Commanding the narrative

In 1903, when Bishop Neligan first articulated an initiative that was to become Diocesan, he clearly had a concept of educating young women to equip them for life – such that societal expectations defined it at the time.

His commitment to providing quality schooling for girls was laudable. After all, while vastly ahead of most of their global peers, women in Aotearoa had only been able to vote for 10 years. At that time, some may have even remembered Kate Sheppard saying: “Do not think your single vote does not matter much. The rain that refreshes the parched ground is made up of single drops.” If a vote is commensurate with articulating political and social opinion, then it’s raining torrentially and with monsoon consistency at Dio at the moment. Different streams of political and social discourse flow through the School in the form of soapboxes, speeches, debates, mooting, ethics discussions, slam poetry and classroom interaction. They give voice to ideas, beliefs, arguments, and random semantic wrangles that prompt their protagonists to have an opinion, justify and defend it and, importantly, back down and reconsider it if it’s flawed.

Ella Riley is passionate about her involvement in ethics. Through her winning Soapbox interventions, which have been judged by teachers and her peers as considered, moving and compelling, she has managed to ruffle some feathers. Not that the New Zealand Council of Women had any problem when she presented her most recent intervention on sexual harassment. It was greeted with accolades.

“You see,” she explains, “sometimes making people feel just a little uncomfortable is a legitimate way of advancing a conversation. I’m not going out of my way to be controversial, but everything I say is about inviting conversation on topics that I feel incredibly passionate about. My overarching motive is to articulate my viewpoint in the hope to make a positive

Left: Old Girl Emma Sidnam (2017) was the guest speaker at this year’s Scholars’ Awards. Emma became interested in the genre of Slam Poetry at school, and she has gone on to become a member of the Wellington Feminist Poetry Club. She describes it as "as safe place to rage at the world”.

difference or at least to raise awareness of issues which I believe to be incredibly important.”

Ella’s honesty when addressing concerns that particularly interest her, lacks any degree of contrivance or calculation. She doesn’t dredge up random items of fashionable outrage or tick boxes relating to social and political awareness just for the sake of it; she can justify every opinion that she holds and she is proud of that. She is not virtue signalling, she’s putting her views into a public theatre and sitting on the side of the stage, keen to take any questions.

Ella is a thought leader in the flood of student opinion that now ebbs and flows into every corner of the School. It is on fliers in stairwells. It is in submissions to various student governing councils. It is integrated into tutor group discussions. It sends little ripples throughout the pools of conversation that groups of girls mull over in their break times. If girls like Ella are chafing against one thing, it’s ambivalence. For all the girls in this story, ambivalence isn’t a solution to anything.

Sarah-Rose Crofskey, Lauren Chee and Victoria Wright debate together as a team; very successfully given their progression through a fast-growing, highly competitive and prominent league that many secondary schools fight hard to dominate. These strong and articulate young women are repeat offenders when it comes to occupying the platforms offered to them at Dio to articulate their views. They debate, they occupy space on soapboxes, they are passionate about ethics and they all appear to view English lessons as a theatre for analytical sport in addition to the more traditional elements of lessons. Sarah-Rose is deeply dedicated to all areas of analytical discussion, taking any opportunity to argue or share an opinion, whether that is through debate, ethics Olympiads, or Model UN. She says being able to think about things critically and to walk around issues observing them from different perspectives avoids the perennial pitfall of getting stuck in a tedious and sometimes misleading echo chamber. Her view is that social and intellectual impairment is caused when people develop an aversion to actually discussing ideas.

Above: The finalists in the 2021 Soapbox Competition (L to R): Ella Riley (12NE), Amelia Avery (9RO), Siobhan Murphy (9SE), Eloise Voss (8MI), Shania Kumar (13ED), Alice Lott (7RO), Pascale Vincent (11NE), Alex Wackrow (11CO) and Lizzie Peters (11CO).

“Why,” she asks, “should we ever feel that the world should be seen through a two-way mirror that is black or white?” She adds: “It doesn’t sit comfortably with me when people express things simply for the sake of saying something or weighing in with a so-called opinion that mimics what has been dished up by social media as the right thing to say. I find myself asking: “What’s your actual opinion? Why do you hold that view? You have got to be able to justify it, defend it, extend it (her voice shifts a tone and she laughs) and concede when you’ve misconstrued something and need to rethink your own view.”

Victoria credits her deep dive into debating, Soapbox, and other platforms at Dio with a perennial interest in the motivation behind people putting their views on the line. She's interested in why they say it as much as what they say. She explains it simply: “I don’t read the sources involved with research for assignments anymore without asking myself what underpins the perspective I am supposed to accept as something approximating ‘truth.’ I want to know the incentive and the context."

