Scotch College

Small changes in input can result in a major change in output

By successfully melding the micro and the macro we can achieve the very best education for our boys.

The recent bushfires have demonstrated with tragic clarity just how a climate can create conditions so sensitive that communities can neither control nor predict the path, scale or speed of a threat to their very existence. Along with organisations throughout Australia, the Scotch community has responded to this disaster with a commitment to bring assistance to those in need, now and in the future.

Back in 1960, Edward Norton Lorenz, a mathematician and meteorologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was using a ‘simple’ system of equations, and a state-of–the-current-art computer system, to model weather patterns. The feeling at the time was that with sufficient data from weather stations, an accurate prediction of what was to come from the skies was possible. It was while carrying out such an experiment that Lorenz stumbled into a discovery which sent, and continues to send, shock waves through those communities who attempt to predict future behaviour across the sciences.

What Lorenz showed was that small changes in input can result in a major change in output; that seemingly identical variables can deliver very different outcomes. He showed that the task of predicting the weather, and many other systems, is ‘sensitive to initial conditions’. No longer were systems expected to either settle into a steady state or repeat their behaviour; they could be ‘chaotic’. It was a discovery which gained popular notoriety under the heading of a paper Lorenz wrote in 1972, ‘Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas?’ Or perhaps of more topical interest, ‘Does the repeated passing on of a bad loan in the US bring about a global credit crunch?’ Lorenz’s work launched research across the sciences and soon chaotic patterns were recognised from stockmarkets to the solar system, via waves crashing on a beach and the beat of a human heart. There was a new search in mathematics, that of ‘finding order in the chaos’.

The relationship between the micro and the macro is one which raises interesting questions. Which bullet is the decisive one in determining the outcome of a battle? Or, on a lighter note, after which particular impact does a cricket ball start to reverse swing? Child development and education are processes with a myriad of stimuli. The connections are complex and ‘dense’, but together they form and nurture the individuals who will forge the culture of our societies.

It is, then, worth considering the ways by which these stimuli are transmitted, as it is here, as educators, we can have the greatest influence. Each day we all deal with numerous interactions which are themselves the basis of the relationships we form. It is through these relationships that we transfer values, knowledge and understanding. If this is so, then the task of those charged to work in education must be to deliver an environment which best promotes engagement and supports and nurtures relationships which inculcate trust and learning. It is here among the ever-changing development and learning needs of each boy that we can attempt to find ‘order in the chaos’.

There are no easy quick fixes. Measurement and testing can ask targeted questions, but can’t deliver a quality learning environment - in fact quite often the contrary. And, as I have written before, those things which really matter are often complex, ephemeral and sensitive to conditions of mood, age, personality, mind and influence. It requires imagination and resolve to work at this micro level, and it requires professionals of the highest calibre: teachers and staff who have a genuine interest in the development of each boy; teachers who can structure their lessons to respond to individual needs. At Scotch we are fortunate to have such a staff.

Different situations prompt different types of interaction, and it is through exposure to variations of form and substance that boys learn to adapt to the complexity of the human condition. Study and academic discussion play an important role, but it is often by taking boys out of their comfort zone that we allow them to experiment in matching their manner, conversation and interactions to suit the prevailing mood.

This was just what was going on over the summer break. At the end of last term, 90 Scotch boys took part in cadet promotion courses under the supervision of 13 members of staff, and over the summer a further 43, accompanied by four staff members, had a taste of outdoor leadership training. In total, Cowes was the destination for some 140 boys (juniors and seniors as part of Scotch at Cowes, Sea Scouts and those on the Christian Movement Leadership Camp) and 19 staff members. Overseas trips to Nepal, Italy, Fiji (Village Habitat) and New Zealand occupied the minds, bodies and good intentions of some 55 boys and eight staff.

Our Year 10 cricketers headed to Brisbane, and our 1st XI played pre-Christmas against Eton and then again in the new year against Scots College from Sydney, coming out winners on both occasions. The tennis camp here at Scotch resulted in victories over the three visiting Sydney schools. Rowing camps occupied 92 boys, while 20 boys were involved in closer contact with the water on the swimming and diving camp at Mildura. Busy bodies and busy minds. Boys learning that it is by being interested in things that they themselves become interesting.

Nothing stands still for boys, or their families. There is continual change, often gradual, but sometimes the conditions for change become sensitive and things surge ahead, or lurch in a different direction!

A hot start to the school year saw 297 boys take their first steps through the classroom doors of Scotch, accompanied by the seasoned campaigners returning a year older and noticeably taller — boys ready to be challenged, their futures sensitive to the environments in which they move. They returned buzzing with excitement and tales from the summer break and they quickly discovered that Scotch had been a busy place since they emptied their lockers in December, assuming, that is, that they did. Work on the Main, Junior School and McKendrick ovals, plus the Harvey Nicholson courts has brought colour to our campus and sporting surfaces of the highest quality to the boys. Water was the crucial commodity: water harvested and stored in our new tank under the McKendrick Oval; water saved through the conversion of the Junior School Oval to a synthetic surface; and water from our underground tank which enabled the new grass surfaces to bind and take root. The results, as you can see if you walk around the grounds, are magnificent and we stand in admiration of the work and imagination of our Head Curator, Mick Smith, and his team.

I began this article by considering the impact of small change on the big picture. There is, of course, the other side of the micro–macro relationship: that which asks how the big picture itself influences the sensitivity of those micro relationships. How does the forming of a political alliance affect a soldier’s experience in a battle? To what extent does the plot of a novel determine the characters developed? How does Scotch life impact on the moods and rhythms of each boy’s day?

I believe that it is by successfully melding the micro and the macro that we achieve the very best education for our boys, and this quest will be at the forefront of our future planning. Our minds must be adaptable to circumstances, but there are times when we must make the circumstances adapt to our minds. GS