Headlines - Cheryl Boughton's Blog

It’s always fascinating spending the day with a ‘celebrity’; in this case Dr. Leonard Sax. After listening to his presentations to both our faculty during the day and to our parent community last evening, I’m impressed by the depth and breadth of his knowledge and experience, his passion for single gender education and his genuine concern for the wellbeing of boys and girls. He’s certainly a legend in my world and I am pleased to have had the opportunity to spend time with him.

He gave me a lot to think about in the brief 14 hours we were together. Now that I’ve had a little time to reflect, this is what I have learned.

The importance of connecting with girls. Giving them your undivided attention. Listening—really listening—and being sympathetic before giving advice. Sometimes in our haste we are too quick to interrupt, too quick to tell them what to do. In not giving them time and space to express their thoughts and ideas, to work through their own challenges, we run the danger of stunting their development.

Dr Sax is not an enormous advocate for technology in the classroom. While I don’t necessarily agree with all his opinions, I think there is huge value in unplugging and spending time communicating the ‘old fashioned way.’ Just before he spoke to our audience last night, I spoke to a father of a grade 9 student. He enthusiastically told me about buying his daughter hiking boots for her upcoming Duke of Edinburgh expedition and breaking them in with her in Gatineau Park. While his wife was away with friends, this father and daughter hiked in the outdoors and connected with each other. I think there’s a lot to be learned from their example.

Dr Sax also made me see Elmwood in an entirely different light. I’ve often spoken about the advantages of the all-girls model, but I had never thought of us as a community of women. I think he makes a good case for the importance of having a number of girls and women in your daughter’s life to help her figure out what it means to be a woman. I had never thought about us like that, but I think it makes sense. It has also made me realize how important it is to connect with other communities of women. Tomorrow morning our Grade 7 students will be hosting the Grade 7s from Branksome Hall, one of our sister schools in Toronto. While there were many motives behind tomorrow morning’s breakfast, connecting one community of women with another to create shared identity seems like the best one.

My enduring image, however, is the one he created about girls in ‘ancient times’ and by that he meant 1990. He created an image of a girl in 1990 writing in her diary with a pen. In that diary she would share her innermost thoughts and ideas.  Who she liked and didn’t like. What she cared about. What she wanted to do and, most importantly, who she wanted to be. I could identify with her because that was me and I still have those diaries (although I was writing them a little earlier than 1990!). Girls don’t have that introspective time anymore. Instead they are focused on an audience that is impossible to please.  While I was writing for myself and myself alone, these girls are writing to the world. While we can’t turn back the clock, I believe that we can do an enormous amount to encourage girls to develop the identity that we developed and become strong, confident, independent young women without the problems he so vividly describes.

Call me an optimist, but that’s why I became a teacher. I have to believe that these challenges can be overcome if we work together as a community—all of us with the girls’ best interests at heart.

I welcome your thoughts.

Cheryl