Howard merely rephrased Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) who stated:ĭo not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best. I encourage our students to be lions and not sheep, strong and courageous with confidence that cannot be shaken by someone cowardly and easily influenced by those around them.It seems Mr. He also is aware of how weak and cowardly the sheep actually is. A lion knows that he is stronger than the sheep, however he only uses his strength when completely necessary. A lion sees a sheep as nothing more than a meal he does not value its opinion and does not allow the sheep to affect him. On the other hand, sheep are often portrayed as dumb, cowardly and followers of the flock. Lions are symbols of courage and strength, whilst being aware of their tremendous strength they are also capable of being gentle and loving. To lose sleep over something means that it is significantly impacting or affecting you, however why should someone who we are stronger than, (both mentally and physically), be able to have this affect on us? We shouldn’t give them this type of power. However, how, in a peer situation, can students determine where they are in the food chain? Personally, I feel this quote means more than just that. On a very basic level you could interpret it to mean that when someone is beneath you in the food chain then you shouldn’t care what they think. It does however, lead to the question, “what does it actually mean?”
The initial response I get is often one of incomprehension which is understandable. I have used this quote a few times recently when mentoring Stage 4 to assist in building resilience in life. For me it comes back to one of my favourite quotes, “A lion never loses sleep over the opinion of a sheep”, (attributed to early AD poet and writer, Imam Al-Shafi’i). However sometimes we need to not let the petty comments of those who we don’t classify as close friends hurt us. In our lives we are surrounded by peers and colleagues, some of whom we become really close to and some who we will see as acquaintances rather than friends. The people who tend to hurt us the most are those we care about the most. In order to ensure we have a safe and supportive environment we also need to be supportive of each other regardless of whether we see people as close friends or not. Sometimes one of the hardest things to say is, “I’m sorry, I stuffed up!”, but once students are able to say that instead of ignoring or denying their actions, then we are one step closer to learning from our mistakes and in turn, creating a supportive environment. We can only learn from our mistakes once we have acknowledged that we actually made a mistake to begin with.
All mistakes are an opportunity to learn and it has been said that failure is a more effective teacher than success. However, we need to ensure that regardless of the intent of their behaviour or actions they acknowledge what they have done and what could have been done differently. Teenagers have crazy amounts of hormones pumping through their bodies and often act on impulse, sometimes feeling they have no control over their actions. I feel the first and most important step is to help our students understand the importance of recognising, acknowledging and owning their own behaviour. The question can then be asked, how can we support our students in creating this type of environment and support them in dealing with issues which may arise with their peers or within their friendship groups? This doesn’t just mean on the football pitch, tennis court and in the classroom but extends to the wider IFS community. Our aim at IFS is to create a supportive and safe environment for all. Unfortunately, not everyone has been brought up with the same morals, values and ideologies, therefore creating a society with varying opinions as to what is acceptable behaviour. Throughout life our students are guaranteed to encounter peers and colleagues that may be rude, unkind or disrespectful.
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