Founders' Day Reflection: Building Resilience and Embracing Challenges

Dear Somerset Community

Last Friday, we celebrated our 43rd Founders' Day, and I was again reminded of the incredible story of the founding of our College. As part of the day, I was privileged to spend time with people who were on the founding Board in 1983, and their partners who were pivotal in so many ways in ensuring the College was up and running for its first day.

As I listened to their stories, I was humbled by their vision, courage, their commitment and their persistence. The coast was a very different place over four decades ago, when things weren’t going to plan, or others said it wouldn’t work, they pushed through and found a solution. Somerset is today, because of our founders, people of immense vision, insight, energy and a lot of faith. I shared with the students on Friday that there is a lot we can learn from our founders, but more importantly, it’s important to acknowledge what they have done, by embodying some of the resourceful qualities they demonstrated in those early years.

When I think of courage, resilience and commitment, I can’t go past one of my favourite events, the Kokoda Challenge. I was so encouraged to hear of the teams who participated last weekend. I competed in my first Gold Coast Kokoda Challenge in 2009, and with a group of Year 10 boys we undertook the 48km challenge. Over the years, I have competed in around 7 challenges, with different teams, doing different courses (as they now run Kokoda Challenge across multiple sites), but what still stands out for me is the opportunity this and so many other events we offer provide to our students that allow our students to develop these character building skills.

One of the mistakes we can so often make as adults is to try and protect our children by not allowing them to engage with activities that may be uncomfortable or at times, challenging. The ability to cope with adversity needs to be built, like a muscle. Next week, our Year 8 camp will be a chance for our year 8 students to try something new, possibly experience some challenges. As educators we know that the benefit of engaging with these events is so invaluable to their long term well-being and just as importantly, they take place in a safe and secure environment, and this is so important for adolescents.

One of our challenges as parents and educators is to make sure we ask the right questions on their return. It’s often easy to go to the default, how was the food, how sore are your feet, did you get cold? But reflective questions like, what did you learn about yourself, what did you learn about others, what did you discover about nature, are where the real learning takes place. Sadly many schools and organisations are moving away from these sorts of opportunities and sometimes we even see it with our own parents who don’t send their children.

I do want to encourage all parents to look at the long term benefits of opportunities where your children are challenged and where they develop life long skills. We all stand on the shoulders of those who went before who had these skills. Our founders had no choice. They had committed to something big and at times hard and so they had to push through. Like our Kokoda teams, once you start the race, you need to finish, no matter how long it takes and so for all that we offer here at Somerset, let’s see these opportunities for what they are, the chance for our students to learn more about themselves and others and develop those skills that will enable them to achieve their personal success beyond Somerset College.