Message from the Headmaster
‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’
Acts 20:35
Dear Students, Parents and Carers
Helping Shore Students to Live the Good Life
One of the signature features of contemporary culture is the strong desire to live the good life and to promote one’s wellbeing. This appears to be an aspect of the shift in our culture to hyper-individualism. Seeking this outcome is very much the holy grail of our times. What then is the good life, and how do we attain it? Should we seek it just in leisure, or in a more integrated life where work itself provides significance and meaning? As long as 40 years ago, social psychologist Ronald Conway, in his Land of the Long Weekend, typified Australians as tolerating work through gritted teeth and, essentially, living for the weekend or, its pinnacle, the long weekend. Is it healthy, one wonders, and likely to lead to happiness if our mindset consigns five days a week, 48 weeks a year to drudgery?
A paradox in our time is that the mega rich do not appear to be particularly happy but, rather, trapped in their wealth amidst turbulent lives. A hundred years ago, Gershwin captured this lyrically in his musical Porgy and Bess: “I got plenty of nothing, nothing’s plenty for me”. The concept was that wealth captured people in their anxiety of losing it. Simple pleasures were more satisfying and more likely to lead to contentment.
Much commentary around this concept of happiness is allied to thoughts of leisure, to work life balance and to “you do you”. This is a mindset which is very different from communal societies, most commonly found in Asian countries, where striving for the honour and advancement of the family, the “tribe” or the nation is to the fore.
An abundance of leisure in the Western world is a fairly recent phenomenon. Normally, leisure pursuits through past centuries have been the preserve of a small upper crust of landed gentry and aristocrats, who spent their time in socialising and hunting (men) or visiting, musical pursuits and balls (women). The novels of Jane Austen are a window into this society. The more minor male members (other than the first sons) had honourable pursuits either in the army or as members of the clergy. Ordinary people slaved in the fields, often to produce a subsistence living or, after the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, eked out a terrible existence in the “satanic mills” so evocatively described in the fiction of Charles Dickens, or in the mines. Children of the working class went to work in textile factories or in mines from as young as five years of age. Adolescence as an acknowledged phase did not exist. Leisure was an illusion.
This being the case, our civilisation has had little time to “land” what it means to be a teenager growing to adulthood amidst leisure, abundance and affluence which, in the past, would have been the preserve of Kings and Queens. How does one cope with leisure in a manner which actually builds into wellbeing? The well-known social commentator, Hugh Mackay, in his book The Good Life, argues strongly that “happiness” (which, needs definition), is a result of serving others rather than seeking it, as it were, in a vacuum. Happiness, thereby, is a derivative rather than what one may achieve as a top-level aim. This is the same message as Jesus gave, in quite simple terms: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
The New Testament concept centres on contentment, not happiness. Contentment is, essentially, a state of mind, grounded in a positive view of self, others and context. We may call it a “glass half full” attitude. It is more robust than happiness, which can be ephemeral and transient, bouncing around on the feelings and aspects of the situation of the moment. It is possible to be content while unhappy.
Perhaps, the “good life” can be a by-product of a life lived well, displaying characteristics consistent with such a life. A list of such attributes may well be “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness” (Galatians 5:22). So says the Apostle Paul. Indeed, these are the kinds of graces we want to encourage in our young men. Similarly, we want to give them productive experiences of curriculum which encourage wholesome and holistic thinking. One of our Executive Leadership Team members recently commented that another list from the Apostle Paul “whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Philippians 4:8) is a curriculum mandate that allows our students to experience excellence and greatness.
Building Good Men, one of our flagship programmes, digs deeply into developing men of character who will serve admirably and sacrificially. It seeks to do this through our pastoral system, our curriculum and our service learning programmes. It encourages the paradox that happiness is found not through focusing on oneself but in seeking to serve others and, to continue the image from above, to submit to excellence in curriculum and other programmes which are so powerful in shaping character. This is a window into Jesus’ statement, “I came to give life, in all its abundance” (John 10:10).
A number of senior staff were on hand last Friday evening to see one of our Shore teachers honoured (somewhat reluctantly, and to his embarrassment) by a major award for leadership in education. Mr Huw Blood, our foundation Head of Service Learning, was honoured by the peak professional body, the Australian Council for Educational Leadership (ACEL), in the presence of the Secretary of Education, Mr Murat Dizdar, and other official guests. The irony, perhaps, in this is that Mr Blood has sought no honours; rather, they have been conferred by others in respect of many of the virtues listed above. Humility, rather than aggrandisement, is the Shore way.
Dr John Collier
Headmaster