She believes that developing her speaking skills has given her a newfound confidence. For example, in participating in an interview for an external academic competition in which she was invested, she said: “I was a little intimidated and then I simply thought – this is nothing that exceeds the comfort levels that debating has already broken wide open. They can throw anything at me. I’m up for it.”

Lauren is clearly an astute observer of her peers. She says: “Some people don’t want to be judged for their opinions because it can be quite confronting to put a standpoint on the table and then let people pore over it and dissect it. There need to be safe spaces where ideas can be tested and walked into the open.” She thinks Dio is pretty good when it comes to providing this context. Her concern is that when people follow a trite and ‘true’ safe story line, it’s not an accurate representation of what’s actually fermenting in the perceptions of young people. Lauren says it's critically important to analyse and investigate what sits behind the façade of news and views and articles. She’s not interested in what people think others want to hear – she wants to hear what they think.

These girls are not afraid of ideas, even those they do not like and do not agree with. And they don’t recoil at the prospect of being challenged to justify what they believe.

In this regard, it’s fair to say that you would take on Arielle Friedlander in an argument at your peril. She is an immensely successful speaker and it’s easy to see why, even in the course of a brief conversation. Her major concern in that girls tend to value safety and anonymity of opinion over freedom of expression. She contends that some of her peers don’t necessarily say what they actually think because they are scared of being cancelled or positioned on the wrong side of history. There are many issues about which Arielle can speak with incredible knowledge and lucidity. She notes that, when it comes to conversations that put ideological markers in the ground, she finds silence . . . deafening. This concerns her. Silence is rarely constructive. Silence occupies a vacuum that can fester. Arielle doesn’t like silence.

Arielle says she lives in a household where debate, disagreement and dissemination of information is served up as a side dish with every meal. She likes it that way. She’s untangling the patriarchy, working out the distance between political persiflage and actual policy consequence, and getting her head around big issues (she wants to study theology as an opening gambit to what is likely to be quite an extensive educational path). She is riding what she calls ‘a roller coaster of ideas’.

It starts early at Dio. Several years ago, Jane Hart started a junior speaking/debating club for girls interested in learning about debating, soapbox and all things argumentative. Her idea was that giving younger girls an onramp to speaking could get them habituated to the ‘sport’ before reaching a competitive league. Possibly, quite a number of parents wouldn’t thank her, but she makes no apology. Around 35 girls attend and they get to argue, observe and deconstruct current issues and understand how competitive debates and mooting work. Lucy Tucker helps run the club and she thinks there are two huge benefits. The first is that girls are often surprised and excited to discover that they can articulate things in a way that galvanises the attention of others. “They don’t know the power of speech until they make a room stand still and have people focus on their word," says Lucy. They look stunned when they realise that not only have people listened to them, but they have follow-up questions and are genuinely interested. They gain more confidence and capacity to project their views. The second thing is that they get used to being criticised in what is a safe and collaborative space. Lucy says: “In an era of carefully nuanced social engagement, it’s hard to say ‘I don’t agree’, ‘You’re wrong’, ‘You have not even considered the unintended consequences of what you say.’”

Lucy has watched the girls develop and she says it’s intriguing to see kids who start off sporadically and nervously standing up, becoming competitive, fluent, and determined to defend their arguments. Some of the quietest ones become most resolute and robust in their arguments. Lunchtime sessions are often concluded with Lucy saying, "OK everyone, this has been great but you need to park it now because, at the end of the day, it’s just a debate. Let’s leave it in the room.” Then she hears the debate proceed down the corridor and weave its way down the stairs. A little tributary of opinion flowing out into the open spaces.

One thing that all the girls speak about is the huge amount of support and assistance they get from teachers. The organisation, transportation, consultation, and genuine investment in activities – be they successful or not. Girls love it when they get into class and someone says: “How did you do? What worked and what didn’t?” They feel that there’s an entire team of teachers invested in them and they are grateful.

Bishop Neligan may be having quiet conniptions at some of the elements of subject matter colouring the tides that surge and subside through Dio. But, if he set out to have a group of smart women equipped for life, then he is, and will remain, on the right ledger of female empowerment.

In an era of fake news, disingenuous representation of ‘truth’, geopolitical jostling based around carefully crafted spin and algorithms that tow people down rabbit holes of rabid opinion, it’s rather refreshing to see that Dio is committed to openness of opinion.

Penny Tucker

Above: Senior soapbox winner Ella Riley. Right: Arielle Friedlander. Remaining silent just isn't an option for these talented Diocesan orators. And they're certainly not afraid of ideas.