From the Middle School and High School Principal

On Values and Tribes

Some weeks have a word.  That word has been 'tribe' and it has recurred like a talisman in many disparate conversations about belonging and behaviour this week.

Beginning my doctoral studies I was exhorted last weekend to 'find my tribe' at the college.  In discussing unkind group behaviours at ISA I was reminded that teenagers are essentially 'tribal' so these things happen - people get left out.  Something struck me as profoundly wrong with both of these statements - and it has a lot to do with our identity as an international school.

Tribe comes from the Roman word for 'three', like triple, or triangle, because there were three groups of people in early Roman society.  These people were your tribe.  A tribe is defined by loyalty to the tribe itself.  It's as simple as that.  It is the most basic social contract - we will be nice to each other, and defend ourselves from others; we will share generously with each other, but protect what we have from others; we will be friends with each other, but beware if you are not one of us.  If you break the basic expectation of loyalty you will be 'other' and you will be punished in every way the tribe has at its disposal, because that is what keeps a tribe together: a mixture of fear and loyalty.  And that is why tribes often have initiation rituals - to hammer home the message of loyalty and fear of the consequences of not being loyal.  

Inside the tribe you will feel entirely morally justified - you are just protecting yourself and your friends from a world that does not value or understand you.

You can see this behaviour sometimes visible in teenage friendship groups - they will sit tight in circles often, or find a corner to sit in where they can look out, and feel close and tight. Their biology is telling them to become independent from family and form peer groups, and this is the easiest, least demanding way of doing so. 

But is there something better?  Something more life embracing, expansive? Something with an abundance mindset, rather than a scarcity one?  Something kinder and more hopeful? The answer to all those questions is yes, and it is at the heart of what it means to be in an international school.

After the tribal, nationalistic wars of the twentieth century, politicians and educators turned not towards tribal identity, but values as the thing that would unite us.  The UN and the International Baccalaureate, our flagship programme, as Nick has recently written, was born out of this movement.  When we unite around values, we adopt an invitational identity that allows members to freely join and contribute, where all have a role to play and where diversity is a cause for celebration not hostility and suspicion.  It is a world where we do not wear colours or wave flags to separate ourselves, rather we celebrate the whole range of colours in our community, knowing each makes us richer.

Should I find my 'tribe' for my doctorate, as I was told to?  No, I will instead embrace and live my values and enjoy the relationships that come and go in a diverse international community of scholarship.  So, are teenagers inevitably tribal?  No, they just want to belong - and they can belong to a set of values and community which embraces them as easily as they can to a 'tribe'.  And that is our mission as an international school, to in all the ways we can, encourage an expansive vision of what it means to belong around shared values, and freedom from the very narrow tribal identities that are the alternative.