What can we learn from Winnie the Pooh
Are you a bit like Kanga from the Winnie the Pooh stories? Kind and caring to everyone, aware of potential risks, sensitive to the needs of others and keen to offer support, encouragement and guidance? Or maybe you are more like Piglet – a brave and loyal friend, there by the side of your mates through thick and thin? Or Roo – undeterred by a smaller stature or lack of experience, you are just eager to please and enthusiastic to be involved? Or maybe Pooh Bear himself – a glue that binds everyone together through a love of friendship (and a strong penchant for honey)?
I asked the children to reflect on this in Chapel yesterday in the hope that they would recognise that there are many different characters in our school, each with strengths and weaknesses, who all blend together to create a vibrant and varied community.
In today’s society it is too easy to get sucked in to wanting the perfect body, the latest fashions or the most recent iPhone. That is why we must teach our children how to stop and reflect. They must learn to measure themselves occasionally not against each other or what the media deems to be important but against a set of values such as those in our Androvian Moral Code – honesty, kindness, respect, courage and gratitude. If our children reflect upon themselves in the context of virtues like these, they will develop a realistic understanding of how they fit in to the wider world which in turn will lead to an inner belief and a healthy approach to life. Ultimately, like Pooh and his chums, they will learn to put friendship first and experience adventure, growth and laughter.