“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.” From Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Given that she died over 100 years before we were born, I am pretty sure that the great English novelist Charlotte Bronte, who wrote those words, never met my first girlfriend or indeed my wife. But she certainly seemed to speak for her. That same sentiment in the reading, in which Jane Eyre expresses frustration about women lacking the position and privilege of men, was still in existence a century later, when I was growing up. Sadly, most would acknowledge it is still the case today. Of course, the concept of unequal privilege doesn’t stop with gender either. As the recent focus of Black History Month tells us, being born into uneven advantage arises just as often because of your race and ethnicity as well. Not to mention perhaps the most pervasive source of privilege of all, the distinctions created by differences in class or wealth.

But then, so too did coming from a stable family and having parents who had unbounded praise and aspiration for their children. That was another privilege that I didn’t even recognise at the time. It is only as I have pursued a lifelong career in education that I have come to fully understand how big an initial advantage a young person gets from simply being born in a family that encourages, rather than limits, their belief in themselves.

In recent years, a number of global movements have challenged people in all nations to confront the notion of privilege and inherent unfairness in society. The Gender Pay and MeToo campaigns, that have drawn attention to women being marginalised or mistreated in the workplace. The Black Lives Matter protests, focussing on racial discrimination and inequity. Outcry against institutions that may have profited historically from slavery or other unfair and immoral practices in the past. One might even say that the climate change and sustainability campaigns of the current day are in part driven by unhappiness at the way that people today may be abusing the privilege of limited resources to the detriment of those who inhabit the Earth in the future.

Privilege is a tricky concept and has certainly become an emotionally charged word throughout those various campaigns. In its simplest terms, it means to have a special right or advantage that others do not have.

That sounds inherently bad, yet I often introduce myself by saying it is my privilege to be the Headmaster of HGS. That position is a special right, afforded only to me. I do consider it a privilege, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing. If I started to abuse the position, used it to make your lives worse, not better, that would be a different matter altogether.

However, I was granted that privilege through my own efforts and actions taken throughout my life. Perhaps it would be a different story if I had been born into the role. The difficulty many people have with privilege tends not to be about the advantages we earn throughout our lives by virtue of how hard we work or what kind of values we demonstrate. Most people accept that it is only fair to be judged and rewarded for the way you live your life.

What is more contentious is the idea that we might be born with an innate advantage over other people. We can have no influence over our race, gender, size, or shape when we come out of the womb. Those are the cards we are dealt. Likewise, we have no control over the family into which we are born; their relative level of wealth, their social station. In different countries and in different times, that set of traits we inherit can either prove to be an advantage or a disadvantage in life.

The question then, for those who are dealt favourable cards of gender or ethnicity or class at birth, is how to play them? The three choices seem fairly clear.

Firstly, you could decide to protect your privilege, and build a good life based on the advantage you have over others. Maybe even deny that your advantage exists. Perhaps try to make sure that you pass on your privilege to a few chosen others.

Secondly, you could spend your whole time apologising for those characteristics that you inherited and have no control over. Or try to give up the advantage. Or deliberately ignore it and live a life of self-deprecation or denial.

Or thirdly, and more sensibly, you can recognise the privilege you have been handed and, if it feels slightly unfair that you were luckier than others, try to leverage it for their benefit as well as your own. Live a life using your advantage for the benefit of all.

We don’t berate top athletes for their good luck in being born tall or strong or well-proportioned. We encourage them to use what nature’s lottery gave them to bring pleasure to us all, even if it is vicarious. Likewise, if we ourselves are born into some form of privilege. Surely, we should try and use it for the good of all?

There is an enormous amount of privilege right here in HGS. Most of you were born with some form of initial advantage, relative to other young people your age. Whether that is fair or not is a question for philosophers. My question, your challenge, is what are you going to do with that advantage?

If you are male, what will you do if you see women feeling as Jane Eyre did, “suffering from too rigid a restraint.”? If you are white, what will you do when you see others disadvantaged just because of the colour of their skin? You live and work amongst people from many different nations; you know they are equal in this place in terms of skill and ability. How will you ensure their opportunities match their talents beyond our gates? What will you do, when you leave this place, to share your advantage and offer others a leg up?

And whatever your gender, race, or relative wealth, I still hold that the greatest initial advantage that most of you have in life is the fact that you come from a loving family, with parents who value you enough to have sent you here. How will you leverage that privilege in the future? Not just for your own good, but for the benefit of others.

The thing about initial advantage is that it should be used with empathy by those fortuitous enough to have it, for the betterment of all people. Not to perpetuate inequality, but to eradicate it.
As Benjamin Franklin said, “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are”.

The system can be changed faster from within than without. That’s why I teach; it is the most powerful agency for social change on the planet. And one of the things that stops me feeling smug, or guilty, about whatever privilege I may have experienced in life is the opportunity I have to share my good fortune.

Stay well and safe.

Be kind to yourself and others.

Best wishes,

Dr Bird

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Join us for our Virtual Sixth Form Open Evening from Thursday 4^th November 2021 onwards! Click here to find out more

There is an imperative now for us to ‘build back better’ after the challenges of the last twenty months. In the words of Apple’s Chief Executive, Tim Cook:

“The side-lines are not where you want to live your life. The world needs you in the arena.”

This is a global necessity and is far from limited to us in the UK. Educationalists from the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India, Europe et al have the same themes preoccupying them too: a desire and a need to focus more on social and emotional skills, on values and on character development; a more flexible and less examination-driven curriculum; the positive use and the regulation of technology; cross-sector collaboration and partnership; equity, inclusion and mutual respect; student and staff well-being; the encouragement of student voice, creativity and responsibility.

I followed the compelling account of Pip Hare as she vividly described her participation in the non-stop round-the-world solo yacht race, the Vendée Globe. Earlier this year, she became the eighth woman ever to finish the race, which lasts about ninety days over a distance in excess of 24,000 miles. She spoke of how she overcame her anxieties through self-talk, beginning every day (after snatched bouts of sleep, rarely lasting more than 40 minutes) with three questions: Am I safe? Am I heading in the right direction? Am I going as fast as I can?

Pip is already preparing for the next Vendée Globe in four years’ time, determined to do even better. We could apply her three questions to our own and our children’s lives as we emerge from the pandemic. It is, however, not just speed that will get us over the finish line, and, after the rigours of the last twenty months, we might want to rephrase the final question: Am I pacing myself?

 Another difference, of course, is that we don’t sail alone.

Stay well and safe.

Be kind to yourself and others.

Best wishes,

Dr Bird