Wealden Times | WT260 | January 2024 | Good Living Supplement inside
The lifestyle magazine for Kent & Sussex - Inspirational Interiors, Fabulous Fashion, Delicious Dishes
The lifestyle magazine for Kent & Sussex - Inspirational Interiors, Fabulous Fashion, Delicious Dishes
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Education<br />
Don’t Look Back<br />
in Anger<br />
Left: The<br />
Arch of Janus in the<br />
Forum Boarium marked<br />
an important meeting place<br />
Below: An ancient coin<br />
showing two-headed Roman<br />
god Janus, 225-214 BC<br />
Mike Piercy, education consultant and former Head of The New Beacon, explains the importance<br />
of healthy self-reflection and learning from our past in order to move forward positively<br />
istockphoto.com/ scaliger / Sergey Strelkov<br />
‘<br />
You’ve never been to Rome? Really?’<br />
New year’s resolution: book long weekend in<br />
Rome. The food, the wine, the culture, the art,<br />
the architecture. History is abundant in Rome – it is<br />
everywhere. The base of a two-thousand-year-old pillar<br />
pokes up cheekily, stubbornly through the pavement as<br />
you pass by an unpretentious enoteca. Then there are<br />
the ‘jani’, the grand archways and elaborate doorways,<br />
sometimes standing in solitary, splendid isolation. Why?<br />
Not because they are all that is left standing of some<br />
ancient relic; because they were built that way, symbolically,<br />
steeped in superstition. Passage through the gateway<br />
would hopefully bring luck and good fortune, particularly<br />
for an army leaving Rome to wage war and conquer.<br />
The jani are watched over by Janus, the god of beginnings,<br />
endings, transition – of doorways. He is generally pictured<br />
having two faces, looking both forward and back. After him is<br />
named this month, <strong>January</strong>, the start of the new calendar year.<br />
It may be the case we don’t want to look back too closely<br />
at 2023: conflict, division, the economy, the cost of living,<br />
potholes and VAR. We can however look forward to <strong>2024</strong><br />
with hope – for there is always hope. I am cursed with<br />
optimism. On 21st December, the winter solstice, the<br />
days began to get longer; the pendulum reached its zenith.<br />
By 18th <strong>January</strong> there will be another hour’s daylight.<br />
Pupils, students, have two new years: September at school;<br />
and <strong>January</strong>, along with everyone else. Both are new starts<br />
providing fresh opportunities. September brings different<br />
teachers, classes, schools and challenges – ambitions for<br />
the year. <strong>January</strong>, after the long autumn term, brings<br />
the chance to stop; to review and reflect. If I had set<br />
myself targets, aspirations, how far along the road am I to<br />
achieving them? Is there the need for course correction?<br />
This an expression derived from spacecraft which may have<br />
marginally diverged from their trajectory, the error growing<br />
over distance, space and time. Not pausing, checking<br />
to course correct, only exacerbates that divergence.<br />
Children do not naturally reflect. They will often beat<br />
themselves up following a disappointment without reflecting<br />
on the causes. Note the use of ‘disappointment’ over ‘failure’:<br />
the former can be qualified; the latter simply destructive.<br />
Getting young people to pause, separate the emotion<br />
from the data and reflect, is a skill best learnt young.<br />
A thirteen-year-old’s conversation with self (in an ideal world).<br />
‘I worked and revised really hard…’ Pause. ‘Did<br />
I really? Truly? Why didn’t I prepare properly? Next<br />
time I will…’ and so emerges an action plan.<br />
‘I should have won the competition – I’m much better<br />
at maths…’ Just a moment. ‘Let’s think about this. The<br />
winner is better at tables, is gold standard maths challenge<br />
(though I am better at algebra). On balance…’<br />
‘It’s not fair. We were the better side…’ Think. Analyse.<br />
‘Actually, the other side did play better – they were<br />
more committed, fitter and tackled. We need to train<br />
harder.’ And so a little bit of self-honesty creeps in. As<br />
it is said, the easiest person to deceive is yourself.<br />
So, we teach, we encourage and we practise with<br />
young people the art of honest, constructive reflection.<br />
Janus looks back at 2023 with one eyebrow minimally,<br />
discernibly, wryly raised at the folly of humankind. We,<br />
too, should look back, but with caution, balance and<br />
perspective: the past is for informing, not inhabiting.<br />
Returning to the new year’s resolutions (most of<br />
which are conveniently forgotten within weeks) let us<br />
look forward to <strong>2024</strong>, making it a better year, learning<br />
from 2023. And book that long weekend in Rome.<br />
103<br />
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