Last week, I had a fascinating conversation with another staff member about what we are actually trying to achieve with our senior school students. After some conversation and reflection, I said, “I would love for us to shape good people who do good things.”

That cuts to the core of what I believe our purpose is in Senior School. I am sure you share the desire for your child to become someone who wants to be a good person who lives a happy and fruitful life, one that benefits not only themselves but also the people around them.

Recently, I came across two very different thinkers whose ideas connected in a way that made me reflect further on what we are trying to achieve with our senior students.

The first was Dr Iain McGilchrist, a highly respected British psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher and author. His background is quite remarkable. He has been at Fellow of All Souls College in Oxford, a neuroimaging researcher at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, and a consultant psychiatrist and clinical director at two of London’s leading psychiatric hospitals. 

McGilchrist has spent much of his career studying the two hemispheres of the brain. His argument is not the old idea that some people are “left-brained” and logical, while others are “right-brained” and creative. The reality is much more interesting.

He suggests that the two hemispheres help us pay attention to the world in different ways.

The left hemisphere tends to narrow our focus. It helps us analyse, categorise, measure and solve problems. It is tremendously useful when a student is working through a difficult equation, constructing an argument, learning a scientific process or preparing carefully for an assessment.

The right hemisphere helps us step back and see the whole picture. It helps us recognise relationships, understand context, appreciate beauty and experience awe and wonder. It encourages us to ask not only, “How does this work?” but also, “What does this mean?” and “Why does it matter?”

Our students need both.

Our modern world, particularly through social media and the pursuit of instant gratification, often focuses only on what is immediately in front of us. It encourages us to find the fastest shortcut to achieving our short-term goals. This can leave many young people feeling empty, as though life has become little more than a box-ticking exercise.

We certainly want our students to develop strong analytical skills. We want them to work accurately, think critically, meet deadlines and produce their best possible work. However, we do not want education to become nothing more than a list of tasks to complete and results to collect.

In the busyness of senior schooling, it is easy for young people to become so focused on the next deadline that they lose sight of the bigger picture. Education should also awaken curiosity. It should help students notice beauty, wrestle with worthwhile questions, understand other people, discover the particular gifts God has placed within them and consider how they might use those gifts to make a difference in the world.

The second idea, which made a considerable impression on me, came from entrepreneur Alex Hormozi. He described an activity in which people were given blocks and asked to build the tallest tower they could.

If they had only a few seconds, they immediately stacked the blocks as high as possible. The tower might look impressive, but it was usually unstable and could fall with the slightest bump.

Then the question changed: what if you had five years to build the tower?

Suddenly, everyone thought differently. They began talking about the foundation. They considered how much future weight the tower would need to carry. They realised that the quickest way to create something tall was not necessarily the best way to build something lasting.

I think this is a powerful picture for our senior students. We do not want them to build only for the short term. We want them to create lives that will stand the test of time.

If the aim is simply to get through Friday’s deadline, it can be tempting to cram, rush, take shortcuts or depend too heavily on someone else, or perhaps on artificial intelligence, to do the thinking. The immediate task may be completed, but very little has been added to the foundation.

If students understand that they are building towards the people they hope to become in five or ten years, their approach begins to change.

Learning how to study when they do not feel motivated is part of the foundation. So is asking for help, accepting feedback, recovering from disappointment and trying again. Developing integrity, treating people well, remaining curious and learning to think independently are all part of that foundation.

A strong future is rarely built through one spectacular achievement. More often, it is built quietly through hundreds of small decisions: completing the difficult task, putting the phone away, listening carefully, asking the extra question, practising again, learning to make wise decisions and choosing not to take the easy shortcut.

As teachers and parents, we sometimes need to resist the urge to focus only on the height of the tower. Results matter, but we must also pay attention to what is happening underneath them.

Are our young people becoming resilient? Are they developing genuine knowledge and skill? Can they analyse a problem without losing sight of the person involved? Can they use technology without allowing it to replace their own thinking? Are they still capable of wonder? Are they becoming people of wisdom, compassion, courage and faith?

These qualities may not always appear on a report card, but they will carry enormous weight in the years ahead.

Our goal is not merely to help students build impressive towers as quickly as possible. It is to help them build lives that are strong enough to carry the opportunities, responsibilities and inevitable challenges of their future.

That requires careful thinking and disciplined effort. It also requires imagination, relationships, faith, curiosity and wonder.

We want our students to build high, but even more importantly, we want them to build well.

Thank you for partnering with us as we seek to shape young people who will be a blessing to others, both now and into the future.

Bert Kasselman, Head of Senior School