Ending and Beginning

“Finishing is better than starting. Patience is better than pride.” (from the Bible)

It is that time of year when our Year Twelve students finish, so we are again confronted with the reality that the end of schooling has been its objective all along.

We feel sad.

We see our Year Twelve students, for whom we care greatly, packing for their final walk out through that side gate in the staff carpark.

They themselves are also experiencing a sense of sadness as they leave the ‘knowns’ of school and move into unknowns of work, training, or tertiary. Among themselves, they also are farewelling one another. Sure, hopefully they retain friendships, but they are leaving the settled predictability of one another that has long comforted them.

Of course, as we oldies know; ending is beginning.

The end of one part of life is the beginning of another. Sadness of one closure is often balanced by excitement of another new opening. The sadness of farewell is countered by the thrill of a new unknown. Journeying through life will mostly be what we make it, saddening or thrilling. To an extent, the balance between those two feelings is controlled by our capacity to see changes as adventures and obstacles as opportunities.

MCC staff have long said that all our students are gifted: gifted by God in one way or another. We see our purpose as a school as helping young people discover their God-given gifts, so they can develop those gift-areas into their strengths and passions.

Some schools see ‘giftedness’ differently from the way we see it at MCC. Some schools define ‘gifted’ narrowly, as if a tiny number of students are ‘gifted’ and their ‘giftedness’ is merely a measure of scholastic intelligence. Wow, that is narrow.

At MCC, because we are a Christian school, we use a Christian Bible-based definition of being gifted. That means we see that everyone is individually gifted, and because they are gifted, they themselves are a gift to their society. Yes, we believe that all our students are gifted by God, and whatever their giftedness is, it is a gift that will flourish when it is used in a life of service to the Lord in their contemporary society.

So, we are all gifts to each other. We are gifted gifts, and it is our giftedness that makes us a gift to each other. I guess at our school, we are looking at the whole person rather than reducing a student’s success merely to their academic prowess. Mr Bendall often says we watch our graduate students from afar, hoping that they will attain greatness by being great husbands, great wives, great employers, great employees, great mums and dads, great citizens and great contributors.

You see, a life of meaningful service to others and to God will indeed be a great life.

david gleeson, principal