Before the ancient Sumerians first put marks to clay tablets, there was – as far as we are aware – exclusively an oral culture of human information. Since the very earliest times of linguistic communication, our ancestors told stories to communicate vital knowledge and vital truths around the campfire. These were key to imparting lessons to promote survival, millennia later finding a more recent iteration as fairy tales. (“No, Little Red Riding Hood, don’t stop to talk to predatory strangers asking personal questions, otherwise you could end up in grave danger.”)
Stories stay with us. That’s their point. We’re attuned to the narrative form. A little while ago, I commented on the importance of words and reflected on what we might call ‘The parable of the fridge picture’. This reminded us of the impact parents can have on their child’s sense of where – specifically – their own value lies: is it in what they can achieve or in who they are? Having touched on self-esteem previously, this week I tweaked this towards ‘self-story’, a colloquialism that has been adopted to describe the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. It is remarkable how powerful this is in our overall mental makeup. And, of course, where does it have its origins? In those formative childhood years and often, initially, from the stories others tell us about ourselves which we then adopt, as if they are immutable: ‘I find maths really hard’; ‘I’m just a bit of a naughty boy’; ‘I’m rubbish at sport’…
This week and next, our Year 6s have been undertaking their ISEB pre-tests and those that have now completed them have conducted themselves wonderfully well. It is worth reflecting on the fact that both ISEB and the senior schools never disclose the scores that the boys attain to their parents. This performs a vital editorial function in the individual boy’s self-story and one that parents should use advisedly. Essentially, there is no ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ in this context. There are a number of factors at play as to whether offers of interviews and, subsequently, places emerge: one has no idea how many applicants a particular school has in a particular year, or how the others have fared. But both factors clearly influence whether or not a boy ultimately secures that offer. We must always observe that there are factors in life within our control, and there are factors in life without it. What matters is that we do our utmost with what we can control. If the parents and teachers of a boy can be assured that this is what he has done, then that is what matters, and their input into his oh-so-delicate self-story should be commensurately filled with pride and praise. Whatever the outcome.
As we look to mark Remembrance tomorrow, I will have just delivered a one-off assembly to the boys ahead of this newsletter coming out. (This year, a focus on the first World War; next year the second World War; the year after, other conflicts.) I will have explained to them the power of the narratives that drew hundreds of thousands of young men to volunteer to fight ‘for king and country’. We will have considered how the worth of an individual human life is so very hard to multiply into the millions when considering the total number of those who gave their lives on all sides. It is, quite literally, un-thinkable. Sometimes it takes a catastrophe to distil what really matters in life and to highlight that to which we turn to express our humanity when its very foundations are threatened. And many of these have appeared as touch points in the assemblies and newsletters so far this term. Love and security. Valuing each other. A sense of one’s own worth. Connection and relationships. Community. The importance of music and song, words (such as in war poetry), artistic expression… It is when the boys are truly in touch with these sentiments that the work of character development strikes gold. And I am genuinely proud of the rich vein that I see running through our boys.
Tim Butcher
Headmaster
