Thought for the Term: Care

Ask any of the more disgruntled members of our society, and they’ll tell you that “kids these days just don’t care”. They attach this to family, the community, the climate, the future, anything really.

I’ve always felt this to be an unfair comment, and every young adult that I’ve been in contact with has always blown me away with the breadth and depth of their care for various aspects of the world. My form and I conducted an experiment last week, where everyone wrote down the defining moments of their life so far, and the things they’d like to happen in their future. We had aspiring businessmen, sportsmen, artists and fathers. We looked forward to academic success, happiness and adventures of all sorts. The boys consistently defined their lives by family, pets and the hardships they had overcome. How can anyone say that these young men didn’t care?

Even when I was a student myself, there were those people that acted “too cool for school”, as though appearing to care about something was embarrassing. And whilst many of you may recognise this behaviour in your peers and colleagues, I have always found this to be an act of self-preservation, of vulnerability.

Year 12 this week had an assembly about failure, which seems very relevant. After all, if you fail at something you seemingly didn’t care about, it makes it easier to deal with. However, to anyone who is worried about failure, I offer this one piece of advice: Nothing amazing ever happens by accident. Our failures set us up for future success and succeeding in something you care about, is honestly the best feeling in the world.

The range of things that my form cared about is proof of the incredible diversity of people on this planet. They shared with me the many things that make them interesting, unique and wonderful.

And so, this term, I challenge you to remind your friends and disgruntled acquaintances, ‘it’s cool to care’.

Erin Collins
Geography, St Birinus School