Principal Reflections

Dear Parents & Friends,

Do you always give your best? Do you make mistakes, make the wrong choice or have just given up? Soon we will be  watching & listening to the Olympic games and to stories of triumph and failure, of hard work and costly errors and of sheer exhaustion. This has made me think that the role of parents may follow similar lines.

As parents we try to raise our children in the best possible way we can. We try to provide opportunities that we never had as children and we try to provide the best advice and guide the decisions our children make. Sometimes we don’t always succeed. Life is busy, complex and ever changing. Sometimes our judgments are inaccurate.

However, persistence and a willingness to succeed can provide life changing experiences. Like some of the Olympians’ stories, these real life stories attest to the some of the characteristics we’d like our children to adhere to.

• After Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, said “Can’t act!” Slightly bald! Can dance a little!” Astaire kept the memo over his fireplace in his home.
• Socrates was called “An immoral corrupter of youth.”
• Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer.
• Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. Walt Disney also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.
• The sculptor Rodin’s father said, “I have an idiot for a son.” Described as the worst pupil in the school, Rodin failed three times to secure admittance to the school of art. His uncle called him uneducable.
• Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He did not become Prime Minister of England until he was 62, and then only after a lifetime of defeats and setbacks. His greatest contributions came when he was a “senior citizen”.
• Richard Hooker worked for seven years on his humorous war novel M*A*S*H, only to have it rejected by 21 publishers before Morrow decided to publish it. It became a runaway bestseller, spawning a blockbusting movie and a highly successful television series.
• J.K. Rowling's pitch for 'Harry Potter' was rejected 12 times.

The message is clear; the viewpoint of others, while important, does not always turn out to be as accurate as first thought. 

As always feel free to drop in and say hello when you visit St Edward’s. Have a great weekend.

Peace & Best Wishes.

Dr Jake Madden

(Principal, St Edward's Primary School)