belief – Clementine Fraser

daisies in concrete

Resilience. The ability to tap into an inner core of strength and keep going. To bounce back. There are a plethora of great quotes on resilience. They centre on the idea of persisting despite failure, of overcoming obstacles through sheer tenacity and willpower, of rising to the challenge. About choosing to be strong (which, in itself, is an act of strength).

This is a really important skill and something I think we’re not really helping our young people develop. I look at the changes in the student cohorts I’ve taught over the last 11 years. There’s been a big shift in their (outward) resilience. I see increased anxiety, apathy, a belief that if you don’t succeed the first time you’re just rubbish at it, a tendency to become overwhelmed at the workload and social pressures. Resilience is needed and I don’t think they’ve been helped to develop it in the system that we provide. Continue reading “Resilience – or, bouncing back like Tigger” →

Magic seems so real when you’re a child. The world is a miraculous place where caterpillars turn into butterflies and you’re taught to wish on stars. When the world is so full of possibility, the idea of magic doesn’t seem out of place. Magic explains the world.

I can’t remember when I stopped truly believing in magic. Maybe it was when i figured out that Santa wasn’t really real, or that the wishes I made on stars actually didn’t get heard. Of course, it might have been when that picture of the witch that I saw so vividly in my head looked like a green painted mess on the paper in my art class. Whenever it was that I figured out magic had no place in our world, I definitely remember my sadness and disappointment that I could never be a magic user, or visit magic realms where I would (naturally) suddenly discover that I was a long lost saviour bursting with magic. Like I said: disappointing. My desire to see magic actually exist was, for the most part, equally satisfied and fuelled by falling into enchantments in books.

Enchantments give our world some hope that things can not just be better, easier, more fabulous, but that there is some meaning behind the meaningless. Some sparkle to be added to the banality of existence. Continue reading “It’s a Kind of Magic” →