Dear members of the Mount Lilydale Mercy College community
In this, our last newsletter for the term, I offer you a bit of an eclectic mix of ideas and thoughts in the hope that you find interest in at least one of them.
If memory serves me, I seem to recall that not that long ago there was concern about a lack of rain and how dry it seemed. In fact, I remember seeing cracks in the lawns at home and around the grounds and in thinking of the shrinkage in the ground as it dried out, I wondered whether that would cause cracking in foundations of buildings and the like. Well, that is certainly no longer the case and the rain has certainly come in earnest, and we must celebrate its arrival as I am told we need the rain — just speak to a farmer.
But, then again, it also appears to me the best way to ensure the arrival of rain is for MLMC to hold an event and invite many people on to our campus, as has been the case recently.
(1) Open Day
On Monday 27 March, the College held its annual Open Day, whereby we opened up our campus and invited any and all interested to visit. We understand the main idea of Open Day is to display our College to a future enrolment, but others visit us as well. On Monday, it rained and rained. It was wet. It was so wet that I took my dog Charlie back to my office several times to dry him off with a hair dryer. The rain, however, never dampened the spirits of the staff, the students nor the many who visited.
Open Day was a great achievement and a true representation of the positivity of our community. The staff and students produced impressive displays, but more importantly interacted with guests with a greater sense of positivity and enthusiasm for our College. What is there not to be proud of? Many visitors relayed this to me, and when I apologised for the grey, wet night and how it restricted them really seeing the beauty of our campus, most replied how much they enjoyed the experience — although continually under the protection of an umbrella.
Congratulations to everyone involved in our Open Day.
(2) MLMC Old Collegians’ Business Breakfast
A second experience this week saw the Old Collegians’ Association host their annual Business Breakfast. On Wednesday morning, with mist rolling up the hill, the dark morning quickly turned into rain. Old Collegians came together to enjoy each other’s company over breakfast for the first time since 2021. It poured with rain but, once again, that never dampened the spirit.
The breakfast was hosted and emceed by President Olivia Cox (Class of 1994) and organised by Old Collegians’ Executive Officer Natalie Virgona (Class of 2016). Guests joined in a lovely breakfast, networking with local businesses and heard from a guest speaker or two. This year the main speaker was Andrea McKellar (Class of 1984) who, along with her husband Dean, founded Teacher Presence.
Teacher Presence is a not- for- profit charity with the mission to empower teachers and families to make a difference in the world by redirecting the money that would normally be spent on an end-of-year teacher present to a donation to support a range of charities. Further information about this charity can be found here Teacher Presence. I commend this charity to you.
(3) Social media
Another thought I wish to share with you this week is around social media. I came across an article which was the written testimony of Dr Mitch Prinstein PhD, ABPP, Chief Scientist American Psychological Association, to the Judiciary Committee of the American Senate Called ‘Protecting Our Children Online’ on the 14 February 2023. It is a long article of some 22 pages — you can download a complete copy of Prinstein’s submission at: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/testimony-prinstein-2023-02-14.
However, author Corey Turner made a summary into 10 points on the 16 February called ‘10 things to know about how social media affects teens’ brains’. Click HERE to read it.
Social Media and the Teenage Brain
Between 2009 and 2019, depression rates doubled for all teens. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic. The question is: Why now?
"Our brains, our bodies, and our society have been evolving together to shape human development for millennia. ... Within the last 20 years, the advent of portable technology and social media platforms [has been] changing what took 60,000 years to evolve," Mitch Prinstein told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "We are just beginning to understand how this may impact youth development."
Corey Turner's 10 key takeaways:
Social interaction is key to every child's growth and development.
Prinstein said that “children's interactions with peers have enduring effects on their occupational status, salary, relationship success, emotional development, mental health, and even on physical health and mortality over 40 years later. These effects are stronger than the effects of children's IQ, socioeconomic status and educational attainment”.
This helps explain why social media platforms have grown so big in a relatively short period of time. But is the kind of social interaction they offer healthy?
Social media platforms often traffic in the wrong kind of social interaction.
What's the right kind, you ask? According to Prinstein, it's interactions and relationship-building “characterised by support, emotional intimacy, disclosure, positive regard, reliable alliance (e.g., 'having each other's backs') and trust”.
The problem is, social media platforms often (though not always) emphasise metrics over the humans behind the “likes” and “followers”, which can lead teens to simply post things about themselves, true or not, that they hope will draw the most attention.
It's not all bad.
For many marginalised teens, “digital platforms provide an important space for self-discovery and expression” and can help them forge meaningful relationships that may buffer and protect them from the effects of stress. In fact, when used properly, social media can feed teens' need for social connection in healthy ways.
Adolescence is a "developmentally vulnerable period” when teens crave social rewards, but don't have the ability to restrain themselves.
That's because, as children enter puberty, the areas of the brain “associated with our craving for 'social rewards,' such as visibility, attention and positive feedback from peers” tend to develop well before the bits of the brain “involved in our ability to inhibit our behaviour, and resist temptations”, Prinstein said. Social media platforms that reward teens with “likes” and new “followers” can trigger and feed that craving.
