INTRODUCTION
When the term "productivity" is used in connection with schooling, it derives its meaning from considerations which differ from those commonly taken for granted by economists and business people. From the point of view of the more enlightened educators who work closely with children, teachers, and parents, and who bring to their work a solid grounding in philosophy, "productive" schools foster the virtuous habits whose fruit is service to others. Their results, evidenced by such standard measures as HSC scores and entry into the professions, spring from their success in building strength of mind and strength of character. The knowledge and skills imparted by them, because they include key areas subsumed by the phrase "getting on with people", inevitably affect performance in the working world. In practice, such schools are rare.
In the Winter 1995 issue of Education Monitor, alluding to Coleridge's thesis in his "Essay on Method", the Head of Humanities at La Trobe University's Bendigo campus, Roger Sworder, makes the point that "where there is a firm grasp" of the intellectual principle that the task of education is "to lead over and over again out of the darkness of ignorance and into the light of the good", trade and government "will flourish". This principle applies as fully to schools as it does to those institutions of higher learning whose ultimate goal Dr Sworder carefully defines. At every educational level, but especially during the formative years of schooling when children are developing habits which will serve them as learners and as citizens for the rest of their lives, the importance of a setting which encourages the growth of the intellectual and the moral virtues cannot be overstated.
Over a period of 34 years, working in and with schools, I have met dozens of fine pupils and teachers. But when I began my staff development work at the Tangara School for Girls, I had not previously been involved as closely with a school as successful at providing for the "whole" child. For this reason, I decided that a follow-up case study of the school, designed to bring to light features of its daily programme not accessible to a visitor responsible only for guest teaching and staff development, could be helpful to the nation and to overseas educational policy makers concerned about declining economic and social standards. Above all, we wanted to know whether the school's best practices could be replicated in other places near and far.
In the belief that a thorough analysis of Tangara's philosophy and operations, curricular and extra-curricular, would enable me to reflect on the broad applicability of educational principles and habits inseparable from productive outcomes, I began to study school offerings which I had not witnessed before (for example, parent formation evenings, informal on-site talks to mothers during the school week, weekend events involving parents and children), and to question staff members about the genesis of Tangara's entire programme. I also spent much more time talking informally with parents, children, and ancillary staff on the school grounds, and visiting families in their homes as an occasional invited guest.
During an era in which family breakdown, gratuitous violence, teenage suicide, unruly public behaviour, obvious defiance of authority, substance abuse, and related social disorders were receiving daily media attention, the fact that this school was a relatively trouble-free, happy place seemed to me (and also to Dame Leonie Kramer, with whom I spoke about the school) significant. In 1994, when one of Australia's most eminent remedial educators, Jean Zollner, was brought to Tangara's kindergarten to introduce the British product "Letterland" to infant teachers, she commented that in over thirty years of teaching she had never, on an initial visit to a school, experienced "vibes" as good.
Since every professional person who visits Tangara -- resource teachers, educational policy makers, parents, school heads, out-of-State educational specialists -- reacts similarly to the attractiveness of the atmosphere, whatever their ethnic or religious backgrounds, we considered it important to discover, if we could, the underlying reasons for this unanimity. What -- we asked ourselves -- accounts for the school's remarkable ambience and its equally remarkable track record? How is it that only three years after its inception, an editorial in The Sydney Morning Herald called Tangara "one of the best schools in New South Wales"?
HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY
Tangara was founded in 1982 by Pared, a small group of parents and educators who wanted a school that would help parents in their task as the primary educators of their children. The system of schooling which inspired them to go ahead was developed in Europe in the 1950s when parents were encouraged by Blessed Josemaria Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, to exercise greater responsibility in the education of their children. A lengthy visit to some of the most successful of these schools in Spain, undertaken by two of the founding members -- Frank Monagle and his wife Virginia -- was the immediate catalyst for this venture.
Of the discoveries made by the Monagles overseas, perhaps the most important was that the replication of successful educational practice takes boundless energy, vision, and patience. The things one wants most to happen take years to develop in the forms that are most desirable. Educational reform, like social change more generally, occurs successfully over a long period only when community leaders with sound moral and educational formation work closely with ordinary people in settings that encourage formal and informal cooperation and decision-making. Unless the existing leadership fully knows what it is doing, nothing happens quickly enough; and without broad consensus (1) on the part of everyone involved in implementing large democratic designs, there is trouble.
To begin with in Spain, it was parents with professional and business backgrounds who were able and willing to put in the time and effort, and to take the risks, necessary to start schools that would embody their own intellectual and moral views about what is best educationally for children. The schools founded by these parents, understandably, were in the middle class suburbs in which they themselves lived. Once these schools were up and running, and once their reputation for excellence had spread effectually by word of mouth over a period of roughly ten years, they began making plans to open similar schools in the poorer urban areas where they were most needed. (2)
With the help of other professionals whose interest in their work had been sparked by visits to successful school sites and by fruitful discussions with school personnel, the initial group of visionary parents built and staffed schools in disadvantaged parts of Barcelona and Madrid which Frank and Virginia Monagle visited in the late '70s. By this time, these schools -- called, respectively, Pineda and Tajamar -- were as successful as the middle-class schools begun in the '50s. Because the philosophy underpinning all the schools was identical, resting on the broad conviction that mind and heart must be trained together, and that the nexus between home and school is crucial, setting mattered far less than other considerations: for example, money for staff and for student scholarships (raised by the middle-class parents).
