IMPLICATIONS

At the School

There will be no dispute that the primary function of the school is the comprehensive and liberal education of its pupils.  Its goals express a firm conviction to develop the highest and most idealistic attributes of young people.   Educational decisions ranging from the appointment of staff to the choice of a 'thought for the day' on the Daily Bulletin ought to be governed by a sound knowledge of the goals.

There are few areas of a student’s life at Wesley that cannot be touched by values stemming from Wesley’s Christian imperatives. 

How fundamental it is to a child’s life at school that he or she receive a second chance! How often in formal learning, in school discipline, in games and in personal relationships a student will despair at errors made and yearn for a new beginning.  How liberating the teacher’s role of correction, guidance and re-generation!

Furthermore, in the education of young people, the opportunities to instil a sense of wonder in creation and humanity’s part in it abound.   In these days of conservation and 'quality of life' issues, many of our young people are openly receptive to notions of stewardship of the environment and care for the needs of others.  However, scratch the surface, and very self-interested and destructive prejudices emerge.  This is not to be unexpected.  Indeed it provides the teacher with the very tension most productive for nurturing reasoned and caring attitudes in the growing child.

In our outdoor programs, our scientific and humanities classes, our sports and cultural pursuits senses of wonder and responsibility for the beauty and intricacy of the creation can be readily invoked by the alert and competent teacher.

It is in our Divinity classes and our Christian observances that this wonder and responsibility can be synthesized.  Questions related to right use of creation’s resources, purposes for these uses and consequences of varying uses ought to be explored.  Also, personal faith commitments in response to these questions, starting with the Christian faith commitment, ought to be explored as purposeful human experiences.

Supporting the School

There are numerous groups of adults who believe Wesley College to be of great enough value that they identify themselves with associations which support its work.  Primarily, these are the Old Wesley Collegians Association, two Parents’ Associations, Wesley College Foundation Ltd., two Common Room Associations and, of course, the Council of Wesley College.

Each of these groups has the enhancement of the educational opportunities of the current and future pupils of Wesley College high on its list of priorities.  Each starts from a point of freely serving an enterprise beyond itself.  It is here that the most rigorous application of Wesley’s Christian imperatives may be exercised.

In one way or another, the adults of the Wesley Family either supply, manage or are the resources of the school.   What, then, is our attitude to their use?  Are we mindful of the imperatives italicised above?

The greatest danger to the most fruitful use of these resources is the temptation to make our own interests the purpose of our support.  It may be too easy to be active in the Parents’ Association only when our own children will benefit.  Or, to support Wesley only if it perpetuates a style which we treasured when attending the school but which is singularly inappropriate today.  Perhaps,  it is too easy for teachers to confine their vision of Wesley to the campus on which they serve.

These are but three examples.  The point is that the school’s Christian imperatives call us not to give more worth to the centres of our own interest than to the greater mission of the school. 

Furthermore, in supplying, managing or being the resources of the school we are asked to accept constraints, drawn from Wesley’s Christian foundation and educational priorities, upon their use.  Sometimes these constraints appear as folly but, then, how much do we believe God will sustain our school beyond those constraints?

Offering the School

To this point, this paper has taken a somewhat introverted look at 'us' and what may guide us as we work within Wesley College.  Where is Wesley’s place in society?

In 1866, James Waugh was in little doubt:-  "May our College be like an angel standing in the sun, sending forth streams of light for many a year throughout this land!"  We, it is to be hoped, are in the 117th year of the fulfilment of his wish.

Wesley College is a school of rich resources.  It has myriad people of great calibre and expertise supporting its work, often well into Jesus Christ’s 'second mile'.  Its educational plant is superior.  Its educationalists are hand-picked.  Its pupils come from homes where learning is highly valued.  Its educational philosophy, soundly founded and identifiable, is actively examined, defined, re-examined and re-defined over decades.

None of this wealth must be drawn to ourselves only. 

It only has worth if it is liberally and humbly offered to society.  This is not to advocate the simplistic throwing open of the facilities for 'wider community use'.  It means that if we believe we have things of value to offer, then we should seek sincere and constructive ways to do so regularly.  It behoves us, for example, to 

• encourage competent staff to take positions in influential professional bodies; 
• innovate with a view to establishing worthy practices previously untried in schools;
• allow, freely, inspection of the school by interested parties, accept large numbers of teachers in training and encourage teacher exchanges;
• train our young people, many of whom will significantly control the lives of numbers of other people and manage valuable physical resources later in their life, in sound moral values;
• seek, sincerely and creatively, ways to lower significantly the fee barrier to attendance at Wesley College;
• respond, interestedly and positively, to requests for use of facilities;
• allow our educational, social and spiritual attitudes to be known abroad;
• involve ourselves formally in sporting associations other than those of our own kind;
• make our facilities, staff and students available for worthy educational research projects.

But, and of the most crucial importance, a word about Waugh’s 'angel' :-

In our time of full enrolments, imaginative building programs and undoubted educational vitality it is increasingly tempting to re-phrase Waugh’s image to read "May our College be like God ..." so that it is Wesley we "serve and glorify", not God.  Thus usurped, God becomes the core material of the futurists’ prophesied consumer religion  -  another service that the school offers its clients!  In the meantime, Wesley College unlimited, stepping beyond its fundamental constraint, is all the less inclined to honour its other Christian commitments!

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