Guest Post: Finding Your Inner Iceberg

Here at Children's University, we're lucky enough to have a fantastic group of enthusiastic Patrons and Chancellors who support the work Children's University does nationally and in their regions. Championing the charity, its goals and, most importantly, its child members, our Chancellors and Patrons inspire our children by encouraging them to unlock their own potential and by showing them what they are capable of.

As well as our usual posts, this blog will feature special guest posts from some of our Patrons and Chancellors. Our first such post comes from the children's author, feature writer, radio producer and broadcaster, Hilary Robinson. Hilary is a Patron of Children's University, and here's what she has to say:

Finding your Inner Iceberg

 

by Hilary Robinson - Patron of the Children’s University

Children need to know the truth about David Beckham.

We see the adulation, the lifestyle, the neat family life.  We see however many caps and goals for England, the endorsements, the megabucks and the rest.

But what we don’t see is what is captured in a brilliant infographic by Sylvia Duckworth.

We don’t see what applies to many ‘successful’ people – we don’t see the whole picture.

This is it:

 The Iceberg Illusion. Photo Credit: Sylvia Duckworth via Flickr under CC BY 2.0 license

Like so many successful people, David Beckham has had to persevere and fight against all kinds of setbacks and challenges to get where he is.

But he was lucky in one way.  He was lucky that he discovered his ‘passion’ quite early on - a passion, of course, for football.

Somewhere, inside every one of us, is a passion for something.  It might be a passion for bats (as an eight year old boy in my friend’s class discovered); it might be for caring, cooking, coin collecting, clouds, or cultivating carrots; or it might be for playing the ukulele, snooker, darts or chess.

Yet the demands of the National Curriculum and the pressures on teachers often leave little room for opportunities to tap into inner passions.  Arguably, the curriculum is so academically focussed that it is easy for children to feel like they are failures and the knock-on consequences of that, if not managed carefully, can be lifelong. 

The Children’s University, by encouraging such a wide range of extra-curricular activities and interests, provides children with the opportunities to try, to explore, to foster interests, to engage and to break down barriers.

Most importantly, it helps children to understand that failure need not be feared.

Steve Jobs once said that he “was convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the unsuccessful ones is pure perseverance.”   C S Lewis tapped into the same philosophy when he said, “failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement.”  In the application of passion and perseverance, the latter usually becomes a by-product of the former.

Yet The Children’s University is not just about being ‘successful’ in the traditional sense of the word.  It is about finding interests that stimulate, that help us create bonds and enriching friendships; it’s about helping us to develop an understanding and awareness of the wider world and our place within it, and, fundamentally, it helps us to be happy about who we are.

In short, the Children’s University helps us to find our inner iceberg and it helps us to find the truth about David Beckham – that passion and persistence pay off.

__________________ 

You can find out more about Hilary at her website.

Catch you next time!

Ian