HEADMASTER’S SPEECH DAY ADDRESS 2015
Distinguished guests, members of the School Council, parents, staff and boys of The Southport School, it is my great pleasure to address you this Speech Day, the final academic day of the 115th year of The Southport School. INTRODUCTION – THE MOVIE
In the July holidays I watched the film American Sniper, the true story of Chris Kyle during the Iraq War. He was the most prolific sniper in United States military history. American Sniper had plenty of ‘blokesy’ shooting and fighting and dark humour, but in the end I found it more depressing than uplifting. It is definitely an anti-war movie when you see the effects of the war on Chris Kyle and his family, and the SEAL colleagues he fought alongside. American Sniper was nominated for six Oscars and has become the highest-grossing war movie ever, overtaking Saving Private Ryan. After watching the movie and later reading the book Chris Kyle co-wrote, I thought the story contained a number of good Speech Day themes such as leadership as influence, hope, understanding others, and proactively improving mental health. All those themes are interrelated, but I think ‘hope’ is the main one we need to emphasise to our boys, and to each other, given the global events of 2015.
GREG WAIN
Headmaster
Actually, I was reminded why all those themes are important recently when Fr Jonathan asked me to talk to the weekly Chapels about how I was called to this vocation. (The boys in Chapel got momentarily excited when they thought I was going to talk about a vacation…) My vocation, teaching, and later being a leader in a school, has much to do with a goodhearted but somewhat misfortunate fellow, Les, with whom I worked when I was a jackeroo. When I met Les he was recently out of gaol, for the second time, and I gave him a hand writing his regular letter back to his probation officer in Sydney. As I gained his trust and he told me his story I started to wonder how he had ended up that way, and then I started thinking about what experiences he could have had that might have sent him on a more productive and happier path, and how could society be changed and schools be changed to help children and young adults develop to be the best they could be. I am still engaged in that problem-solving exercise, reflecting on the ups and downs of the lives of TSS boys, researching adolescent development, and pondering the lives of people outside TSS like Chris Kyle. Our aim is to prepare our boys for their greatest frontier – their journey in life – by kitting them out with a backpack containing the skills, habits, experiences and capabilities to help them succeed on that journey. CHRIS KYLE – SEAL
Chris Kyle was a Navy SEAL, a commando trained in special operations. SEAL stands for Sea, Air and Land warfare. It is the equivalent of our SAS (Special Air Services). Not many
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THE SOUTHPORT SCHOOL SOUTHPORTONIAN 2015
