Thought for the Day - Reflection

Thought for the Day Thursday 3 December 2020 Imagination If you were to go onto Google images and search for reflection, you would find pictures of two things that I’ve never been a massive fan of, inspirational quotes and physics equations.

Whilst at the time they both felt entirely useless in helping me write my Thought for the Day, I ironically found myself looking back at what can only be described as the biggest challenge of my life so far, Physics GCSE. Even though I wasn’t ecstatic about angles of incidence and reflection, the process of seeking out feedback that Theo mentioned in the reading today was never more relevant to my academic life. But for me, reflection is far broader than just its academic usage. I want to talk about personal reflection, through a story about a teacher and a student.

One day a student asked anthropologist Margaret Mead what she would consider to be the first sign of civilisation in a culture. If you think anything like me, you might anticipate Mead to talk about Stone Age tools or clay pots. But no. Mead claimed the first sign of civilisation was the discovery of a human femur that had been broken and healed. In the animal kingdom, when you break a leg, you cannot run from danger, find water to drink or hunt for food. When you break your leg, you turn from predator to prey. You become an easy kill for another animal. No animal survives long enough for the bone to heal.

The discovery of a healed femur is evidence that another individual has taken time to stay with the wounded. They have bound up the wound, carried them to safety, tended their recovery and maybe even risked their own life to help another.

Make of that story what you will, but personally I think what Mead is trying to say is this; we may well succeed in many different fields, be it on a sports pitch, in a concert hall or in a written exam. But where the value of our lives can be found, is in our treatment of other people.

Our behaviour affects so much more than just ourselves and without reflection, sometimes that is hard to see.

Jack Gamble Senior Prefect