PRINCIPAL
Earlier this year this film was released alongside our new strategy‘ Lighting the Way’. As the video portrays our expansive history and educational offering, similarly, Lighting the Way represents our desire to advance an expansive vision for the education of our boys. In this way, our Strategic Plan is so much more than a list of things to do, so much more than a checklist of tasks.
In advancing an expansive vision for education, we wish to respond to a seemingly all-pervasive narrative that narrowly defines success as the achievement of an ATAR ranking. As I have said before, an ATAR expires immediately on use and has no utility beyond this. Furthermore, we know the media love to rank schools using dubious data and as a society we have let the media define the success of our schools. Sadly, one can be excused for thinking that the purpose of schooling today is to get the best marks, so one can get into a course that my marks, not my passions dictate, so that I can get a job and add to the economy and grow my personal wealth.
Now, I am a big believer that work is good for us. However, school is so much more than just preparing for work, and I believe our individualistic and increasingly secularised society has done much to narrow the purposes of schooling, leading to the narrow conceptualisation of success that largely drives the agenda in many of our schools today.
Over recent generations, our society has changed in fundamental ways. No doubt, our civilisation has always had a focus on progress, and there can be great benefits when improvements are made. However, when Sundays became days to shop as opposed to a time for rest, was that really an improvement? Likewise, we have all benefitted from the many technological advancements made throughout history.
However again, is the fact that we now carry devices 24 / 7 that vibrate and remind us we have more work to do really an improvement?
What is the end point or ultimate goal of progress. In our highly secularised world, how should we now measure or define progress and who gets to do this? Without a defined end point, how does progress help each of us to understand life and our part in it?
Once, we were curious about life, beauty, goodness and truth. Today, our curiosity can so easily become the pursuit of novelty, new experiences or what might be coming next. Today, life seems to be all about experiences, and we are all in danger of living as consumers on an ever-fastening merry-go-round.
In Aristotle’ s Metaphysics, we learn that each of us by nature desire to know. Aristotle tells us that when this desire for truth is abandoned, thwarted or frustrated, our flourishing as human beings is equally impacted. Today, we live in the post-truth age or a time where the only thing that matters is‘ your truth’. Here truth has been reduced to being subjective; quite the turnaround from the celebrations emerging from the Enlightenment which praised the importance of reason and rational thinking. As truth has been replaced with consensus, concomitantly, we see a world drowning with mental health challenges. Is this what Aristotle foresaw when the pursuit of truth is abandoned?
In pursuing a far more expansive vision for education in our Strategic Plan, we are committed to reclaiming much that has been seemingly discarded. It is our desire that Scotch boys value truth, and wrestle with truth. Through cultivating curiosity that seeks knowledge for its utility in discerning truth, it is our desire that our boys stand up for what is right and have the courage to stand for things that might need our advocacy or protection.
We also desire for our boys to see the beauty in a Mathematical equation, artwork, or a musical piece. Our overarching desire is that learning at Scotch is embraced as a pathway to appreciate beauty, pursue goodness and discern truth rather than merely a pathway to a better mark. We desire that our boys understand that beauty and truth are good, and that goodness and the‘ good life’ are worthy of our efforts, attention and protection.
We will advance beauty that leads to awe and wonder and the appreciation of what is good for us and our world. In looking for opportunities for our boys to experience awe and wonder, we rightly provide opportunities for our boys to think about life, its meaning, and ultimately, the pilgrimage that they and indeed each of us are on.
To bring this to life, we have identified three central aspirations:
• Forming men of character
• Advancing learning that appreciates beauty, pursues goodness and discerns truth
• Championing progress, inspired by our past
Within each aspiration, we have identified specific projects to bring our aspirations to life. In 2025 we are presently working on a number of projects.
Great Scot | Issue 173 | 2025
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