Speech to Whitestone School Prize Giving Night – “Choices”

Speech by Senator David Coltart

Whitestone School, Bulawayo

15th November 2013

Chairman of the Board, Mr Mbongeni Mkwananzi, Headmaster, Mr Frik de Beer, Deputy Head Mrs Les Ogden, Teaching staff, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,

Thank you for inviting me to speak tonight. The Coltart family has had a very happy association with Whitestone School  for 21 years. Our eldest daughter Jessica started here in 1982 and so apart from a one year gap we have been here ever since. This has been a very happy relationship which has  benefited us enormously.

In the last four years I have studied schools and educational systems throughout the world and my belief is that there is no better  primary  education  offered anywhere in the world than right here at this wonderful school. That is due in no small measure to the solid leadership provided over many years through exceptionally difficult circumstances by Frik de Beer  and to the superb and dedicated teaching staff. I believe I speak on behalf of all parents in saying that we owe you a huge debt of gratitude for all that you have done, and are continuing to do, for our children.

Thank you Mrs Ogden  for your kind  introduction. Mark Twain once said “I can live for two months on a good complement” – well,….you have given me enough compliments to last several years!

Boys and girls, as I have just said you have been privileged to attend what is arguably one of the best primary schools in the world. There are very few schools which have such beautiful grounds, such dedicated staff and generally such a  peaceful and relaxing environment in which to learn. Speaking specifically to the grade sevens great changes and choices now lie before you. The question is what are you going to do with your lives having received such an amazing foundation.

A truly remarkable man called Jesus, who walked in Galilee over 2000 years ago, left us words of wisdom to guide us in making choices. He said:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

 The one thing that is absolutely certain  about the future is that you are all going to have to decide which path your life is going to take. Up until now most of the choices you have are made by your parents e.g. – what time you have to go to bed, what you will eat, whether you can stay the weekend with friends. But much of that is about to change! Increasingly you are going to be ALLOWED to make choices yourself – indeed you are going to HAVE to make choices. And the older you get you will find the greater number of choices you face and often an increasing difficulty in deciding what is right for yourself. And those choices sometimes will make the difference between you making a success of your life or failing.

When I went to university to study law the toughest course was one called Roman law. If you didn’t pass Roman law you couldn’t complete your degree. Roman law was taught by a particularly austere German, Professor

Schiller. In our very first class with him he made us do what I am going to ask you to do now – look to your left and right. Once we had all done that he said “Beware because only one of the three of you will pass Roman law at the end of the year”. And he was right because only a third of the class passed. That is a bit like me telling you only one of you will go on to High School.

One of my classmates about a week after we had started the course obviously had not been listening to the first lecture (you cant really blame him because I think he went to Peterhouse!).  Because after having been given a long essay to do he asked whether the assignment was compulsory. Prof Schiller  got hugely agitated, and replied “No my assignments are not compulsory, but then again breathing is not compulsory-if you do not breathe you die: if you do not do my assignments you fail! The choice is yours!”

All of us have choices to make. Sometimes people who have everything served on a platter, good looks, money and talent squander all of those things and their lives are a complete disaster. On the other hand sometimes people who have nothing, who have massive disabilities overcome those challenges  and inspire us. Remember those Paralympic athletes last year in London and how they inspired us – they chose to overcome huge difficulties and inspired us all.

So the choice is ours – whether we are  rich or poor,  tall or short, good or bad at maths, good or bad at tennis. We can decide whether we are going to make the right choices or bad choices. The problem is that often the right choices are the more difficult ones to make. They are often the choices we make not going with the flow – stepping out alone and join against the flow. The wrong choices are often made going through the wide gate with the broad road – those choices are often the easier ones to make – the choices that everyone else is making. But they can destroy our lives if we are not careful.

I want to leave you with a few of these narrow and wide gates which you will have to  decide between in the years ahead.

The most important choice you have to make is whether you are going to trust in God and let His standards govern your life. But there are also many other choices you will have to make.