Of course a school's physical environment is not something trivial. Pineda (catering for about 900 girls) and Tajamar (with about the same number of boys) are in smog-filled industrial areas. The school plants, like the high-rise apartments in which most of the students live, have no grass, few trees, and few of the amenities normally found in more attractive surroundings; but a concerted effort is made to keep them clean, tidy, and aesthetically simple but pleasing. At Pineda the girls have to be asked not to take leaves from the trees to make bouquets of them because the trees' growth is endangered if too many leaves go. Yet these schools produce a significant number of graduates who complete university or other forms of post-school training leading to productive employment and upward mobility.
Both Pineda and Tajamar have academic and technical streams. Like the middle class schools, they offer after-school programmes, with courses in such practical areas as computing and hair-dressing, so that pupils get jobs; and they run matriculation classes in the evenings for early school leavers. Because the incidence of parental unemployment, family dysfunction and break-up, and latch-key children tends to be much higher in regions where there is obvious poverty, programmes of parental formation of the kind that can be administered in middle-class areas aren't possible at these schools. As in New Haven, Connecticut, in the home-school community programme organised by black educational reformer Dr James P. Comer, (3) pupils have to be directly helped; and the school head spends hours each day talking to single parents and others in charge of individual youngsters so that help is genuine and continuing. "It's hard," educators like the Monagles say. But there have been major successes.
Indeed, it is precisely because these successes are so palpable and so socially significant that wealthy European and overseas visitors brought by the founding parents to Pineda, Tajamar, and other disadvantaged Spanish schools like them have made large financial contributions to ensure the schools' continuing viability over three decades. When Frank and Virginia Monagle first experienced these schools' operations first-hand, they wanted to replicate them in Australia. But, for reasons identical to those that compelled the founding parents in Spain to begin their work in middle-class areas, they started out in Sydney's North, moving Northwest to establish a campus as soon as they could. The site for present-day Tangara was in an orchard-filled rural region less affluent, and closer to disadvantaged areas, than any other existing part of the city.
Nobody in the original founding group had much money; but they had a powerful commitment to excellence in schooling, workable overseas models, and a large network of contacts within business and the professions to help them. Two years of work on management issues such as real estate, financial and staff feasibility, securing clientele, and State registration requirements was done before the school was opened. At the start of 1982, on Fox Valley Road in Wahroonga in a renovated derelict house owned by the Department of Main Roads, 12 founding families, two teachers, and 17 children began their formal operations. Once the property was secured (very late in the day), most of the renovations were completed in six weeks by this group of people at working bees.
At this time, to attract government funding, the school had the formidable official task of being both a registered charity and a recognised part of a non-profit company. Yet even at this early stage, there were enough dedicated people involved in the enterprise (including professionals who provided free legal advice) for a full Foundation, Pared, to be organised and set up. Within four years, enrolments had risen to 99. At the start of the fifth year, enough money had been raised through Commonwealth assistance and private benefactors (including people mortgaging their houses to obtain guarantors for loans) to finance the purchase of land and first-stage building in Cherrybrook, where Tangara now is.
The Pared Foundation is still a non-profit company limited by guarantee. Pared's Board, which is composed of parents and educators, is ultimately responsible for the activities of the company. Open Days and Information Evenings conducted by parents for prospective parents are regularly organised so that people wishing to know more about the Foundation's complete offerings are accommodated. At present Pared produces a quarterly, Perspective; organises courses in effective parenting through Family Enrichment Australia; and operates three schools: Tangara (K-12, with both boys and girls in K-1 and girls in Years 2-12), Redfield College for Boys (2-12), and Retaval (K-1 for boys and girls); and plans are under way to establish a fourth school in the more disadvantaged Blacktown area. The schools' most prominent features are:
- A personalised system of education, which seeks to integrate the pursuit of academic excellence and the development of each student's character;
- A belief that the educational rights of the family come first -- hence the school's duty is to provide for the overall development of students AND to help parents to be more competent educators of their children;
- A personalised tutorial system, which tailors education to the individual student and facilitates the working together of home and school.
Underlying the schools' personalised system of education are a number of central principles:
- The education of children is determined to a great extent by the personal example of the parents;
- The student benefits most when there is harmony between the two major learning environments of home and school -- hence parents and teachers should try to grow in the qualities they wish children to acquire;
- Teachers are vital partners with parents in a common endeavour which depends for its success on a loyal and mutual understanding of the complementary roles of each;
- Parents and teachers need ongoing professional formation as educators striving for excellence;
- Student behaviour should result from personal conviction, acquired in a climate that balances discipline and freedom as the basis for an authentic sense of responsibility.
The core curriculum of the Pared schools is standard, but three of its required features are distinctive:
- compulsory study of a modern language and culture from kindergarten to Year 10;
- studies in Philosophy as "a basis for a love of truth and the positive development of a critical mind";
- a Human Virtues Program designed to foster the growth of such qualities as industriousness, order, cheerfulness, sincerity, generosity, and service to others.
This year and last, in response to requests, Latin has been taught to Year 5 pupils, who are reacting to it with such enthusiasm that the School Council may consider the possibility of offering it to other groups of younger children. During the 1995 summer holidays a week's course in Latin was eagerly embraced by many Tangara children and their parents. As we go to press, work is being done on the structural foundations of Civics, so that a response to a recent draft Citizenship Education document sent out by the New South Wales Board of Studies will incorporate pertinent features of the Virtues Program (for example, a strong focus on justice) in ways that suit statewide reforms in Social Studies.
Extra-curricular activities include choir, orchestra, debating, public speaking, mock trials, drama, overseas exchange programmes, the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme, community service, and team sports coached and managed by teachers and parents working together. There is unfortunately not enough money available through Foundational bequests from parents, ex-parents, graduates, or outside benefactors for the school to hire specialist teachers for this work, as most of the larger and more successful independent schools are able to do. And everyone is so busy on weekends running existing programmes that there is no time or space for organising the fund-raising activities on which many State schools depend for enrichment.
