It’s a New Dawn
Lighthouse at dawn
So here we are at the start of a new year, full of promise and hope waiting to unfold. This is a time of year when many of us mark the season with celebratory rituals big and small. Whether it's choosing and decorating the tree as a family, sharing special meals, visiting friends and family or attending New Year's Eve service, you probably have at least a few rituals that your family has come to associate with this time of year that bring with them a sense of belonging and community.
Thoughts On Belonging
If you're a long time reader of these monthly dispatches from Thrive, you'll know that Community is one of our five core values. In truth, it's the core value that underpins the others (growth mindset, empowerment, resilience and diversity). We learn and grow because of others. The sense of belonging we get when we know that we are accepted and valued for who we are empowers us and makes us resilient. The confidence that a supportive community gives us also enables us to be willing to make room for difference.
More than just being in proximity with others, community is built around shared rituals, values and purpose. Our family of birth provides us with our first example of what a community can be. Communities strengthened by diversity and members who can engage thoughtfully and respectfully with differing points of view offer the advantage of evolving with the best interests of the community at heart.
Envisioning the Future
The arrival of AI challenges our notion of what it means to be a sentient being and this has serious implications for our system of values as a society and as an intelligent species. From education, to governance, to healthcare, to financial systems, to geopolitics and to the nature of work, AI promises to make much of what we are accustomed to obsolete, replacing humans as the arbiter of all decisions. During this pivotal time in history, it is vitally important to be having conversations about the kind of society we want to live in. Central to that is the code of ethics that governs how we treat one another. When we feel forced to make undesirable compromises, we can feel disrespected and even violated. In the absence of intentionally cultivating our own code of ethics by which to live, we risk abdicating our birthright to those who would eagerly jump on the opportunity to seize that control from us.
LUMINA & A Personal Code of Ethics
LUMINA is Thrive's leadership development programme which focuses on cultivating vital social and emotional skills in all of our Luminaries and their parents. In our collaborative piano programmes, LUMINA is formalised with themed workbooks for each level. Over the Winter Break, I've been working on the creation of four new titles to add to the existing library of Growth Mindset and Resilience:
Kindness & Compassion
Gratitude & Mindfulness
Community
Courage
Any healthy, functioning society is founded on the above. Take any one of these elements away and society begins to disintegrate. The intention of LUMINA is to enable each of our Luminaries to design their own personal compass as empowered, compassionate and responsible members of civil society. Making this a core part of our classes helps our students to engage with these ideas as part of a safe and supportive learning community and gets them thinking about who they want to be and how they want to contribute to our world. This then becomes their charter that guides them through life.
Chartering a New Dawn
In this age of AI and generative technologies, our ethics and values need to be at the forefront of our conversations about the world we want to live in. So on this first day of 2024, I invite you to think about designing your family charter based on what you consider to be your ethics. Click here for inspiring ideas on how you can do this.
