From the Head of School

Lightbulb Moments in Global Citizenship Week

The psychologist Claudia Hammond noticed how a curious thing happened to our sense of time during lockdown.  One day was like the next, so we would have expected time to have hung heavily.  And indeed in any given moment time felt slow, but looking backwards from those slow moments we were often surprised that a week or a month had passed.

Hammond explains that the “blurring of identical days leads us to create fewer new memories, which is crucial to our sense of time perception.”  We may have lots of Zoom calls or Google meets but these experiences were all of the same type.  Days, weeks and months slipped by without us noticing.  

What psychologists call ‘flashbulb moments’ are essential to the creation of lasting memories - not just of the event itself but of the constituent details.  When I recollect a friend from primary school I don’t visualise them sitting near me in a writing class, but racing against them at Sports Day.

Variety in school activities is not just essential for motivation, it is intrinsic to the retention of knowledge and skills: it is not just time that slips by when one day blurs into another.

Our global citizenship week has been a break from routine: your child will look back on it with a stock of new ‘flashbulb’ moments.  What makes this meaningful, is not the store of images, but the deepening of values.  Preschool and elementary school has explored the fundamentals of citizenship - looking after yourself (healthy living and self-advocacy) to look after others (kindness and community action).  Middle and high school have been on residential trips in Scotland, the UK and Europe navigating new experiences with classmates, developing the qualities of citizenship - being: risk takers, open minded, caring and reflective.  

I have enjoyed receiving so many positive reports from the camps during the week, but it is not for me to declare global citizenship week a success, talk to your children this evening.  Ask them if time hung heavily or zoomed past!