On a voluntary basis, pupils are offered a solid grounding in the Catholic faith; and they are encouraged to live their faith "in a genuine spirit of freedom and commitment." A significant number of non-Catholic pupils attend -- in part, an old-timer explained to me, because so many parents, regardless of their religious backgrounds, seek schools that foster the growth of the virtues. The schools' chaplains are priests of Opus Dei, a personal Prelature of the Catholic Church whose mission is to assist all people to live the universal call to holiness. Retreats for senior pupils, held in rural centres operated by "The Work" and led by members of the Pared teaching staff, complement the on-site programme of religious formation. "Recollections" are held for interested parents, and are always well-attended.
In addition to receiving teaching on the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and love, children who practise the Catholic faith are instructed in the natural virtues in a manner well suited to those pupils who are not practicing Catholics. On the key subject of examination of conscience, all pupils are encouraged to ask themselves questions pertinent to children everywhere who are trying to develop sound moral habits: Have I done all my jobs? Did I work hard in class? Did I talk back to my teachers or my parents? Did I try to get even with someone? Have I told tales on anyone? Was I unkind or mean to others? Did I call anyone bad names? Did I take anything that does not belong to me? Did I use my time well? Did I give help when other children needed it? Did I share things cheerfully with others?
Staff are selected after intensive in-house interviews conducted by the school Executive and -- over the last three years -- the Haberman Teacher Selection Interview. In 1991 Pared took the initiative of sending the Monagles to the US so that Professor Martin Haberman could teach them how to conduct it. Since 1992, this interview (4) has been remarkably successful, as it has been for over thirty years in America, at correctly predicting the quality of teacher performance in the classroom and the school community more broadly. In every instance known to me in which the school Executive has been unsure about candidates seeking employment at the school, the "Haberman" has accurately pinpointed their potential strengths and weaknesses. Every prospective teacher strongly recommended for hiring on the basis of this Interview and the additional questions put by members of the school executive has made an outstanding contribution to Tangara.
THE ROLE OF PARENTS
GROUP MEETINGS
The Pared schools have a network of "Class Parents" who foster friendship and unity among the parents of the individual classes. They encourage professional development in parenting -- through, for example, guidelines on time management skills in the home and on other skills that foster good study habits; weekly Newsletters; and informal group meetings in the home or at school, during the day or in the evening, with a diverse range of guest speakers. Twice a month at school, talks on the virtues are given for as many mothers as are able to attend. In addition, outside speakers are invited to Tangara or to individual homes to converse informally with parents about important educational topics.
On three occasions I have led discussions about the role of parents in reading with their children, selecting a wide spectrum of books for them, and monitoring the use of videos, computer games, and television in the home. Attendance has been excellent, and participation by almost everybody present has been lively and informed. The last time I spoke to mothers, several brought friends who were thinking about enrolling their own children in the school. Three did so immediately. Typically at Tangara and Retaval, mothers themselves welcome guests and make sure that those who do not know anyone present are helped to feel at home. They also help to look after young children so that visitors are free to find out about the schools in an atmosphere which is relatively free from distractions.
From the very first of my experiences of more formal Pared functions, a talk given in 1988 at the Willoughby Town Hall by the then-Head of Sydney Grammar School, Alastair Mackerras, I was impressed by the hospitality of the school's hosts, the warmth exuded by people in the audience, the familial atmosphere in both the hall and the foyer, and the quality of the questions asked by parents. Subsequent forums at the same venue, at Macquarie University or at the school, designed to stimulate thought on such seminal topics as the nature of the liberal arts, early childhood literacy, and the developmental needs of gifted and ordinary pupils, confirmed my first impression and led to my own closer involvement in the school's staff development programme. Not least, I was struck by the number of teachers present who were there voluntarily.
One group of parents whom I addressed several years ago in Tangara's library invited me to speak to them as part of a continuing reading programme designed to increase their familiarity with the literature to which their children were being exposed in the wider community. Several parents in this group were not only responsible for writing reviews of children's literature in Perspective; but they were involved, with teachers, in recommending books for purchase by the school librarian and in making books easily available to parents through a Pared book stall. Subsequently, one of these parents accompanied me to the annual meeting of the Australian Children's Book Council in 1993. A second organised a book stall, Portico Books, which now has expanded in size and has a room of its own adjacent to the school chapel so that it is readily accessible to parents, teachers, students, and visitors.
INDIVIDUAL MEETINGS WITH TUTORS
On a regular basis Tangara parents meet individually with their children's tutor, who is a member of the school teaching staff, to discuss the progress of the child and to co-operate in effective, personalised goal setting. These meetings are not perfunctory or superficial, as parent-teacher conversations often can be in schools where parents are not regarded in practice as the primary educators of children. Every teacher who assumes tutoring responsibilities does so without extra remuneration, and in the knowledge that continuing professional and spiritual formation for everyone concerned is part of what being a tutor entails. A tutor's rapport and friendship with students and their families are vital in establishing the uniquely productive ethos of all the Pared schools. Home visits are common when special circumstances, good or bad, require them.
Tutors whose personalities are suited to individual children are, as often as possible, chosen to supervise them; and when clashes occur, shifts are made. Because of the demanding nature of the work done by parents and tutors together, academic and personal problems which would otherwise go unattended are addressed so that parents can act upon constructive reports of what their children are "really" like. It is not unusual for parents who have seen several of their daughters go through the school to speak about the beneficent influence of one or another tutor on a particular child during a difficult (especially, a rebellious) period in her life. It is a rare weekend on which staff responsible for tutoring are not on site to speak with parents, or to help to organise special programmes for individual families.
