1. Choosing Discomfort Erica McWilliam Alliance of Girls’ Schools (Australasia) 2012 Conference Melbourne Girls Grammar School 25 – 27 May 2012

2. Alexandra David-Neel

3. Beatrix Bulstrode

4. Hester Stanhope

5. Mary Wortley-Montagu

6. Mary Kingsley

7. The blessings of a good thick skin?

8. Alice Nicklin and the Quetta 1890

9. Australia 50 Years On women working; women speaking their mind; a far freer use of swearwords; calling the boss by his or her first name; couples living together before marriage; 24/7 shopping; use of terms like 24/7; acceptance, even celebration of openly gay relationships; the admonition of church and corporate leaders; deference to minority communities (eg, ‘welcome to country’ rituals); tolerance of graffiti; sexual images used in advertising, newspapers and television; children telling their parents what they want; more praise than discipline. Bernard Salt, The Big Tilt (2010)

10. Retreat from Difficulty “Difficulty has become repugnant because it denies entitlement, disenchants potential, limits mobility and flexibility, delays gratification, distracts from distraction and demands responsibility, commitment, attention and thought.” Michael Foley: The Age of Absurdity (2010)

11. ‘Every eye on me...’ “Raised on a diet of constant reinforcement and told we could do anything....and our teachers showered us with unjustifiable praise” (Good Weekend Magazine, 12/11/2011, p.13) “ In kindergarten I won an award for tying my shoelaces a week later than everyone else; in year 7 I won a ribbon for not finishing a cross- country run ”. (ibid)

13. ‘Every eye on me...’ “We have found little to indicate that indiscriminately promoting self-esteem in today’s children or adults, just for being themselves, offers society any compensatory benefits beyond the seductive pleasure it brings to those engaged in the exercise.” Baumeister et al, 2005

14. Research Messages “A bizarre disconnect between perceived self-worth and provable skill’ “No correlation between how people feel about themselves and how they perform.” “Self-efficacy does not come from compliments, or being spared failure. It comes from evidence of achievement.” “Self-control predicts all those things researchers had hoped self-esteem would, but hasn’t.”

15. Self-managers with powerful learning portfolios will trump those who rely solely on test results and credentials.

16. Data Transformation: the 4 Vs VolumeVarietyVelocityVeracity

17. Cultural Transformations: The 4 CsConnectedness Change in the Workplace (Generational) Cheeky Power Plays - Cheeky Power Plays - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo Can I trust you?

18. Global Labour Markets High end personal services High end impersonal services Low end personal services Low end impersonal services

19. Knowledge Creators are the only people whose jobs cannot be outsourced.

20. Agile Alumni

21. Skilled in and beyond one discipline Highly literate and numerate Confident in their capacity to learn Risk-taking - welcoming error & complexity Relentlessly curious Creative, imaginative Team-oriented, collaborating Techno-savvy – able to apply tools to higher order thinking Self-starting, self-managing, self-critical, self-evaluating

22. Epistemological agility The capacity for moving seamlessly across disparate and newly emergent knowledge domains in ways that make for better living, learning and earning. An eagerness to engage the unknown and a capacity to tolerate the discomfort of the unfamiliar and the not yet.

23. Mary Russell, The Blessings of a Good Thick Skirt, 1994 ‘Propelled by courage and curiosity, informed by the memory of those who preceded them, women travellers will continue to spin off out of the orbit of the mundane to claim the destiny they have had some hand in shaping.” Mary Russell, The Blessings of a Good Thick Skirt, 1994

24. Email: e.mcwilliam@qut.edu.au Website: http://www.ericamcwilliam.com.au/