Role models

Sometimes we look in the wrong places for role models. For most of us the choice begins with what we see on TV. Students and most teachers as well are bombarded with a media that tells us who to admire with the hideous circular logic of advertising.

I‘m telling you what to buy, eat, wear, think – therefore I must be important and have your respect.  They have a cultural power disproportionate to their abilities or importance beyond TV.

Our very earliest stories have the greatest importance. The tale of the guy who falls for a girl but then finds she is pregnant with someone else’s child. He wonders what to do. She won’t get rid of the child or give it up, but says she wants to keep it. Instead of walking away, which we see fathers do from their own children too often today, he stays, travels with her and supports her and the boy as they struggle to make ends meet. Whether Christian or not the tale of Joseph and his actions in the gospels speak of a man who understands what is important and that love overcomes all obstacles.

The more we can show students the lessons from their past and their culture and the more we can introduce them to the real heroes on their doorstep, the more they will see that the miserable media driven circus is not something to be admired, but rather those caught up in its snare are to be pitied as they sit on the front pages in the shadows cast by past greatness.   

Less TV and more work in the community. Someone told me that a student will know adults if they’re related, they teach them or they live next door. If they are going to learn by example surely we need to give them more than just a tabloid headline to look at. Let’s find the heroes from our past, our communities and our passions and let them show students just what it takes to be great and maybe one day make a difference to another young person.

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