2016-09-05
Ms SPRINGLE (South Eastern Metropolitan) — My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Education. One of the key questions for our time — indeed for any time — is how we can best foster a society of trust, respect and cooperation. Victoria's model of multiculturalism is perhaps the best of the world's most successful models, though of course there are always improvements to be made and it does face some significant contemporary challenges. It is incumbent on governments everywhere to find and fund innovative models that can help us meet those challenges.
Margaret Hepworth is an experienced educator and the founder of the Gandhi Experiment. She is also the director of peace education for Initiatives of Change and was awarded the 2016 Sir John Monash Award for inspirational women's leadership. Margaret has two new programs which seem especially suited to contemporary times. One is the Thriving Teens project, which adapts ideas from critical thinking, positive psychology, multiple intelligences and parallel thinking approaches to an education setting.
Thriving Teens is not just aimed at adolescents; it also involves teachers and parents in a project aimed at reducing the levels of bullying and family violence, improving deradicalisation efforts and building social cohesion through developing greater understanding of self and others. The project recognises that racism, fear, hate and marginalisation are harmful to both individuals and society and aims to address the root causes of those destructive symptoms. The Thriving Teens project will begin its first year in four schools and/or youth organisations and aims to expand to 16 schools in its fourth year. The project also aims to run additional training sessions for teachers off site and includes a systematic evaluation tool to measure its progress and value.
Margaret's other project is Collaborative Debating, which replaces the traditional negative team with a cooperative team. Instead of being scored, judged or rated, Collaborative Debating participants speak in a room filled with respect and build on each other's work rather than detracting from it. Collaborative Debating is ultimately aimed at problem-solving rather than pointscoring, which is what adversarial settings too often foster. Indeed observing the rancorous displays in this chamber over recent months, I expect that we could all learn very much from a Collaborative Debating approach to public policy decision-making.
What I am asking the minister to do is meet with Margaret Hepworth in order to discuss both her Thriving Teens project and her Collaborative Debating project with a view to identifying any opportunities for those projects in Victoria's education system.