Finding your inner hero

Illustration Seb Agresti

Finding your inner

Some of the kids at Stanford High School in Connecticut don’t look to Marvel movies for their heroes, they look to their peers. The students are taking part in a pioneering new program that aims to bring out their inner hero - without the use of capes.

“There’s been a lot of interest from schools, because there’s a generation now that’s more minded towards activism - it’s kids feeling that kids can bring change,” explains Matt Langdon, Sydney-based founder of the Hero Round Table – akin to the TED Talks of heroism – and president of the Heroic Imagination Project. “But we’re also looking to boardrooms, institutions and anywhere where the ability to take action in tough situations is valued.”

This, it should be stressed, is not some New Age life coaching. It’s rooted in a growing scientific understanding of what makes one person act heroically, while another doesn’t. Why, in 2007, Wesley Autrey handed his children to a stranger and jumped onto subway tracks to help a flailing man who had suffered a seizure and fallen. And why, when it became clear he couldn’t lift him to safety in time, Autrey positioned the man between the rails, laid on top of him, and let the train pass over them both with an inch to spare. More specifically, he did this as 75 other commuters merely watched on.

That, and similar tales, always fascinated Professor Philip Zimbardo, founder of the Heroic Imagination Project. He’s best known as the eminent

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