary conversations we must have, for the betterment of our young people and their sense of belonging at our school.
I was long ago taught, you cannot fix what you don’t acknowledge, and so it is that we stand and listen to the voices of our young people in their struggles with social media, with social content, and the impact of both on their self-esteem.
Ours is a school that is ardent in our belief that we work together with our families in partnership, aligned in our values and understanding, in our expectations of what we want for our young people – nowhere is this more important than the space that is technology.
There is no doubt that education sits at the coal face of this work – that our values must stand at the fore of the decisions we make regarding what technology is used for, when it is used, and most importantly of all – why we use it.
I spoke with parents this week about the lifting of the lid on social media in our school, not in the broader society around us, but in our school, for this is where we can have the greatest impact, and we will.
"I stated that it is unsurprising to me that our young people are so challenged by notions of self, of right and of wrong, of belonging and of place, when so much misinformation rests within the palm of their hands, so readily available, yet without providing them the context or a curriculum to explain what it all means."
Across the week, be it in our ICT meetings, our School Executive, or our Grade Level conversations, we have taken heed of the exposure of our young people in the online world, and through robust conversation with Allison, come to a position where it is imperative that we confront the brutal facts of the place we inhabit, and act upon those facts for the safety of our children.
Our community can anticipate further information pertaining to the points raised over the course of conversations had. They include but are not limited to:
- When social media use outside of school impacts students within it
- E-safety at school and the mechanisms for protection of learning at ICS
- Sharing of struggles on social media and the impact on self-esteem
We look forward to sharing this with our community, to continuing the conversation, and advancing our curriculum in a space that enables our students to feel confident in who they are, and to feel safe in their school.