Journeys
(Gavin Kerr, Oct 2008)
I will start this morning with telling you about the German Kurt Hahn. As has been said before in this hall, he was the headmaster at a private boarding school in Germany in the 1920s and 30s. But, he was forced to flee from the Nazis in 1933 and moved to Scotland where he founded Gordonstoun and served as its headmaster until 1953. Importantly for us, Aiglon and Round Square are based on his educational theories. He believed that schools should have a greater purpose beyond preparing students for college and university. He believed that it was crucial for young people to prepare for life by having them face it directly and experience it in ways that would demand courage, generosity, imagination, principle and resolution. He said, let’s provide physical and moral challenges, let’s put huge faith in people’s inner capabilities being discovered and support them in discovering more of themselves than they might have thought possible. Let's create experiences which call on the deepest spirits of people in the name of the greatest good.
Well, this philosophy was clearly embodied in the fantastic time that I spent climbing the Wildstrubel this weekend. 16 students and four staff drove round to Leukerbad on Saturday afternoon to the cable car station and soon we were whisked into the wilderness of the Bernese Alps. We spent a leisurely couple of hours walking to a stunning mountain hut where we spent a most enjoyable evening. The next day saw the group rise early for the challenge of the glacial ascent to the summit. Now, modern Outdoor education theory loves to talk about going on a "Journey of Discovery", and this is exactly what we did. We spent the weekend learning new skills; like how to use an ice axe and crampons or the rules to Mr Wright’s spoon game – challenge him to a game sometime. We made new friends and we saw new sights. Just being in a different environment with different people rather than your usual daily routine is exhilarating and very rewarding.
At the end of the weekend I asked some of the Delaware boys, what was the most profound or important thing that they had learnt or discovered. And as usual, I was astounded at the insight shown by them. One student who Richard has asked me not to name, said – Sir, I learnt not to eat yellow snow.
It is a real privilege to be able to spend the weekend in the mountains and I also enjoy reading about the history of exploration. Now this interest also includes travel writing as these books have the same ethos behind them. That is, the idea of going to new places, making new discoveries, meeting new people, seeing new sights. Traveling, like expeditions, involves experiencing the new, it involves challenges and trials, it teaches you about yourself and develops character and initiative.
A fascinating example of this kind of journey of discovery is the American Matt Harding. He worked in the computer game industry as a software developer and then editor. Harding claims that a sarcastic joke about the popularity of shoot 'em up games led Pandemic Studios to develop the game Destroy All Humans!, on which he received a conceptual credit. Saying he "didn't want to spend two years of his life writing a game about killing everyone", he quit his job and began traveling. He edited a video of his travels that was passed around by e-mail and eventually became "viral", with his server getting 20,000 or more hits a day. This was before the launch of major video upload sites.
Harding created a second version of the video in 2006, with additional scenes from subsequent travels. His second video has now been watched over 10 million times on YouTube. I will finish with a quote from Oliver Goldsmith, the eighteenth century writer, and then let you watch this clip.
"All of life is a journey. Which paths we take, what we look back on, and what we look forward to is up to us. We determine our destination, what kind of road we will take to get there, and how happy we are when we get there."
This is Matt Harding’s journey of discovery. What will yours look like?
