Margaret Lowe – Deputy Principal

Words of wisdom

In my recent letter to High School parents I invited comment. I tend to live dangerously. I received a relatively small number of emails from parents with genuine concerns about their family circumstances that needed to be expressed. One email I received was particularly moving, insightful and provides us with a message of hope. I asked permission to print a portion of it here:

My parents were evacuated away from their homes during their vital Primary School years because of WWII. My father has a cousin, now living in California, who was a teenager hiding out in an attic in Amsterdam during the Holocaust. She was 15 when Holland was liberated. Her entire family was murdered.

This is how I see things. We are living at an incredible time when we are able to communicate with each other, face to face, without even being in the same room, thanks to advanced technology never before seen in human history. I get to actually see and talk with my 85 year old father every day, uninterrupted, even though he is in isolation in his London flat. My father’s generation had an extremely disrupted education. My mother’s 11+ exam results went missing because WWII ended as they were being posted out. Despite this (the results were never found), she excelled in High School. Neither of my parents seemed to have lacked educationally by the disruption to their lives between the ages of 5-11 years. Their peers became doctors, lawyers, teachers etc. The cousin who survived hiding in the attic in Amsterdam, learned to speak English and went on to have a university education in South Africa and became a civil rights lawyer and writer. The world did not have a fixed mindset back then. People learned to roll with the punches so to speak.  The economy has struggled many times in the history of humanity, we have experienced wars and pandemics. The human race has somehow survived. My great grandparents lived in terrible poverty in the East End of London when they migrated to England in the 19th century. Their children, my grandparents, then endured the great depression of the 1930’s – but they worked hard to overcome adversity to live out their very long lives in relative comfort. Surely our children should learn to survive through adversity too, instead of this mad panic about 5 year olds missing out on a year of school education.

I am extremely grateful to the parents who have emailed at various times over the couple of months to express their belief in our team. Our teachers, our leaders, our support staff and our families have made a formidable team in support of our students and their learning and development over this time.

Emanuel is a community that comes together in good times and in bad. Let us continue to support each other and to make our way through these constantly changing times. Let us take inspiration from the elders in our community who have, during times of great adversity, shown incredible strength and character. They have:

• resilience,
• problem solving or ‘can-do’ attitudes,
• an ability to accept how things are and work from there,
• gratitude for what they have despite adversity,
• a strong work ethic.

My best wishes to all for a positive and growth-filled Term 2, whatever that might mean. For those with families overseas in difficult situations like our 85 year old grandfather, you are in our thoughts.