Professor The Honourable Dame Marie Bashir

“While at The University of Sydney I lived on campus at The Women’s College. The college principal was from England and had an academic background. During the Second World War she had served in the Royal Navy. After discharge from the Navy, she came to Australia – Miss Betty Archdale. She knew everything about the students and remembered detail. She too became a mentor, inspirational in an incredible way. Later she went on to be an impressive Headmistress at Abbotsleigh.

“On completion of my degree, I was very fortunate to be allocated to St Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst – all the young male doctors wanted to work at this hospital because of the opportunities to do surgery. You saw and treated everyone; the poor and the homeless from King’s Cross and those experiencing life’s difficulties. As doctors, it was a time of full commitment; it was dramatic, and in fact hard to leave at the end of a shift. I later went on to work at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in Camperdown, with extraordinary paediatric mentors such as the Sir Lorimer Dods.

“While I was at university I met a well known rugby player, the Australian Wallabies Captain Nicholas Shehadie who had just returned from playing with the Australian team in South Africa. I had no interest in sport. South Africa then was the heart of apartheid, and thus I had a political view on the tour. However three years later we married. I went to work in general practice and I had three children.

“My interest in treatment and concern about the use of high doses of tranquillisers, particularly for young people suffering from mental ill health, led me to study psychiatry. After completing this post graduate course, I was asked to open an Adolescent Unit at Broughton Hall Clinic Rozelle, where we had wonderful teachers for young people, so that they could keep up their education and associated interests during treatment. The teachers in that unit were special
and caring.

“Years later, when my husband became Lord Mayor of Sydney, we were hosting guests from the then Soviet Union. Travelling along the Parramatta River on our way to Rosehill Races, our guest enquired about a magnificent building, which we had passed on our way. I said I didn’t know about its function but would investigate. I then discovered it was the Thomas Walker Convalescent Hospital in Concord and it was closing down. A Japanese investor was looking to purchase it because it was adjacent to a golf course. I thought that we desperately needed such a fine location as a school for children with special needs and with depression. It was an excellent location where we could nurse them back to health. I felt it was important to have education and health care together in one unit. We acquired the building, it became Rivendell, a name the children drew from their reading of The Hobbit.

“I believe teachers are in a privileged position and can positively influence their students by being warm, believable, trustworthy and kind but also have expectations that students do their very best. With caring support, it can bring about great results. Children need to talk about all the issues that concern them, for example about traumatic news they’ve seen on television or the Internet, issues about pollution and their future, guns and shootings. Encouragement can lift children’s confidence especially if they think they are ‘dumb at maths’ or ‘not able to understand science’. We need to talk about these things and together we can overcome those perceptions.

“I think about Nelson Mandela, whom I consider to be one of the finest leaders ever. He said: ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’.

“I applaud our education system both in government and non government schools, including the increased cultural richness, music, drama, literature and the arts, that has been infused into our students’ education in Australia. I observe my six grandchildren, one is already a teacher and another in his final year of education; they effuse warmth, trust and knowledge and I can see they have the essence of fine teachers.

“I believe that no matter where we are working, or whatever we do, we all have a responsibility to teach and nurture young people so that we can help them realise their potential and go on to make a contribution.”