The Alliance is pleased to invite you and your colleagues to network with fellow educators at this exciting presentation hosted by The Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School.
Guest speaker, esteemed educational futurist Prof Erica McWilliam will be presenting ‘Teaching After Trump’ in which she elaborates on the substantive work of building girls’ capacity for ethical deliberation — that is, the sort of informed curriculum and pedagogy that best responds to the unprecedented challenges faced by all women in a changing global order.
McWilliam argues that the age of Trump has brought a new urgency to opinion-forming as a moral-ethical, as well as an intellectual endeavour. It follows that ethical deliberation is now a key educational imperative, particularly in building future-capable women. While some might continue to see the classroom as a place that should, perhaps like sport, be devoid of politics, Erica insists that the effects of power differentials cannot be expunged from any domain of human interactivity. Just as the sporting arena has shown itself increasingly to be a politicised and politicising forum, so too, she argues, the idea that it is possible to teach ‘objectively’ in some rarefied and deodorized space is a myth. Educators inevitably make interventions in students’ lives, and we do so from a place already framed by our past and our present.
Join us for light refreshments followed by this compelling presentation.
About Prof McWilliam
Erica McWilliam (Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Education, QUT) is an internationally recognised scholar in the field of pedagogy with a particular focus how teachers prepare young people for ‘over the horizon’ futures. In her numerous presentations to educational leaders, teachers, parents and students, she elaborates on the challenges faced by all those who are seeking to ensure that our young people will live, learn and earn well in this demanding century. In particular, she stresses the importance of the role of teachers in providing ‘low threat, high challenge’ learning environments that assist young people to welcome error and the instructive complications of unfamiliarity and complexity. She is a Fellow of the Australian Council of Education, an Honorary Fellow of the Australia Council of Educational Leadership and an Associate Fellow of the Learning and Teaching Council of Australia. Her most recent book, Educating Girls, is published with the Queensland University Press and Brisbane Girls Grammar School.
