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Principal's lines
I began life as an American, via an accident of birth. There are very few vestiges of this left. Big teeth and a love of baseball are the most obvious.
As a result of the latter, one of my favourite sporting films is Moneyball, which chronicles the extraordinary run of the 2002 Oakland Athletics. The team was put together with the smallest budget in all baseball yet managed to win one of the greatest streaks in Major League Baseball history. This, with a team of rejects, misfits and otherwise discounted players.
The romance of such a team is highlighted in the film, but the team was put together by a hardnosed general manager for the most hardnosed of reasons: it was all they could afford. Yet they achieved something extraordinary. This same general manager, a man who had spent his life in the game, said at the conclusion of the streak, ‘It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball.’
Year 8 students from the Elsternwick Campus shared language analyses and annotations, entirely online
Throughout the past 10 weeks, since the last edition of Lion, I have seen the staff of Wesley College take the educational program on and off campus multiple times. I have participated in the first ever College Council meeting via Zoom and all subsequent meetings since have been virtual. I have chaired weekly College Executive meetings yet have only seen three members of College Executive in person. We may never go back to driving across town for a meeting. I have seen the campuses bereft of life. One day, when I came into the office, I saw precisely three people on the campus in the entire day.
Glen Waverley Campus students in the Wilkie Orchestra came together to perform ‘Wesley now and always’ in a virtual ensemble
I have seen teachers teaching from their garage, with a blackboard. I have seen virtual classes sharing notes in real time about how language works, classes where everyone introduced their pets, another where all wore onesies, yet another an item of Wesley uniform, some current, others historical. I participated in assemblies where I didn’t leave my office. I have seen members of the Wilkie Orchestra performing ‘Wesley now and always’ as a virtual ensemble, and student leaders encouraging their peers and teachers to share moments of gratitude while learning from home – made visible on a gigantic #wesisoinspo banner on our return to campus. I have had many parents wanting to donate money, so that other families struggling with the economic fallout of this pandemic do not have the education of their children compromised.
Student leaders from the St Kilda Road Campus invited their peers and staff to share moments of gratitude while learning from home – collected on a gigantic #wesisoinspo banner to welcome everyone back to the campus
It has been the most extraordinarily intense time. As the Principal of this great school, I am bursting with pride at how the staff and students of Wesley College managed, in the most extraordinary circumstances, not only to keep learning continuing, but also managing to foster the threads of community when they could so easily have frayed.
Perhaps this was given its most poignant expression at the virtual Founders’ Day Dinner, organised by the OWCA in May. We couldn’t gather together in person, but the Zoom event was a wonderful experience. My wife Elly and I dressed for the occasion in black tie but did not move from the couch. We were, no doubt, the most overdressed people in Clifton Hill that evening. OWs from all over the world joined, including some in Toronto at five in the morning! It was a Founders’ Day like no other.
As is traditional, I gave a short speech. Principal’s speeches at Founders’ Day are usually short, as they tend to interrupt the conviviality, and there is very little tolerance, in my experience, for such interruption. I was in the fortunate, and unique, position of being unaware of such lack of tolerance, as I was happily talking to a group of people scattered around Melbourne, the rest of Australia and the world. In my speech, amongst other things, I said I was less romantic about Wesley College than many other OWs because it has been my place of employment for so many years. But if there is one thing that the last few months have taught me, it is this:
It’s hard not to be romantic about Wesley College.
Nick Evans (OW1985)