Head's Blog | Rocking the boat | Embley School, Hampshire

Well how time flies. It seems like no time at all since our last Speech Day and last Friday I turned again to look back on a year that has been momentous and special. Tolstoy begins ‘Anna Karenina’ with the observation that all happy families are happy for similar reasons, while unhappy families are unhappy for reasons particular to them. I’m not sure I agree. I do know that Embley is a happy family for reasons that were clear on Friday last and some of which are set out here.

I explained to the audience that I never read from a script but that on Speech Day I break this self-imposed condition. Why? Because I am so disturbed by the fear of leaving someone or something out, I’m playing safe. Not rocking the boat so to speak. But I wonder if this is necessarily a good thing? We were all richly entertained by the performances in Guys and Dolls and in particular with a splendid rendition of that classic, ‘Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat’ …but as a course of action, as a way of life, I wonder if it is reasonable, right or fair? Or is there a time and place where the only option is to rock the boat, that in the service of a higher good rocking the boat is what we need, even if it is not entirely what we want?
 
What we witnessed last Friday was the tip of an iceberg. For every child who crossed the stage there are so many others who have achieved personal bests, improved performance, taken risks and made progress against the only metric really worth holding on to: they have become better at being the best version of themselves. 
 
But what about this rocking the boat business? I don’t want to be a prophet of gloom or disruption. Goodness knows that as Head of an independent school in this day and age, calm waters and the gentle progress of the boat are longed for... but! Is that what we are about? Is languorous lounging what defines Embley and our approach? 
 
What is the business of Embley? If we are to create Renaissance humans capable of being ambitious for themselves, confident in the content of their character and compassionate to others - regardless of our wish or want - isn’t there a categorical imperative resting on us? Remarks such as these really get the deontologists going, but maybe they have a reason to be exercised? 
 
Is it our business to go about creating self-satisfied homogeneous ‘yes’ people who go with the flow? Or do we dare to rock the boat? Is it our business to ignore questions because they are too difficult, too hard, too long or intractable or don’t have immediate answers? Is it our business to take an easy line and the path much travelled for fear of rocking the boat? 
 
Is it our business to entertain the rebarbative rhetoric of reductionism pedalled by vacuous self- regarding social echo chambers? Or to join a conspiracy of silence and not break ranks for fear of rocking the boat? Is it our business to turn away from the iconography of ignorance that seems to issue forth from places once held in esteem but now intent on not rocking the boat? 
 
Speech Day and all that it stands for - the performances; the recitals; the accounts of what the children have been up to on and off fields, in and out of classrooms, within school and without - illustrate what we are about.
 
Our business is the formation of Renaissance individuals; capable navigators in a world of change oriented to values old and made new by virtue of their experience. Through being made purposefully uncomfortable they have a deeper sense of themselves and an understanding that their happiness will come from an ambition to be authentic, a confidence in their capacities and a collective understanding that we are stronger together than apart, that more unites us than not and the world will be a better place for their being in it. 
 
They are oriented to a direction that seeks to make the world a better place. While it is their rowing with conviction that moves the boat and their compassion, belief and ambition that makes the boat go faster, it is their rowing against convention and the prevailing zeitgeist, their authenticity and their principled positioning that rocks the boat. I hope you have a lovely Summer.