INVOLVEMENT IN EXTRA-CURRICULAR SCHOOL ACTIVITY
From the beginning, Tangara parents have been closely involved in a range of extra-curricular activities: from sporting competitions to debating to handicrafts to elaborate dramatic productions -- sometimes on an individual basis and sometimes in concert with other adults. It is not unusual for a regular visitor to the school to find mothers and fathers with toddlers at daily Mass, or in the school office or hurrying in and out of the staff room to help with some project or other. In June 1995, when the school's beautiful Chapel was opened, some 1,000 parents were on hand, many of whom had been closely involved in funding, designing, and erecting the building. Three years ago, scores of mothers helped their daughters to make costumes, rehearse, and otherwise prepare for the finest musical production I have ever seen at a school: a performance of The King and 1 (several times repeated, with different girls as "leads") in which even the youngest children took important roles.
Typically, through purposeful activity of this kind in which they are emotionally involved, parents become close to one another. When family crises occur -- during the past year, in close proximity, there were two sudden deaths of young fathers with large families -- strong moral and practical support is given to those in need (for example, meals are cooked and delivered by groups of other mothers for weeks, and help is given for domestic chores like grocery shopping). In a world characterised by increasing individual isolation and civic unrest, expressions of concern for others of the kind that regularly surface at Tangara point everyone who witnesses them in a direction deeply needed by the country as a whole.
What Martin Haberman says about "star teachers" -- that what they have in common, above all else, is the care that they demonstrate for every person in their charge -- applies unmistakably to the Pared families that assume leadership roles. (5) In ways that invite replication by other school communities in Australia and overseas, these families organise informal networks to aid other families in difficulty. What it takes for such a programme of assistance to succeed is the shared conviction that family, in its broad extended meaning, underlies civic well-being. This conviction, deeply held, spontaneously generates the initial conversations and the continuing contacts among school participants which facilitate friendship and productivity.
PARED FAMILY FOCUS
In 1995, for the first time, I attended each meeting of one of the special annual parent functions organised by Pared for all three of its schools and their friends for the sake of "on-going professional formation". The speaker at all three sessions was James B. Stenson, former Head of The Heights school in Washington, DC, and Northridge in Chicago, who is now busy speaking to parents and teachers around the world about their common goals. I have never heard anyone better on the subject of successful parenting; and it was clear from parent reactions and comments afterwards on two successive days that virtually everyone in the audience was similarly enthusiastic. (6) What went down particularly well was jokes about such typical events in the home as a wife asking her husband to fix the garage door and finding that "I will" means Never because he has no idea how to do it but won't say so.
Stressing the attitudes and approaches which good parents (whether strict or lenient) have in common, Mr Stenson spoke about the importance of thinking of children as future adults and preparing them -- through example, directed practice, and word -- to be competent, responsible, considerate human beings. Central to his case was the view that successful parents work as a unified team, put the other spouse first, practice "affectionate assertiveness" with their children, and direct but do not overmanage so that youngsters learn from mistakes and grow in confidence through pitting their powers against problems.
This view, applied to sundry representative situations in the home, has immediate, clear and wide applicability -- not least, because it moves so far beyond the hollow rhetoric about the home-school nexus so common in the media and gives adults who want to be more effective with their progeny at home and at school the means and the encouragement to do so. Typically in today's world, despite the increasing proliferation of material on the importance of connections between home and school, little is said that is wise, graphic, and specific enough to aid adults who are seeking workable advice about how to tackle problems far more difficult and intractable than those their own parents faced. Fully aware of this, Jim Stenson met his audience at obvious points of genuine need.
Particularly important, he stressed, was not permitting violations of principle: not giving in to pressure from the children to do what everyone else does, when what they are doing offends conscience. Children need to be taught that "what others think" at school and outside it counts far less than the maintenance of high moral standards. Thus, when they plead for "fad" items to be purchased, insist on getting what they want NOW, or object strongly to parental refusals in response to imperious demands, they need to be shown the importance of restraint and patience. Otherwise, as teenagers under pressure to go along with the crowd -- for example, to take drugs, to engage in illicit sex, to abandon religion -- they will succumb to the most dangerous peer pressures; and, later, as fathers and mothers, they will exhibit the selfishness which most severely threatens family stability.
Among the features of effective parenting discussed by Mr Stenson in some detail were the following:
- A willingness to endure sacrifice and hardship -- in other words, a capacity to truly love -- for the sake of the children's future happiness;
- Confidence in authority itself -- in the parents' right to set priorities in matters of correction, to make decisions and stick to them;
- A belief that "No" is a loving word -- that good parents love their children too much to let them grow up with faults uncorrected;
- The prudence to set punishments rationally and calmly beforehand and to follow through consistently no matter how much the children resist correction;
- Respect for the rights of their children: the right to privacy (up to a point); the right to presumption of innocence; the right to just punishment; the right not to be publicly embarrassed; the right to a "second chance";
- A willingness, once punishment and apologies are complete, to wipe the slate clean;
- A habit of making praise as specific as blame;
- The ability to teach children adult-level attitudes and standards of civilised behaviour, so that house rules begin with "We" and apply to everyone.
On the subject of house rules (many of which transfer to school and connect with our discussion of civics), concrete practical advice about key expressions of considerateness was provided:
We respect the rights and sensibilities of everyone
We don't engage in put-downs. We say to everyone "Please, thank you, I'm sorry, I give my word". We don't talk back when corrected. We knock before entering a closed room. We get permission before borrowing. We don't gossip behind people's backs. We greet adults and answer the telephone with good manners. We give guests the best of what we have. If we have offended, we apologise, even if we didn't mean to give offence. And we tell the truth about serious matters -- we don't try to get out of commitments we've made -- so that an appropriate responsibility to others is maintained.
