Mr Close, Ladies and gentlemen, and most importantly girls,

Tonight, as we celebrate the achievements of so many – and so many behind the scenes – we look both back and forward, and in particular I know the leavers are looking back and wondering how come it seems to have gone so quickly – as will your parents.  And you are looking forward to new things, and to change. John F Kennedy said that “Change is the law of life”  and indeed it is.

Eight years ago, before any of you were at Rangi Ruru, when the millennium dawned the world seemed to be joined in a single celebration that lasted 24 hours. It appeared as if a baton of celebration was passed from country to country. We texted friends and family around the globe and watched as people around the world shared the same experience and welcomed the dawn of a new century.

These were celebrations which had a sense of commonality, but also a richness of diversity as cultures around the world put their own spin on the celebrations.
  
Earlier this year when the people, including monks, of Myanmar led a stand against their government and were brutally repressed as dissidents we knew about it within hours, as cellphone photos flashed around the world. 

A few months ago we all glowed with collective national pride as we watched New Zealanders in the Olympics and Special Olympic Games prove themselves against the best athletes in the world.  And a month ago at school we watched history unfold as the United States elections streamed live onto our desktops throughout the day.

The world gets smaller.

Our students are journeying into a world which is virtually borderless and more connected than ever before. By the time they are 21 they will have spent over 10,000 hours on the phone and sent or received over quarter of a million emails. They will have met, in a year, more people in person or virtually, than their great-grandparents would have met in their entire lifetimes.

This is our world, but in particular it is the very real future of those of you at school and about to leave. It is a world where your neighbour is no longer just the house next door, but also the country next door, where a myspace or facebook friend can be someone you have ever met in person, and may not.   

Thomas Freidman in his book “The World is Flat “compares the current time to those

 “pivot points or watersheds in history that are greater than others because the changes they produced were so sweeping, multifaceted and hard to predict at the time”

In this world the concepts of citizenship and community become multilayered. Students today are, and will increasingly be, not only citizens of their country of birth, but perhaps also of the country in which they reside, or of their partners, and also citizens of the world. Concepts of identity will be challenged as we develop multiple allegiances. Our students are increasingly becoming members of many diverse local and international communities that reflect not only where they live, but also their beliefs and interests.

Fundamental in preparing our students for this future is an understanding of the dichotomy having both a strong sense of self and at the same time having an empathy and understanding of others, a more global perspective

As a school what should we be doing to ensure that the students who leave us are well equipped for the New Zealand of the future and for the global lives – either real or virtual, that they are likely to lead?

To cope with this exciting new world, it is essential that we give our young people a sense of self and place. I think it’s a bit like a tree – Your roots need to be in fertile, rich soil – the richness that comes from a strong sense of self and national identity - so that you can grow and reach out into a wider world. In order to stand strong and firm you need to be well grounded, emotionally and spiritually.

A sense of place gives the global citizen roots in a place. This is the team we root for, the anthem we know the best, often the place of happy childhood memory and national pride.

Young people need a strong sense of personal self and the ability to make sense of the world and they need specific skills and attributes. These have been the subject of much research and analysis worldwide.

The most common threads that are emerging are the need for flexibility, resilience, creativity, team work and individual work, and the ability to apply skills and knowledge to new situations. To this I would add  open mindedness, empathy, curiosity, global awareness and a strong set of personal values.

These attributes are all represented in a fundamental and exciting development in New Zealand, the Key Competencies, introduced in the new Curriculum in 2007. This is the first time the curriculum has clearly articulated the importance of competencies and is one of the most significant developments in education in recent times.  These essential Competencies are woven into learning alongside skills and knowledge.  They include thinking, using language, symbols and texts, managing self, relating to others and participating and contributing. and represents a huge shift in focus in our schools.   Subjects are seen as the contexts for the competencies. Competencies which, in the words of Steve Maharey, students need
 ‘in order to live, learn, work and contribute as active members of our communities “.
He adds that New Zealand needs
“to become a nation of achievers – capable, knowledgeable caring, active and open to opportunity”.  (can’t find where I found this !)

