Great Scot April 2019 Great Scot_156_April_2019_Online | Page 28

School Captain
NICK MARKS
SCHOOL CAPTAIN
Rising
above the
tumult of
an ever-
changing
world These are edited versions of the speeches at School
Assemblies early in Term 1 by the School Captain and
Vice Captain. An investiture ceremony for School Prefects
also took place during the first Assembly in the Quadrangle.
I had the pleasure of spending a couple
of months in the icy winter of Germany,
during a season also made bleak by the
recent stepping down of Chancellor
Angela Merkel as leader of the centre-right
Christian Democratic Union — or, more
likely, by a dreary and underwhelming
German 2018 World Cup campaign.
One image in particular comes to
mind. I had the opportunity to visit
the city of Cologne many times in my
stay, and if there is one thing that stirs
pride in the glowing hearts of the city’s
people — something that figuratively
rises above all else — it would be without
question Cologne Cathedral. It is among
a rare group of German monuments
that survived countless bombings during
World War II.
Chance? I don’t think so. British
inaccuracy? Probably not. It turns out
actually, that the building is so tall (its
twin spires are 157m high) that the cathedral generates its own winds, which
cascaded down the great building’s spires
and walls, blowing away any bomb that
came near it during the war. Such was its
poetic might that 262 air raids could not
conquer it.
Now I want to let that image sit in the
back of your minds for a moment, as we
return to the here and now. Boys: your
schooling lives can be hard to navigate.
There will be tough days ahead; days
when you just can’t be bothered any more;
days when you may even be left furiously
pondering the meaning of existence. Such
is the nature of life. We all are embroiled
in the seething chaos of our world, caught
up in a balancing act as we forge onward
into the unknown. But we can rise above
all that as we unshackle ourselves from
the chains of routine and rules and assert
our own independence.
How do you respond to all of this? It
is no easy feat. No one tells you how to do
28
Great Scot Number 156 – April 2019
it, at least not explicitly. But each of
us must do our utmost to make sense
of it all.
We have all at some point no doubt
met a boy who protests about the
injustices of the Victorian Curriculum
and Assessment Authority and feels
obliged to tell his teacher how ‘the system
is totally rigged, sir’. But think about
it. If the system is truly against us all,
then there is quite literally nothing we
can to do about it – we can accept that
and strive to do our very best as we work
within ‘the system’, or choose to remain
forever fixed in the quicksands of our own
dissatisfaction.
However, we can take responsibility for
where we find ourselves at this moment.
We may see ourselves as imperfect, but if
we set our minds to becoming smarter,
faster and stronger, then perhaps we can
create a sense of harmony for ourselves