We pitch in to make our home an attractive, civilised, and efficiently run place
We enter the house with clean shoes. If we accidentally make a mess, we clean it up. We don't slam doors, and if we do so by accident we say "Sorry". We don't bring outdoor activities, like ball-playing or missile-throwing, indoors. We don't consume food or drink in bedrooms. We don't "pig out" between meals, thereby interfering with regular meals whose preparation is careful and time-consuming for the parent responsible. We put playthings and clothing away when not in use. We prepare clothes and materials needed early the next morning the night before. If we've eaten off or drunk out of something, we rinse or wash it and put it where it belongs. If we've borrowed an item, we return it to its rightful place. We do our chores promptly, to the best of our ability; and we always aim for "personal best effort", whether we're in the mood or not.
We give people information they need to carry out their responsibilities
When we go out, we say where, with whom, and when we will return. If we're going to be late, we 'phone. We get prior permission, with at least one day's notice, for sleepovers, camping trips, and the like. We come straight home from school except with prior permission. We bring home new friends and introduce them to other family members. We return from social events at a reasonable, agreed-upon hour. We take 'phone messages intelligently (name of caller, time called, gist of message, 'phone number if applicable). In general, we avoid "unpleasant surprises" in the family.
We use the media to promote family life and welfare, not to work against both
We have no materials in the home that offend our moral principles or that treat people like things (for example, gratuitous violence, pornography or other depictions of disrespect). We watch television and videos together (that is, sport, high-quality drama, news and documentaries). If we squabble over what is being watched, we get one warning to stop, and if we don't stop, the activity is discontinued. If we get up out of a seat, we lose the right to it (parents excepted). We limit the length of 'phone calls, and we permit no weekday incoming calls after 10 p.m.
With humour and obvious pedagogical flair, Mr Stenson made the large overall point that by setting an agenda like this, parents are effectively demonstrating their belief in the natural virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance -- virtues which can be defined in modern terms as sound judgment, a sense of responsibility, toughness, and self-control. These virtues, he maintained, can be imparted, can be practiced within the family and translated into terms that clearly apply to schooling -- the more, if we acknowledge from the start that young children have to learn to be less self-centred and more civilised. Even in dark times like ours, there are many parents who do impart, do practice, sound moral teaching -- and who therefore educate their children in ways that preserve family honour and complement perfectly what schools like Tangara set out to achieve.
PERSONNEL AND CURRICULUM
BASIC SCHOOL DESIGN AND ATMOSPHERE
Facilities at Tangara include a fully-equipped library, Chapel, specialist learning areas for Art, Music and Science, up-do-date computing equipment, and a range of playing fields and sporting facilities. Educators who visit for the first time, guided around the grounds by hospitable students, often comment on the beauty of the school's setting on a tree-lined, expansive older Cherrybrook road; the way in which outdoor and indoor colours (for example, those in the school's winter uniform) blend; and the attractiveness of the furnishings (which include comfortable sofas, plants, and artwork in rooms set aside for meetings of tutors, parents, and other visitors).
An innovative means-tested scale of fees ensures that parents of different financial backgrounds can afford to send all of their children K through 12. The vast majority of Tangara families possess average means; the circumstances of a significant number are humble; and the school's most attractive material features are there because of the generosity of a few affluent parents and benefactors. Since, to date, government funding does not take into account the size of families attending independent schools, or the role of both parents as income earners, even professional and business families -- many of them large -- struggle to send their children to the school. Without sizeable reductions in ordinary school fees, a significant number could not manage to do so. Some children travel great distances -- from as far as Hurstville, Sutherland, Kingsford, Gosford, and Mt Druitt -- to attend.
At present there is one class per year at Tangara: a total of some 340 pupils, including the Retaval K-1 class. Infant/primary school enrolment is high, particularly in kindergarten; but in recent years, senior secondary enrolment figures have dropped despite outstanding HSC results (in 1989, the first year in which a Year 12 class graduated, 33 per cent of the class scored over 400; (7) in 1995, over 20 per cent of the small class, considered "average" by staff, was in the 90th+ percentile). Like all small schools, Tangara can offer only a limited number of electives in Years 11-12; and as a result, a percentage of students wishing to pursue subjects like Music or Economics on site at advanced senior levels has been leaving at the end of Year 10 to attend larger, more comprehensive senior high schools. At the same time, students drawn to the school because of its smallness and intimacy have enrolled in the senior years.
Since the school's size limits the number of promotional positions open to academic staff -- for example, Heads of Department -- teachers with conventional worldly ambitions tend to go elsewhere. By and large Tangara attracts staff who are more interested in teaching itself, in fostering a spirit of collegiality, and in exercising strong leadership within the school community, than in receiving the kudos associated with senior status. Over the last three years, working closely with the entire school staff, I have witnessed an infusion into the ranks of people of remarkable talent, maturity, and dedication. Since part-time as well as full-time work is readily available, mothers with young children and extended family childcare networks can take up appointments at Tangara without having to sacrifice precious time at home with their own families. A significant number do.