“Likes” can make bad behaviour look good.
When teens viewed these same illegal and/or dangerous behaviours on social media alongside icons suggesting the negative content had been “liked” by others, the part of the brain that keeps us safe stopped working as well, Prinstein said, “suggesting that the 'likes' may reduce youths' inhibition (i.e., perhaps increasing their proclivity) toward dangerous and illegal behaviour.”
In other words, bad behaviour feels bad — until other people start liking it.
Social media can also make “psychologically disordered behaviour” look good.
Prinstein spoke specifically about websites or online accounts that promote disordered-eating behaviours and non-suicidal self-injury, like self-cutting.
Extreme social media use can look a lot like addiction.
“Regions of the brain activated by social-media-use overlap considerably with the regions involved in addictions to illegal and dangerous substances,” Prinstein told lawmakers.
The threat of online bullying is real.
Online bullying can take a terrible physical toll, Prinstein said: “Brain scans of adults and youths reveal that online harassment activates the same regions of the brain that respond to physical pain and trigger a cascade of reactions that replicate physical assault and create physical and mental health damage”
It's hard not to compare yourself to what you see in social media.
Even adults feel it. We go onto social media sites and compare ourselves to everyone else out there, from the sunsets in our vacation pics to our waistlines –— but especially our waistlines and how we look, or feel we should look, based on who's getting “likes” and who's not. For teens, the impacts of such comparisons can be amplified.
Sleep is more important than those “likes”.
Research suggests more than half of adolescents are on screens right before bedtime, and that can keep them from getting the sleep they need. Not only is poor sleep linked to all sorts of downsides, including poor mental health symptoms, poor performance in school and trouble regulating stress.
(4) Community Forum Group
Another thought that I wish to share with you is in regards to our Community Forum Group (CFG).
This group is an interested group of community members that meet twice a term to discuss issues that arise or are relevant in our College. At the last meeting they discussed two very important agenda items:
1. the Student Representative Council (SRC) proposal to change our College approach to uniform policy, and in particular, hair
2. the issue of vaping in our College, where and why it is happening and what we can be doing about.
Two very different topics, but both of importance.
I commend this group to you and remind you that anyone can ask for an agenda item to be added for discussion at this group. Simply email Marilyn Ryan via principal@mlmc.vic.edu.au. The venue will depend on numbers. The next scheduled meeting is Wednesday 17 May 2023.
(5) Shakespeare
Another idea that comes to me as I write is one of my favourite quotes from Shakespeare:
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
This is a quote from Act IV Scene 11 of Julius Caesar whereby Brutus is trying to convince Cassius that the time has come to begin the battle against Octavius and Antony. Brutus speaks figuratively about the tide in the lives of humans and of course the interplay between fate and free will in our lives. We as readers are constantly asked to contemplate the possibility of action to prevent tragedy or is failure or success predetermined by fate.
Now these four musings to which I refer are in fact connected.
(6) College calendar
On the whole many within our community are positive and understand expectations, yet after the years of COVID-19 and a high level of online interaction by our students, some have simply forgotten or do not understand College expectations. As a staff here at MLMC, we need support and professional development in dealing with such behaviours and the continual aspects of them.
At the same time, 2023 has been designated a review year for MLMC by the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria (CECV) and the Victorian Regulations and Qualifications Authority (VRQA). We must undertake an extensive process of review that will require some time.
In discussing both of the above with the College staff, College Executive and College Advisory Council, I am proposing some date changes to the College calendar:
Term 2
1. Monday 24 April: College Closure Day
2. Wednesday 26 April: Day 1 of Term 2 — students return.
3. Wednesday 21 June: 3.15pm — student classes cease - (end of Term 2)
4. Thursday 22 June: College Review Day — staff to work on School Improvement Framework
5. Friday 23 June: Staff Professional Development — Classroom Management
Term 3
1. Monday 10 July: Staff Formation Day (all staff) (already in the calendar)
2. Tuesday 11 July: Staff Professional Development Day — Classroom Management
3. Wednesday 12 July: Day 1 of Term 3 — students return.
I know this process introduces an extra College closure day and three extra Staff Professional Development days and, hence, more time for students away from campus and not in classes. This is the last thing that I want, as we know as a College we believe that students best learn when they attend class. However, at this time, we believe these days are necessary.
I am trying to give you as much notice as possible so that you can arrange any extra supervision that you may require.
At the same time, we are very aware that Year 12 classes are vital and we will look for ways to minimise any loss of class time for our Year 12 cohort. We still expect the Year 10 cohort to do a full Work Experience program.
Please accept my apology for the timing of these date changes.
Thank you for your support over Term 1. I look forward to seeing many of you on campus for our face-to-face Student Progress iInterviews next Tuesday night (Tuesday 4 April) or online on Monday 3 April.
God bless
Philip A Morison
Principal
