I’ll confess. I found the first Future Leaders summer
residential really tough. There were some really bloomin’ clever people who I
didn’t always agree with and bag-loads of self-reflection (which for an
over-thinker like myself has the tendency to make me somewhat morose). Perhaps made
more acute because I was knackered at the end of the academic year, I found it
a challenge both mentally and emotionally.
It’s taken a good eight weeks to digest and consolidate, and
several drafts of this rather rubbish blog, but what has come out of it, more positively,
is the crystallisation of what I value in schools and the values I will live
when, one day, I become a Head.
It was the second day. We’d been given a bank of the kind of
terms you see plastered over school letterheads – Aspiration. Learning. Achievement. Kindness. Fairness. – and asked
to highlight our values. The ones we’d hang our hat on. The ones that would be the
core drivers in our future schools.
None were quite doing the job. There was a niggling internal
voice of disquiet at the genericism being being presented to us. And then I saw
it: pride.
I’d discounted it at first. Initially, it spoke of
Othello-like hubris. Of arrogance. Of some of the more bullish behaviours
demonstrated by one or two participants on the course itself. But then slowly
it shifted in my mind into rainbow celebrations. Mining strikes. Pupils
clutching GCSE certificates.
What I want for every child, adult, and community I work for
is a secure belief in who they are, pride in the many places they have come
from, and the amazing possibilities they are heading to. I want to help grow bravery
and self-confidence in a world where tone policing is still rife if you are
female, BAME or LGBTQ so that individuals and groups can own the achievements
they have worked for.
The word reminded me of the brilliant Jaz Ampaw-Farr speaking
at the PiXL main meeting this June. She ended by stating with absolute
certainty: ‘I am powerful because I know my own value’.
Hers is self-assuredness that hasn’t come from mimicking
public school behaviours or being given access to a rowing club. Or even
donning a blazer. It’s a deep sense of self-worth that stems from ownership of
her own personal story. She is the Delphic maxim ‘Know thyself’ brought to
life.
‘Knowing others
is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom’
-
inscribed
at Temple of Apollo at Delphi and attributed to Socrates
So, to begin to feel such pride you have to first fashion
together a coherent sense of your own identity and I for one – despite my
pretty linear personal history – will never underestimate how difficult this
can be.
In ‘The Colossus’, Plath says “I shall never get you put
together entirely,/Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.” As a teenager I
misread this line, seeing it as Plath musing on her own sense of self rather
than her perceptions of her father. Even now, it perfectly sums up to me the
confusion that stems from the seemingly simple concept of ‘who you are’. My undergraduate
dissertation was rather pompously titled ‘The subject always asks ‘What am I?’
after a line in a Helene Cixous text and I reckon I’m still asking that question
at the ripe old age of thirty-five.
But what if your experiences and background aren’t linear? What
if your experiences of the world are complex, fractured, multifarious? How then
do you make sense of the jumbling pieces of yourself in order to craft
something coherent?
I am lucky enough to teach both pupils who grew up on
different continents, who have lived in many different contexts, and who speak
several languages as well as, conversely, pupils whose roots and experiences
are encapsulated by the couple of mile square catchment of our school. As such,
many of our pupils are members of groups with values very different from the
wider culture they now find themselves part of. It is our duty to show
these young people that these rich personal identities have the power to become
their greatest asset and strength.
As educators, our school culture, our curriculum and the
pastoral support we give has the power to help pupils stitch together what can
appear disparate facets of their lives and experiences. We can do this by
filling in knowledge gaps related to geography and history. We can do this by
shining a light on the structures of power and class they find themselves in.
We can physically bring together the home and school as well as taking pupils
out into the wider world to let them see it all for themselves. We can do this
by telling them stories which will enable them to grow into adults who are able
to confidently write and tell the story of themselves.
Later on Twitter, Jaz rightly proposed “We can define our own
identity but belonging requires agreement from the group.” Schools are surely
one of the most powerful of all groups you can join. As a Head, I want to
create a school culture in which every single child, teacher, parent, and community
member feels powerfully that they belong. Daniel Pink says that “when people join groups where change seems
possible, the potential for that change to occur becomes more real.” And I
really do believe that through the schools we create we can positively change
lives.
So, with just a couple of weeks to go until the next Future
Leaders residential, I am feeling less knackered, more optimistic, and well up
for the next challenge. And when I get asked the question about my values again
I won’t need to look down at the list of words on the paper in front of me. I’ll
be able to answer with my head held high: pride.