One sign of excellence in schooling occasionally remarked on by reformers (8) is the absence in the staff rooms of derogatory chit-chat about individual pupils. At Tangara, regular meetings of tutors and teachers who are not also tutors enable the progress of each student to be discussed. During seven years of close contact with the school, I have never heard a nasty comment about a child -- though I have witnessed teachers commenting on ways of solving problems caused by this or that troublesome student. The atmosphere in the main common room in the administration building, where teachers gather for morning and afternoon tea, lunch, weekly staff meetings, festive occasions, and informal gatherings is so pleasant and welcoming that guests involved in educational projects naturally gravitate towards it. On weekends, a recently-begun Saturday school for children with reading, spelling, and writing difficulties is also attracting strong community interest.
Often without realising it, visitors to Tangara witness everywhere in the school a demonstration of the conviction that virtue is attractive. Teachers joke with one another, and smile frequently and unselfconsciously just because they enjoy what they are doing. Students greet strangers cordially. If someone looks lost, even very young children volunteer to help. Virtually everybody is well-groomed and well-mannered. Nobody ever objects to being asked to do a favour for someone. On only one occasion can I recall a pupil's being reprimanded for being in the wrong place, out of class. Primary students are usually available as Day Assistants in the vicinity of the school entrance to serve the school by taking messages, welcoming guests, or tidying up in the tea room. When school consultants like me are on site, their lunch is often brought to them by members of the office staff. For emergencies, a member of this staff ensures that there is always extra food available. On special occasions -- birthdays, anniversaries, departures -- gourmet smorgasbords greet everyone.
The pervasive good will is such that one teacher who was forced to resign because of family duties remarked to me on the 'phone two years later that she had never worked in a school so blessed. Even when spats, complaints, or personal clashes create ongoing tensions for the executive, and when the exhaustion produced by the sheer volume of personal demands made by children, teachers, and parents shows, the pervasive attitude is that there is no difficulty beyond solution. Typically, the school head (Dr Marie Thérèse Gibson) and deputy (Mary Rose Pintado) visit the Chapel each day, as do teachers and visitors -- which may be why I have never seen senior staff lose their self-control even when they have good reason to do so. At no time have I witnessed anything except benevolence expressed towards those responsible for provocation: a unique experience in my long years of work in schools. Personal loyalty is a striking feature of the Pared ethos, as is very great delicacy about people's feelings.
Because I have worked closely with every senior staff member at Tangara, I know their foibles and their worries. Especially, I know the degree to which they take on board the personal problems of the people surrounding them, and the number of home or hospital visits which accompany their grasp of the immediate requirements of their position as school leaders. Such everyday occurrences as serious illness in teachers' or children's families, job loss in a family mainstay, sudden teacher absence in emergencies, or a child going off the rails are met by them with an emotional responsiveness which the ordinary public does not recognise as part of a school executive's job. As well as handling such organisational staples of school administration as the teaching standard, staff and curriculum development, publications, correspondence, after-school activity for children, excursions, and ordinary meetings with office and professional staff, they oversee virtually every event that affects the well-being of the people in their charge. This requires very great stamina, unselfishness, and vision.
PROFESSIONALISM IN PRACTICE
A major source of Tangara's productivity is a concept of professionalism which places personal relations at the top of a list of key priorities. In 1994, at the school's annual Christmas party -- a remarkable event at which each member of staff is given a carefully chosen gift reflecting the head's deep personal knowledge of individual tastes and interests -- one of the most moving sights for me was the affection lavished on Mary Rose Pintado by members of staff who were not simply farewelling her for the summer but as their principal. With characteristic grace, she agreed late in the year to work jointly with Dr Gibson from the start of 1995 so that the interminable administrative tasks which fall to the executive could be spread more widely. This new arrangement is working very well -- not least, because it has given school leaders more time to visit with other school Heads and Directors of Studies and to establish new links (including sporting ones) with a range of other schools, nearby and distant.
Through regular attendance at conferences and more informal gatherings, the school executive is so familiar with current educational developments in Australia and overseas that, from time to time, they are able to give outside experts important updates. Particularly in the field of Early Literacy, the knowledge of Tangara staff is enormously helpful, because people in the community working in this area who would not have otherwise known one another have met through their efforts. Through the Sydney Speech, Language and Literacy Centre begun by professionals who are implementing the Spalding Method (discussed earlier in this Report, pages 19-22), on-going courses for teachers are currently being organised. Pared is linked with this Centre and other groups engaged in pioneering work in the teaching of reading, writing, spelling, and note-taking.
Predictably, because everyone works so hard, Tangara is not immune from teacher illness or burn-out. Nor is it free of the daily pressures which prevent members of staff from witnessing one another's teaching as often as they should for the sake of on-going staff development. For this reason, plans are currently under way for new forms of staff assistance in areas neglected by teacher education. Having seen everyone on the staff teach, as a result of my involvement in a project centred on the Haberman Interview and follow-up classroom visits, I know how good their teaching is despite gaps in formal training -- though of course there is always a need for improvement and up-dating to keep abreast of increasingly rapid community changes and pressures. Classroom activities which in many schools are woefully slack -- for example, small-group discussion -- are, in the hands of teachers as expert as the school's Primary head, Anne-Marie Irwin, carefully structured occasions which encourage every child, including the note-taker, to exert leadership.
Many of the didactic lessons I have seen -- for example, an introduction to the Periodic Table -- have avoided the pitfalls of teacher talk uninterrupted by timely questions. One modern history lesson, given by a teacher whose students subsequently came first and second in the State's Year 12 "People and Events" course, was so memorable, because of what was done with projects returned to the class and with advice about how to answer exam questions, that two years after the fact I still remember it in detail. A Geography worksheet that I happened to look at after a class returned from an excursion was similarly imaginative and thorough. Because the level of expectation is so high -- in keeping with Mortimer Adler's thesis that significant achievement depends upon approaches which set an imaginary line just above students' heads -- girls meet it, despite occasional, inevitable grumbles.
