Issue 42 • September 2019 • Record of Summer Term 2019
THE
OCELLUS From the Headmaster
The summer usually brings lots of cricket. This year we had a World Cup, and also the biennial contest for the Ashes. As I write, the England team has already been crowned cricket world champions, thanks in great measure to an extraordinary innings by Ben Stokes. The final day of the Third Test was also exciting, with more Stokes heroics. There have been calls for him to be knighted! It left me pondering about role models, and their value in our lives. My experience as a teacher is that schoolboys do often have role models, and they are very often sportsmen. I say schoolboys because I am not sure I have seen the same feelings about sporting role models in the girls I have taught. Perhaps with the growing success and profile of women’s sport that will change. On the field, these sporting heroes display great dedication and skill, take calculated risks, receive the applause of their team mates and the adulation of the crowd. This often comes with material rewards. There is a lot to admire and aspire to in all that. But we may hope that other character traits are held as being equally attractive. Michelle Obama has been hailed as a great role model specifically, but not only, for girls from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, an example of someone who can strive through adversity to great personal success, yet retain both grace and compassion. There are parallels with sporting heroes, in terms of dedication and, I suspect, risk-taking. But Michelle Obama manifests so many of the other aspects of character that we can admire. I mentioned her evident grace and compassion. Perhaps equally as important is her desire to pass on that sense of aspiration to others, to help others to grow. Sometimes we see in sporting heroes a tremendous ego. Some measure of ego is not to be derided; it is often the engine of success. The fault, I think, is when achievement is something purely selfish. We can think of a relay race. We receive the baton from those before us, we run, and we pass the baton on to those who follow. It is focused both on personal success and also on what we can bequeath. Michelle Obama’s autobiography ‘Becoming’ reflects this idea in a way that makes her a fine role model. She writes of ‘Becoming me, becoming us, and becoming more’. Front Page Photo: World Challenge Madagascar 2019
1