“I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be ‘happy’. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.”
Leo Rosten
It is a fairly well-known concept that a week is a long time in politics. For a number of British politicians and indeed a member of the Royal Family, I suspect that the past week has felt like several decades. I’m not sure that politics and schools are a fantastic mix so I’m going to tread carefully from here on in but there is a point worth making.
Recent revelations regarding a convicted paedophile and the wide network of powerful individuals have shocked or perhaps confirmed our very worst suspicions about the greed and thoughtlessness of human beings. A lack of regard for others has been at the core of what we have read. Criminals have been exposed, but what has, perhaps, been most breathtaking is the casual disregard shown by so many who thought that they had something to gain by continuing with their friendship with a person so corrupted for their own benefit.
A life in public service is a far from easy choice. We should hold those who are elected to the highest standards and I’m sure the temptations are many. Those who represent us must be held to account when they don’t meet our expectations regarding the maintenance and direction of their moral compass. All this while under the pressure of public life.
It is perhaps unsurprising that I wonder how we prepare young people to go into public service or indeed take their place in the world. It is easy for us to focus on knowledge, but we also have a responsibility to help young people develop their own moral compass. We should provide the opportunity for them to develop a capacity to act with compassion, empathy and eventually be successful. What that looks like will be different for each pupil, but I do believe that there are certain values that we all hold in common. It is a school’s job to promote these ideas so that pupils can act in a way that is to the benefit of all. We may not always succeed, but we have an obligation to expose young people to think how they can use their talents to benefit not only themselves but others.
Schools are generators of hope. Our school will produce leaders, thinkers, influencers. I see, each day, remarkable young people and I hope that we provide a framework in which they can develop, they can learn from their mistakes and develop their own way of doing the right thing. What a hope it is to believe that our young people will go on to lead their communities in a more ethically focused manner. Let’s face it, we could do with this in our troubled, misguided world.
