Dr Aric Sigman is a psychologist specialising in preserving mental and physical health in children and adolescents. Our paths have crossed in the past when I used to book him to give leavers’ talks at a previous prep school. Very powerful they were too, delivered in an affable and accessible way. The other day, a post from Dr Sigman caught my eye because it was describing an experience he had recently had at a cathedral choir school:
I was about to give a PSHE talk… when I became the victim of my own advice: that experiencing awe elevates the individual. I was bathed in the most beautiful choral singing by the pupils, of a standard normally reserved for world-class professional recordings, which sent tingles up my spine and changed my state of mind profoundly. From a scientific point of view, experiencing awe is found to induce more ‘pro-social’ behaviour. And in a media culture which encourages young people to big themselves up, experiencing awe shrinks them down to size. Or as one study put it, ‘across all these different elicitors of awe, we found the same sorts of effects — people felt smaller, less self-important, and behaved in a more pro-social fashion… By diminishing the emphasis on the individual self, awe may encourage people to forego strict self-interest to improve the welfare of others’. Great experiences of nature, the sky, art, music, religion and even science leave people with a sense of awe. In a world seemingly dominated by negative news and its attendant social media, we should take advantage of this.
Of course, it is crucial to learn to strike the right balance; not underestimating our self-worth whilst not overestimating our self-importance. As I have previously written about in the newsletter, having strong self-esteem - a strong sense of self-worth - is crucial to growing the boys' confidence, to them achieving the most of their potential, and to developing the capacity to be calmly assertive when required. Self-importance, when one feels one has greater worth than others, is anti-social in the most literal sense.
Reading Dr Sigman’s post, I was reminded once again of how lucky we are at Pilgrims’ to be surrounded by opportunities to experience awe; in our environment, our locality and our activities, and most particularly in this season. The School Carol Service has always been one of my absolute favourite occasions of the year, if not the favourite. It’s importance in the School’s calendar is two-fold: firstly, it is a unique opportunity to get the entire pupil, staff and parent body in one space, as well as numerous friends of the School; and secondly, with the whole community gathered, we get the chance to experience awe together. It never ceases to amaze me that, by early medieval times, there was such a sophisticated understanding of how the most astoundingly beautiful architecture could inter-play with the sound of the human voice, making it acoustically amplified and transcendent. Impelled to magnify the glory of God and to create spaces they felt were worthy of it and reflected it, our medieval forbears developed the technical understanding and manual skills to build them.
A unison rendition by the choristers of ‘Away in a Manger’ at the lighting of the cathedral Christmas tree on Tuesday gave me just such an awe-some experience. Sung at the West End, it soared ethereally through the vaulting, all 169 metres of it. Ironically, I suspect most of the boys thought nothing of it at all! Those verses were a small taste of what awaits us all at the Carol Service, and I really do hope that at this occasion there is some very active thinking and reflection: I encourage us all to soak up the sense of both immense pride in all our boys and in the community they – and we – are a part of, and the sense of what Aric Sigman calls ‘diminishing the emphasis on the individual self’. To experience this simultaneously with the message of love and humility within the Christmas story only serves to make it all the more special.
We work hard at Pilgrims’ to send a strong message to the boys to be community minded, to think of and serve others, to be humble in whatever achievements they attain, and to applaud others’ success in all its forms. How lucky we are to have such occasions as the Carol Service to support such messages. How lucky we are to have a chance to be awestruck.
Tim Butcher
Headmaster