1. A critical and ongoing choice that you are going to have to make is in your choice of friends. You have grown up in a very protected  and sheltered environment at Whitestone School.   As you grow up  you will  meet and interact with a much wider circle of people who come from very different backgrounds to your own and have very different standards and principles.  Some of these people will not value honesty,  some will encourage you to use of drugs. Sometimes these people appear to be a lot of fun to be with because they are so casual and carefree and there will be the temptation to want to be their friends. In other words the lives they live may be one of those wide gates and broad roads. But beware because friendships with these people can lead to destruction – to  drug addiction, to teenage pregnancies and to alcoholism.

2.  There is another very important choice you need to make in your mind now that concerns how you are going to treat other people. Very good advice in this regard is to treat people as you would want them to treat you. So if you appreciate being treated with respect, kindness, gentleness and patience try to treat all the people you interact with the same way. Remember to “Be nice to people you pass on your way up because you will pass them again on your way down”.  In some countries people think they can be Presidents or even Ministers of Education for life! But you will find that in most countries people lose their fancy jobs and have to be regular people again. We sometimes  think that we are always going to be strong or rich or healthy but all of us face changes or difficulties in life and those are much easier to deal with if we have been kind to the people who surround us when we were strong. This year as Grade 7s you have been on top of the school – let me tell you next year in High School you are going to be rock bottom. And that will continue through life so don’t forget it.

3. A critical life choice you’re going to have to make is whether you are going to work hard or not. Let  me  tell you that success in life is very rarely achieved without working hard for it and making sacrifices. Many of us, for example, may look at someone like Kirsty Coventry  and think that she  got her seven Olympic medals simply because she was very talented. A few years ago I was privileged to watch her train in the run- up to the London Olympics. She had dislocated her knee and was suffering from bilharzia so she was not in top physical condition. Nevertheless  she swam for three hours straight without a break and at the end her coach told her to do a 400 m medley in an Olympic qualifying time which she did. By the end of just watching her train I had a huge lump in my throat and tears in my eyes because I was in awe  of her dedication and determination. It doesn’t matter what you do in life-if you make the choice to work hard, honestly and diligently you will make a success of your life. On the other hand even if you are supremely talented and have all the money in the world, if you are lazy your life will be a failure.

4. Finally, an final important choice you’re going to have to make is whether you’re going to live  your life for yourself or for others. Charlie Brown once said “ Few people are successful unless other people want them to be”. The wisdom behind that is this -  the best way to be successful in life is not by reaching your goals on the backs of other people but by reaching those goals by assisting and serving other people on the way. If you reach your goals by trampling on other people you will find a lot of opposition along the way which makes it harder. If however you  choose to serve other people you will find that those people will be the very ones cheering you along and assisting you reach your goals. That is particularly the case on the sports field of where teamwork is vital for success. But it applies to virtually every aspect of life. Jesus once took a bowl of water and washed his followers dirty feet. That was to serve the people he led. Gandhi also served his followers. Sadly many leaders today think they should be served rather than that they should serve others.So I urge you to make the choice of being determined to be servant leaders in future; I urge you to choose to do everything you can to help all the people you interact with in future as best you can. It will often be harder in the short term but in the long-term I assure you you will reap massive benefits.

Alice, the Alice of Lewis Carroll’s  Alice in Wonderland,  came to a fork in the road. “Which road do I take?” she asked.

“Where do you want to go?”  responded the Cheshire cat.

“I don’t know” Alice answered.

“Then”, said the cat “it doesn’t matter”.

You are going to be faced with a bewildering number of gates and roads to take in future in terms of the decisions you have to make in your life. If you don’t have any goals in life then as the Cheshire cat said it doesn’t really matter.

If  you want to make a good and purposeful  life, if  you want to be happy and content, in other words if you know  where you want to go in life, then it is important that you take the right road and get through the right gate.

In short true success and happiness is achieved by the paths we choose not by the talents we are graced with.

Having said of this I wish you all God speed as you all go to your different schools next year and as you embark on this exciting new chapter in your lives.

God bless you all.

Senator David Coltart

Bulawayo

15th November 2013