We must build them up Helen Rose, Assistant Principal (Boarding), Rochester Independent College

We must build them up

Helen Rose, pastoral lead and Assistant Principal (Boarding) at Rochester Independent College, offers a new analogy for self-esteem and asks... If confidence is born of positive experiences, what can we, as educators, do to influence this in our pupils?

ʻImagine poker chips are the currency of selfesteem. How do we get to fill our bag of chips? Positive experiences, no matter how small, generate poker chips.ʼ

Walk round your nursery, school and college. What do you see? Do you see the bubbly and laughing sociable characters that will always have their hand up in class engaging with life and learning?

Pause to think for a moment.

Ask yourself, what is that student feeling and experiencing? How are they able to make those connections with others and their learning?

Look again… really look.

Do you see a student sitting alone? Do you have students in your care that simply go through the motions of the day and not cognitively or emotionally engage in lessons? Pause to think for a moment. What is that student feeling, sensing and thinking?

Are you aware that one in 10 students between the age of 10 and 18 identify as lonely? We have a role to play in the lives of young people who we don’t just work with but who are part of our lives. We have a role in developing their self-esteem to enable them to engage and explore. I want to illustrate that role using poker chips.

Imagine a bag full to bursting with poker chips; it is so full you do not think twice about gambling a couple a way as you won’t miss a few. Now imagine a bag with just a few chips in; I ask you now, how will you play? Will you play recklessly as you don't have much to lose, or do you feel you don’t have enough to even enter the game? Now imagine poker chips are the currency of

self-esteem. How do we get to fill the bag or only have a few in our possession? Positive experiences no matter how small generate poker chips. Imagine a child’s experience in the morning routine. Is it Mum and Dad at home cooking breakfast together as a family or is a team of close friends laughing and joyfully socialising over breakfast in the boarding house? Or is a child leaving the house hungry with no one to wave them goodbye? Which child do you think has the least poker chips?

Meet Ben. He is the captain of the rugby team, eats with his family everyday and as he leaves the house that morning his family shout out, ‘Love you! Have a great day! We will be at your match later to cheer you on!’ He has just had a few more poker chips fly into his already full bag.

Now meet Charlie, he leaves the house hungry and hasn’t seen his mum as she is still in bed. He is not captain of any team and, in fact, doesn’t feel he can be. He is a great artist, but no one knows it because he doesn't share his work, he doesn’t have the confidence to do so. His morning experience of leaving alone and hungry reduces what few poker chips he has.

Imagine your Monday morning class involves Ben and Charlie. You enthusiastically ask the whole class a question. To be able to put themselves forward it’ll cost five poker chips. Ben’s hand shoots straight up as his bag is overflowing and he has the confidence to gamble. He wouldn’t miss a few poker chips — besides his family will be there to cheer him on at rugby later and his chip collection would be replenished. Charlie on the other hand sits in his chair with hands in this lap; he thinks he knows the answer, but he only has five chips in his bag. He is not prepared to gamble these chips; they are all he has. He knows he needs them later in the day when he goes home to Mum who may not be in the best of moods and that negative experience will cost him five poker chips.

We need to provide positive experiences to fill the bags of the students we care for with as many poker chips as we can to enable them to play the game of life.

Boarding is a fully immersive life and educational experience. It is vital that these experiences go beyond the operation elements of keeping our students safe and supporting them with their academic progress. How can we expect our students to form a vision for themselves, if they do not know themselves or how to form authentic connections with the world around them? The boarding team at Rochester are embarking on a journey of self-care and self-discovery with our community in a vision to create experiences that support the students in building self-esteem. Our role is to hand out poker chips with a sense of generosity to help create positive experiences that build the self-esteem of our students and the young people in our lives; this will equip them with the inner strength and sense of self-worth where they will be able to unlock their own potential.

I’ll leave you with this question… How will you make sure the students in your care go to bed at night with more poker chips than when they woke? How will you help them build the self-esteem to play the game of life? n

Helen Rose is Assistant Principal (Boarding), at Rochester Independent College, a co-ed, non-selective boarding and day school in Kent for students aged 11-18, with a creative buzz and rigorous academic culture.