Although there are members of staff who have required assistance from more able staff in, for example, disciplining unruly pupils and conducting stimulating whole-class discussions, the general level of instruction is high. The bright child of a personal friend of mine who came to Tangara last year from the country, where she regularly topped her class, had to struggle to keep up -- despite being given extra, unsolicited help by her teachers and by Mary Rose Pintado. Not infrequently, average Year 12 pupils do better on the HSC than the school has anticipated, simply because thoughtfulness in every sense of the word is expected of everybody. The principal and deputy teach at least one class as a matter of course. They also remain on site each day long after the last bell has rung, and for hours every weekend. Parents have remarked to me that Dr Gibson is always present at functions where ordinary principals are not usually found; and it is obvious that this encourages their own involvement in the full life of the school.
The first time I guest-taught at Tangara, pupils in the Year 12 class spoke to me informally, as we walked around the school grounds, about their affection for the place and for each other. In 1995, a product of that class of 21 students was the first such graduate hired to teach at the school. Another member of the class, who has returned from postgraduate study in Spain, is preparing for a career in journalism. A third has recently been hired as an interpreter in London. A fourth, following receipt of an Arts-Law honours degree, has been engaged in post-graduate study in English Literature in Tasmania. A fifth, following a successful traineeship at The Australian, has now been made a cadet with News Limited.
Productivity of this order in Tangara graduates is only one sign among many of the school's success in turning out young women with the self-discipline and toughness, the strength of mind, and the commitment to service, to make a clear contribution to Australian life. Another sign is the eagerness with which secondary students at the school, while they are there, take part in extra-curricular local and overseas service projects -- for example, through Creston College at the University of New South Wales, which is responsible for help for the aged in the local region and for a summer crafts programme in Western Sydney for recent young arrivals to Australia whose English needs attention; and in the Philippines, on annual, eye-opening summer work-study trips with impoverished villagers. A third sign is voluntary attendance by former Tangara students at Recollections and other spiritual activities, and involvement in civic activity organised by both major political parties or by community groups like the Australian Family Association.
What is striking about the more delicate manifestations of Tangara's excellence is the desire -- expressed by many people without obvious religious leanings -- to spend as much time as possible in the company of staff there. The school's chaplain, Fr Anthony Bernal, who speaks to children at Mass in the most attractive, sunny way I have ever witnessed in a person in that role, is typically surrounded by pupils seeking every possible excuse to be near him. The last quality one sees in him is the species of negativeness attributed in The Sydney Morning Herald to an Anglican minister reported to have said about Religious Education (on 19 June 1995): "We want people to see Christianity as not all that awful". Through a species of osmosis, some non-Catholic children who come to Tangara become Catholics, even when other members of their families do not join them.
The "body of Christ" as family is a concept embodied in the daily practice of virtually everyone at the school for whom spiritual growth is central, in keeping with the view expressed in Furrow that "religion cannot be separated from life, either in theory or in daily reality". The idea that the branch bears fruit in every sphere of life is bedrock, and open to realisation well beyond school doors. Yet the prospect of "putting God" artificially into everything is anathema to staff. Freedom of choice is basic to Tangara's philosophy, as are the related views that we all develop at our own pace, in our own way, and that the essential aim of education is to help human beings to be more fully human and to attain full unity of life.
On countless occasions, in connection with staff development work, the school Executive and members of the Board and the Council have asked for my own views about areas requiring improvement. Only where there is an active humility in an institution is this question genuinely posed -- or is there a corresponding good humour about, and a readiness to correct, acknowledged flaws. Weak institutions characteristically avoid hearing about anything that is the matter with them, and pointedly ignore the reasoned objections to their habitual practice which are voiced by reliable staff members. Tangara staff are remarkably cheerful under pressure. Whingeing and harbouring grudges are implicitly eschewed, since everybody is expected to speak in plain English, directly, to the person or persons responsible for any on-going problems. Without belabouring difficulty, teachers are honest and discreet about the forms it normally takes.
Under the influence of Political Correctness, one of the most powerful unspoken community laws is that educational policy makers must not comment publicly about the role of religion in a school, or about reason exercised in the light of faith. Yet it is impossible to write with suitable candour about Tangara without speaking about the spiritual convictions, and the daily demonstration of those convictions, which underlie its habitual educational practice. Certainly members of its own staff -- not all of whom are Catholic and a minority of whom are members of Opus Dei -- believe that the quality of its academic programme, and of the involvement of parents in it, is inseparable from the system of belief shared by the Pared Board and by the school's leaders, whether they are teachers, parents, ancillary staff, or children.
The depth of courtesy which -- as the author of The Divine Comedy knew -- is the first mark of virtue, is everywhere in evidence, most obviously in a way of addressing people which uniquely affirms their individuality and worth. I have met that mode of address elsewhere, but not often: most strikingly, perhaps, at the Penrhos Junior School in Perth; The Queenwood Junior School in Sydney; Tintern CEGGS in Melbourne; Katherine Brennan, a remarkable disadvantaged black public school in New Haven, Connecticut; (9) and the Houston Independent School District administration building, where teachers and school heads are taught to conduct the Martin Haberman Teacher Selection Interview.
In each of these settings, a respect for everyone who crosses the paths of those in charge is one of the more striking manifestations of an ethic with a Judao-Christian base. Raimond Gaita, an Australian moral philosopher without religious affiliation, has argued in his widely praised book, Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception, that such a manifest belief in human preciousness is an essential feature of life in a civilised society. Whether or not the belief is attached to the practices of a specific religious faith, he maintains, its significance is central. If Professor Gaita is right, then it is not hard to understand why non-Christian parents send their children to Tangara, or why the school's programme in the virtues is often considered byvisitors who practise other faiths to be replicable in myriad places around the globe.