The conscious embedding of the key competencies into everything we do is one of our main challenges for 2009. As with so much in education, it is the staff who lead and model such things and at Rangi Ruru we are privileged to have a staff that is outstanding and who are themselves ongoing learners. When Distinguished Research Professor Stuart Shanker visited us this year and spent time in the school he made the following comment

“Everywhere I looked I saw young women who were clearly thriving, emotionally, mentally and physically. It was a moving lesson about what is possible when you get a group of inspired and inspiring teachers in an enriching environment with wonderful resources. “

I would thoroughly endorse Stuart’s comments about the staff.

Much of the development of such competencies happens outside the standard curriculum and this is one of the reasons we have always believed in a well rounded experience. The opportunity for students to develop their competencies happens throughout the school. It happens in Performing Arts – in shows such as the wonderful Guys and Dolls, in the student driven annual cultural concert, Stage challenge and  Sheilagh  Winn Shakespeare festival, in the intermediate production, the Dance Show and indeed tonight. Even Clan singing requires girls to relate to others, to manage themselves, to participate and contribute. And the stakes are very high!! 

It happens on the sports field, through the successes experienced in particular this year by the tennis team, the rowers, many of the athletes, the netball team, individual swimmers and gymnasts, the A hockey team. But it also happens in the social teams, there for the sheer pleasure of playing and determined to have fun – and surprising themselves with their successes.   And competency development happens in the junior teams still learning the skills and in all teams and individuals learning how to deal with the ups and downs of any activity.

Important life long competencies are developed and sometimes tested at the camps and through the wide range of trips and outdoor experiences, in the lunchtime activities our seniors organise. The recent Super day, comprising of a lunchtime full of activities, was the most wonderful example of leadership, teamwork, creativity, participation and enjoyment that we have had for some time. It occurred on the day of the Old Girls Reunions so the old girls think we do bouncy castles and slippery slides all the time – and many commented that school certainly wasn’t like that in their day. 

Values and beliefs are the rocks on which good citizens stand and on which competencies are built. These are explored, questioned, and cemented through all our interactions with each other and specifically within the Christian Living programme, through community service and through the weekly services that are so much part of what is important and special.  All of these things will stand the girls in good stead in a future full of unknowns.

As globalisation in its broadest sense blurs the boundaries and throws up challenges a strong sense of who we are as a nation is increasingly important.   This was seen in microcosm in Europe with the creation of the EU.  Contrary to the fears of many who felt their country would lose its identity, the identities of the individual countries became stronger.
 
As a nation New Zealand has had a few problems in terms of identity and we have   invested a great deal of energy in exploring what it means to be a New Zealander.
 
Many New Zealanders would be able to tell you more about the American civil war, the French Revolution or Tudor England than about the history of New Zealand. When called upon overseas to perform something typically Kiwi most will resort to two mangled and culturally insensitive lines of a haka or a rendition of Pokarekare ana.  We have a flag that many, even New Zealanders, confuse with the one from across the ditch.

I think education has neglected our own country for too long and it is only recently we have begun to recognise that there is so much of value about ourselves to celebrate (apart from punching above our weight in some sporting codes) to study, to nurture, and to be proud of.  And this means paying attention to all aspects of our  New Zealand heritage.  

Two curriculum shifts will occur here at Rangi Ruru  next year to strengthen our New Zealand focus. The first is in Year 13 history where a year 13 class in New Zealand history will stand alongside the very popular and still valuable course in Tudor Stuart England. And secondly, in Year 9 all girls will have time studying Te Reo.  And walking the talk on this one will be the staff, as Maaka Kahukuranui is also undertaking the task of Maori language classes for them – probably a lot harder to teach than the new Year 9s.   These are small but important shifts as we realise the worth and importance of what it means to be a citizen of New Zealand, both past and present and thus we build good foundations for the future.

These shifts take time. Rangi Ruru, despite its name, has traditionally been rather mono cultural in its aspect. The change from this is one in which we can rejoice.  As the faces in our classrooms increasingly reflect the diversity in our community, this offers staff and students opportunities and enrichment and a dynamic, changing perspective of what it means to be a New Zealander.

