By the time you read this, you will know which film got the Oscar for Best Film this year.\u00a0 I write, thinking, \u2018How could it not be \u2018The King\u2019s Speech\u2019 \u2013 how could it not?!\u2019\u00a0 But I am aware that stranger things have happened, and there is no doubt it is a very British film, up against – among others \u2013 a very American film in \u2018True Grit.\u2019
\nComparing and contrasting \u2018The King\u2019s Speech\u2019 and \u2018True Grit\u2019 has been meat and drink for critics and reviewers since the nominations were announced, so I will not add to their deliberations here.
\nBut for me a happy combination of circumstance meant I saw \u2018True Grit\u2019 one Friday night, and in a just-out-of-London theatre on the following Monday night, the latest production of Noel Coward\u2019s \u2018Blithe Spirit\u2019, en route to the West End.
\nThe two titles caused me to reflect how both \u2013 true grit and blithe spirit (note, now without capitals) \u2013 are absolutely essential for anyone working in a boarding school.\u00a0 Perhaps also any school, but the pressures on staff in schools which are open 24\/7 for up to six weeks at a time are certainly both marked and virtually unrelenting.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what makes holding on to the grit and the spirit, if indeed you are fortunate to start out with them, and developing them if they were not originally part of your equipment, just vital.
\nWe\u2019ve always needed the grit.\u00a0 Perhaps in recent times more than ever.\u00a0 Schools themselves have never been under such pressure \u2013 league tables? Inspection regimes? \u2013 and parents and children have never been so demanding.\u00a0 Pastoral care is now real rather than, as sometimes surely in olden times, cursory. Scrutiny of all that we do is constant \u2013 I truly believe that if a boarder does not like the fish on Friday, a text message to Mum is likely to have Dad in the Head\u2019s office by tea time, making a formal complaint and quoting Jamie Oliver, while brandishing a phone on which the Daily Mail number is already displayed.\u00a0 Inspectors increasingly seek their truths from those who are there all the time, pupils themselves, and Pupil Voice rings loud and clear through most senior management deliberations on \u2018What next?\u2019
\nMoreover, the pressures on young people can make them much harder to manage in boarding.\u00a0 If Year 11s are off the premises on a Friday or Saturday evening, where are they?\u00a0 If they are in the company of day pupils, are we really convinced none of them is taking alcohol?
\nIf pupils in single study bedrooms are actually on their lap-tops until the small hours of the morning, do we really know what they are viewing?\u00a0 And would we approve if we did \u2013 never mind the loss of sleep issue?
\nTrue grit in such a situation is exactly what a Housemaster of Housemistress needs: there are principles involved, as well as simple school rules. Holding the line, when the temptation to blur it is great, is a matter for true grit, which is a wonderfully evocative expression signifying that there may be many impostors \u2013 pseudo-courage, equivocation \u2013 but that in the end there is something stubborn and hard in the soul which says, \u2018This far, and no farther.\u2019\u00a0 Something which establishes what really matters to each of us and which is, we hope, aligned with what matters to the schools which employ us and the parents who entrust us with their most precious child.\u00a0 We don\u2019t wriggle out of things and evade responsibility, and we don\u2019t cheat, and we don\u2019t, in the end, abandon people.
\nShaggy Rooster Cogburn in the film is an unlikely hero \u2013 drunk, deceitful, close to despicable.\u00a0 But Maddie believes he has true grit, and in the end he shows it.\u00a0 And who would not want to be him, at the end of the film riding for the life of the child who has become his friend, shooting the horse which can bear them no more, and carrying that child, strength failing and legs buckling, to safety.
\nAt the end of a tough Autumn term, we may know just how he felt.
\nWould I have said ten years ago that you also needed \u2018blithe spirit\u2019 to be a successful member of staff in a boarding school?\u00a0 Perhaps not.\u00a0 In many ways, the notion of being happy in your work, or even just being happy, had not quite reached schools while I was in the classroom, on either side of the desk.\u00a0 I suspect the people who taught me would have been mystified by the very idea \u2013 school was where everyone worked hard.\u00a0 Happy?\u00a0 Don\u2019t be ridiculous, boy!
\nBut the positive psychology movement in the last ten years, when psychologists turned their attention away from what made people mentally unstable or ill to what might the common denominators be for those who lead successful lives, are happy in themselves and spread sunshine to those around them, has had a tremendous impact in schools.\u00a0 More usually these days it is known as \u2018Well-being\u2019, and who could argue with the wisdom of seeking and cultivating that, particularly in boarding schools \u2013 and we\u2019re back to the importance of that 24\/7 business again.\u00a0 For all they are far more open now than they ever were even ten years ago, boarding schools are still self-sufficient communities which may be akin to hot-houses for weeks at a time.\u00a0 The psychological well-being of all members of the community should be enhanced if the organisation itself pays heed to some of the messages from the growing body of psychological research.
\nNoel Coward, writing \u2018Blithe Spirit\u2019 in the dark days of 1941 in, of all places, Portmeirion, would not have known how the world would change in the following 70 years.\u00a0 But he escaped from the London Blitz to write the play in the peace of Wales, and he did think his world would change for ever and for the worse if Britain did not win the war.\u00a0 In \u2018The King\u2019s Speech\u2019 we see Colin Firth as the King both fight his own battle against his speech impediment and play his part in the greater war.\u00a0 He would not be carrying a gun, but he could inspire and rally those who would.\u00a0 In much the same spirit, Noel Coward decided to play his part in the war effort.\u00a0 He had been on various diplomatic missions to little effect.\u00a0 Then he resolved to use his own unique skills: in one year, he set out to write one play, one screen play and one song.
\nThe screen play was \u2018In which we serve\u2019, the song was \u2018The Stately Homes of England\u2019, and the play was \u2018Blithe Spirit\u2019 – a comedy about death.\u00a0 It went straight to the West End and played for almost 2000 performances, from 1941 until 1946, through the worst of the war and out the other side to the hard won peace.
\nNoel Coward was not carrying a gun either, but his play lifted the spirits of all who saw it, and reminded them of better times, and inspired the kind of efforts which helped them win the war, against the odds.\u00a0 Blithe spirit, you might say, inspiring true grit.
\nI considered ending this with the question: Which would you rather have, true grit or blithe spirit? But I suspect the answer is obvious: both.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By the time you read this, you will know which film got the Oscar for Best Film this year.\u00a0 I write, thinking, \u2018How could it not be \u2018The King\u2019s Speech\u2019 \u2013 how could it not?!\u2019\u00a0 But I am aware that stranger things have happened, and there is no doubt it is a very British film,\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ie-today","category-independent-education-today"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}