A FINAL WORD ABOUT REPLICABILITY
Of necessity, since the best schools are distinctive in ways which reflect the values of the body responsible for running them, their best practices cannot be wholly replicated. One reason for the exceedingly general nature of the educational principles underlying school reform efforts like Theodore Sizer's in America (see the accompanying chart) is that teachers with long experience know the importance of individual school solutions to ongoing educational problems. There are aspects of the daily life of schools which depend for their continuing integrity and vitality on deeply ingrained practices which follow directly from a shared system of belief. Trying holus bolus to replicate these practices in institutions operating under very different conceptual bases would offend natural reason and common sense.
The Nine Principles Of The Coalition Of Essential Schools
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Nonetheless, many of the practices and attitudes described in this chapter, like those underlined in overseas discussions of replicable structural reform, in our earlier chapters on literacy, moral education, and civics, and in many of our previous publications on schooling, have educational implications which are broadly applicable. My own writing on excellent schools and Monitor's series on this subject (10) demonstrate that there are many practices in diversely-structured school programmes which are worthy of emulation and immediately accessible for that purpose. Provided that we accord them the courtesy of truly attending to what they do, schools across a broad social spectrum have much to teach us.
Among the portable virtues present at Tangara and discussed in earlier pages, perhaps the most important are a bedrock humility reflected in staff eagerness to grow in the qualities which children themselves need; a spirit of loyal cooperation whose fruits are delicacy, flexibility, and restraint; and an eagerness to receive continuing educational formation in the interests of intellectual and moral growth. These virtues complement others fundamental to civic health, most notably a love of justice, a commitment to equality of opportunity, and a balanced respect for discipline and freedom. They can grace any and every educational setting in which strength of mind and character are genuinely valued.
In impressively run schools of Tangara's ilk, as in productive institutions of other kinds, staff maintain high professional standards by refusing to accede to conventional pressures to take the expedient, rather than the right, course of action. They don't succumb to the chief materialist temptation of contemporary life by treating other human beings as things. When they give their word, they keep it. When they offend others unintentionally, they apologise. They seek advice from genuine, not from self-proclaimed, experts in areas in which they themselves lack essential knowledge and experience. To save face they don't claim to know things that they do not know. In a world beset by busyness, they do their best not to waste people's time. And they avoid short cuts in areas that invite them but that actually require painstaking reflection and care.
By regularly offering one another praise as specific as blame, the leaders of productive school communities encourage personal best effort. As a matter of course they are considerate, (11) consulting colleagues about matters affecting their general welfare and ensuring that they are justly rewarded for their accomplishments. If they are called upon to make public statements about aspects of educational policy, they rarely if ever do so without first speaking to respected colleagues about the issues under consideration and taking on board ideas to which they hadn't given sufficient prior thought. In short: they "network" properly, and they make every effort to embody the natural virtues of responsibility, sound judgment, toughness, and self-control.
ENDNOTES
1. On the importance of broad consensus in wider social and political realms, see especially John Hirst's discussion of the nature and limits of democratic practice in his article "In Defence of Appeasement" in Quadrant (April 1996). Obviously, "grass roots" consensus bears a relation to "civic association" issues discussed in Chapter 2, especially in connection with Putnam's work.
2. On typical financial problems associated with the development of independent schools in disadvantaged areas, the media has lately taken an interest. See, for instance, "Rich help poor in elite schools plan", page 1 of The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March, 1996. One plan currently being discussed, and meeting predictable opposition, would require the parents of very expensive Uniting Church schools in New South Wales to pay higher fees and buy shares in their own schools in order to fund church schools in poorer regions.
3. James P. Comer's programme of school reform is described in some detail in my article, "Good schools in Bad Neighbourhoods", Review (June 1989), and more broadly in Educating Australians, page 84.
4. For detail on the nature of the Haberman Teacher Selection Interview, see Wood's Educating Australians, pages 10, 23-26; Susan Moore, "A Beacon for Teaching", Education Monitor, Vol. 3, No. 1; Susan Moore, "Teacher Appraisal: Using the Haberman Interview", Education Monitor, Vol. 4, No. 2; and the recently published book by Martin Haberman, Star Teachers of Children in Poverty, available through Kappa Delta Pi, P.O. Box A, West Lafayette, Indiana.
5. Professor Haberman makes this point repeatedly in Star Teachers of Children in Poverty.
6. The tape of one of James B. Stenson's talks for parents, "Successful Parenting", given at Macquarie University, is available through St Joseph Communications, 11 Darvall Road, Eastwood NSW 2122.
7. The highest possible HSC score is 500. Scores over 400 are considered extremely good. Students in the top 10 per cent of the State normally have scores in the 400+ range.
8. See, for example, Patricia Wasley, Teachers who Lead, Teachers' College Press (1991).
9. See footnote Number 1.
10. See, for example, Jenny McLean and Geoff George's "The Benedict Community School" in Education Monitor, Vol. 4, No. 1; Lyn Henshall's "Tintern" in Education Monitor, Vol. 4, No. 2; Jan Couper's "The Launceston Preparatory School" in Education Monitor, Vol. 5, No. 1; or Derek Hunter's "Kormilda College" in Education Monitor, Vol. 5, No. 3.
11. In this connection, Judith Wheeldon's school rules at Queenwood, referred to in Chapter 2 of this Report, are worth recalling. Also worth noting explicitly is that considerateness is an aspect of justice, and therefore of civic as well as domestic virtue.
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