There is no shortage of topics to discuss as we end our first full week back on campus. The third and last term of 2022 (what? Are we there already?) began in style with the PA and HOPE committee’s inaugural Stand Up St Mary’s comedy evening hosted on campus at The Edge. The event, largely the work of Old Girl Natalie Haarhoff and her husband Takunda Bimha (parents of two girls in the Junior School) with support from the St Mary’s tech team, Sasha Ehlers and Ole Boinamo, featured an impressive line up of local talent: Rob van Vuuren anchored the performances and performers Lihle Msimang, Chris Forrest, Suhayl Essa, Tracey-Lee Oliver and Ndumiso Lindi entertained and enthralled the audience of parents and teachers with their wry observations, skilled impersonations, and physical comedy.

The evening was made more enjoyable by the diversity of experience reflected in the different acts and, to revisit one of my favourite themes, I was especially gratified by the inclusion of two women comedians on the bill. A recent conversation I held with a group of Grade 7 girls will, I hope, give you some insight into my stubborn preoccupation with the topic of girls and humour: while preparing the Grade 7s to write a valedictory speech, I urged them to include some light-hearted content in their address. As we pursued the discussion and I probed them on their preference for earnest polemic in their oral presentations, one girl volunteered: “What if you are trying to be funny and nobody laughs?”

And there it was, what Peter McGraw, director of the Humor Research Lab at the University of Colorado observed in a study to which I referred at Celebration Evening a few years ago: “Every crack at humor involves risk – the joke could fall flat.” Girls (not all, but enough to warrant further research) don’t like risks, but they do like rewards. We see it often in their engagement in class as well where open-ended questions elicit the odd guarded response or resolute silence. Knowing the answer or being able to offer new information on their terms, where approval is more certain, is more to their liking. Of course, they are not alone in this, and we all, myself included, need to get better at relinquishing control. (“Let it go” as the wise sisters from Frozen never tire of telling us.)

With developments on our campus gaining momentum, and as we become more accustomed to working in temporary classrooms, living near a construction site, and adapting to changing circumstances and experiences, we have little choice but to draw on our emotional reserves and sense of humour. I know the novelty of the new classrooms will wear off, but for now, I am pleased to hear from Ms Nkosi that her Grade 5 class chose the epithet “exciting” to describe their new habitat. Long may it last.

Keeping with the theme of change, every beginning of term brings its share of welcomes and farewells. Daniel Jansen van Vuuren has survived his first full week at St Mary’s, and we look forward to stimulating times ahead with him charting the course of EdTech in the Junior School. At the same time, at the end of the term, we say goodbye to Natasha De Boni, collaborative learning facilitator in Grade 2, and Angie Jennett, Grade 5 mentor, Natural Science teacher in the Senior Primary, and custodian of our enviable Junior School Science laboratory. Both teachers will be sorely missed, but long remembered for the contribution they have made to the well-being of the girls in their care at a school they have helped to define. We wish them both well and value the time and love they have given to our community.

Loris Malaguzzi, early childhood theorist and philosophical founder of Reggio Emilia centres, urged schools to do nothing “without joy”. If we take to heart his words, by beginning the third term with laughter, we have begun well.

SARAH WARNER
JUNIOR SCHOOL HEADMISTRESS