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SPEECH BY AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSIONER TO CANADA

CHARLES STURT UNIVERSITY GRADUATION CEREMONY

BURLINGTON, 5 JUNE 2009

Vice Chancellor, graduands and your family and friends, ladies and gentlemen.

First, let me extend my congratulations to the graduates of the Charles Sturt University Faculty of Education. This is a memorable time for all of you. You have demonstrated intelligence, perseverance, and great tolerance for sitting in uncomfortable chairs for long periods of time. To all of you, my deepest admiration.

And to your guests - parents, spouses, children, friends - congratulations to you as well. I’ll bet you did more than your fair share in a supporting role. The time for when school was their excuse for not doing much of anything else has now officially ended.

I am well aware that on a day of such high excitement, what you require, first and foremost, of any speaker is brevity. I won’t fail you in this respect. There are exactly 98 sentences in my speech, nine of which you have just heard. It will take me about fifteen minutes to speak all of them. I must tell you that such economy was not easy for me to arrange, because talking – generally in a highly long winded fashion – is common in many lines of business.

I want to offer you a few observations as you start this ‘Second Act’ of your life. This is the part when the plot starts to really develop, sometimes even thicken.

My first observation is to keep thinking. I went to university in the late 70s – a time when economic circumstances were difficult, and there was a lot of political division. With enthusiastic support from the lecturers, the undergraduate community at the time was full of interesting theories on all kinds of things. I did economics where things were just as interesting.

Many of the excesses from that period have thankfully disappeared under the sands of time. But from all the meandering debates and ideological standoffs I learned one important lesson: that the purpose of education is to teach us to think, not simply to believe. Coming from a cloistered catholic upbringing where the focus had been on finding the ‘one right answer’ this was quite a revelation.

I was in a trade negotiation once with an Asian colleague who argued that his country men and women tend to suffer from the No U-Turn Syndrome and that western countries do not. So, when no signs are posted at an intersection, drivers from his country assume U-turns are illegal; while western drivers assume they are. He felt this “assume it is OK” attitude gave western countries a creative edge. I think one of the keys to good learning is to take this attitude into your lives and into the classroom.

My second observation is about the need to adapt to change. Today’s children are the first generation to watch less TV. They don’t understand why any technology would come without a mouse. It’s often said that this generation need to be constantly entertained. There’s some truth in this, but they are also more engaged in learning than many of my generation. While entertainment is often passive, engagement is active or interactive. Engagement asks for creativity on the part of the learner and it also demands creativity on the part of the teacher.

This feeds into one of my personal areas of interest on the use of technology. In my view, we have too long been content with window dressing – computers used as typewriters, data projectors used as overheads, software used as worksheets. Like putting lipstick on a pig as someone said recently.

We need to envision what second order changes might look like with technology as a change engine. You will have an important role to play in using technology in the future to make education a positive experience, one where assessments measure individual growth over time, rather than comparing students to artificial norms at snapshots in time.

I have to admit that I don’t “get” the thrill of much of the new social networking that’s driven by technological advances. But I find myself constantly pleased – most of the time – when a young person becomes my teacher. I think the secret to survival and change in the 21st century will be constant learning and a more active practice of co-learning between generations.

And finally, take responsibility. There was once a story of two lobster fishing boats. For the sake of keeping the peace let’s say one is from the United States and one from Australia. As the boats pulled into shore, they began to unload their catch. In the American boat, the lobsters were thrown into a large container and one of the navvies quickly put on a lid after each lobster went in. In the Aussie boat, same thing – the lobsters were pulled out and thrown one by one into a large container. But in this case there was no one nearby to put a lid on it. A bystander asked why the Aussie navvies didn’t put a lid on the container – the senior man at the dock said ‘it’s ok, if any of them try to get out the others just pull them back in’.

I think that too often in life we give in to this so-called tall poppy syndrome and look to others to lead and create change. So, ask yourself honestly: how can I make the greatest impact and what small changes can I make every day and every year to that end.

Good luck to you all and best wishes for the future.

Thank you.