Great Stories - from THE QUAD

From the Chaplain’s Pen. “GREAT STORIES”

As you read this you will no doubt be facing the pressures of the Christmas season. Families and friends will gather together, holidays will be planned, and there will be much to celebrate. Most of us will be glad to have a real break after a demanding and challenging year at Scots.
Not all that we experience at school is of a happy nature, however. There are tough lessons to be learned. Academic and sporting successes and failures we cope with - there are always opportunities to try again. It is in the area of emotional and social literacy that many of our students and families often struggle. Our high-tech children are sometimes low-tech in terms of their ability to co-exist with people of other backgrounds, cultures, religions, and points of view. Much time needs to be spent in working on conflict resolution, changing unkind behaviour, and dealing with experiences that score very low on the achievement scale of decency. And of course our children have to live with themselves as they journey towards an adult understanding of their meaning and purpose in life.
Schools have to spend more and more time and energy today on building social and emotional health. Students today have high levels of stress, and need good ways of processing this.
A simple solution? Perhaps create more time to talk, share, and listen together as families and as a school community. Those little boys at the gates of school are suddenly gone, and parents and teachers easily miss most important opportunities of sharing our life stories.
The Christmas story, like other significant stories, brings back memories of the warmth and joy of our own childhoods. It also tells of a God-event in which the Divine meets us in the very ordinary. In this story God affirms our world with its human dramas.
Our national, cultural, and personal stories all matter. Our children’s stories are also so different from ours. We need to hear each other.
My prayer is this: whatever challenges we face, may the outcomes of our life-stories be worthy of honour and retelling. May our students’ stories at school and at home have the very best of endings.