The  melting pot that is New Zealand is still young and still evolving, and this is reflected on our streets and, more topically, in our new parliament

If we looked at our MPs twenty years ago we would see a mix of predominantly European, a few Maori, and predominantly male. If we look at the new house, elected in November, we see a rich diversity of ethnicities and backgrounds. MMP for all the criticism it has generated, has begun to reveal, at the highest decision-making level, the new face of New Zealand and enable us to hear the diverse voices of New Zealand.

But this is about more than who has been elected to Parliament. This is about who we are as a nation. It is about accepting and rejoicing in the mix of people here. It is about welcoming and understanding different perspectives. It is about acknowledging that this will sometimes be challenging and that the melting pot will at times boil over.  And that New Zealand’s melting pot is a microcosm of the world.

Just as we need to be strong in our understanding of our own country, so too the shrinking world means that our neighbourhood, our community, has become much larger and more diverse. We go to the world. I would like to think that the experiences Rangi girls have overseas are not as tourists, but as far as possible active participants in the countries they visit, whether it is by living with a family, learning about the language, culture or history, or by contributing in some way. 

This year 52 girls went on school related trips overseas: nine to Vanuatu, 20 to Turkey and Greece,  four to England, four to South America,  two to Scotland, two to Japan, 11 to New Caledonia – and of course two staff left us to go to Qatar.

And the world comes to us. We welcomed as visitors 89 Japanese girls from our sister school Yokohama Jogakuin, four students from Argentinia , two from Scotland, four from the UK and  four from Germany.

And we welcomed permanently or long term to our family girls from Japan, Korea, China, Australia, Canada, the UK, Thailand to name a few.

These girls joined our school community of the girls from a total of 16 countries and 20 ethnicities that make up Rangi Ruru.

In addition to welcoming a global perspective into our world we must also develop an understanding of what it is like to walk in another’s shoes. We have to learn to listen, to consider and to try to understand and we do this through so many subjects -    social studies, religious education, geography, history, English.

We have to be strong in our affirmation of the importance, particularly in this geographically isolated island nation of ours, of studying a second language – and we have this year gained d another wonderful advocate of this in our new Deputy to the Principal, Stephanie Barnett.

And, as global issues are our issues, we encourage global awareness, through the community services and environment committees:   through earth hour, the highly successful village vision and raising money to provide wells and water filtration in a Cambodian village to name a few.

Global working and networking is just beginning. Businesses can be run from home or from a boat. Along with this radically different concept of a workplace come different concepts of lifestyles, friends, relationships.  This is a profound shift for human beings.
Global issues are our issues.  We communicate rapidly and frequently with people all over the world, we shop globally online, we work globally. The opportunities for our girls are endless and exhilarating.

Many of the courses our Year 13s are leaving to study didn’t exist even ten years ago. They may live in one country and work or study virtually in another. It is predicted by the US Dept of Labour that today’s school leavers are likely to have at least 10 jobs by the time they are 38.

Thomas Freidman makes the comment

“what is going on today is not simply about how governments, business and people communicate, it is about the things that impact some of the deepest, most ingrained aspects of society “

We all need knowledge, competencies and values to cope with these changes. Being part of an interwoven, shared world presents opportunities and challenges. To embrace intercultural and international workplaces and friendships, to live differently, to face challenges to what we believe in, to know what it means to be in a minority, to know who we are and to hold firm in who we are in a world that might be very different.  To maintain ones own integrity, to know what to accept, what not to.

These are the skills and competencies that you, our leavers and all our students need. This is the balance we will continue to strive for.   

Ultimately, however, the things that connect people are always the human things. We all laugh, cry, empathise, struggle, triumph and rejoice. Being human is the global language. 

And so we all wish the leavers of 2008 a happy, safe and fulfilled journey. And like the explorers of old, we send them off on a journey which, although full of unknowns, has, I hope, the certainties of love, learning, compassion and a strong sense of worth.  
 
"What lies behind you and what lies before you are tiny matters compared to what lies within you”