Yesterday we held a wonderful Back to School Service. I would like to share with you an extract from the speech that I offered to our students to welcome them to the event.

“Students, one of the great things about being in a school is that each year you are delivered a fresh start. Some of you have experienced a change in school, others a change in campus, some have new classmates and new teachers.

This gives us the opportunity to think carefully about the new year and what we want to change.

I thought I’d share something with you today about an experience I had when I was a student. This was a time where I made an active decision to make a change. In all honesty, I think that this moment helped me become the person I am today. I have shared this with colleagues before, but hope that there is something useful in it for you, our students.

When I was in Year 9, there was a time when my Geography classmates decided in an unspoken agreement to punish a teacher who we felt had not adequately taught us before an exam. This was in relation to a unit on volcanoes – a topic the teacher had not spent any class time on.

In our exam review session, our teacher made the mistake of sequentially going through the paper question by question and inviting us to suggest the correct responses. The atmosphere was electric because we all knew, without one word being spoken, that we were going to mete out our revenge. The session quickly deteriorated into a game where we called out ridiculous and increasingly far-fetched answers to point out to him that he had not prepared us for the section of the exam.

I am not proud to say that I was a chief instigator of this mini revolution. While it did nothing to change the past, it did lead to a practical demonstration of a live volcano as our cheekiness and disrespect caused the teacher to build up pressure, exude smoke and ultimately erupt with a spurt of magma hot rage.

I, in particular, actually made the teacher so angry that he swore, threw me out of the class and sent me to the coordinator’s office. I was then forced to write a letter of apology.

I was outraged. Totally filled with self-righteous indignation. It was so unfair. Why should I apologise? He was in the wrong. Everyone was doing it – why should I be the one to pay the consequences?

But then … something in me changed. I can’t recall if it was the lecture from my coordinator or something else, but when I came back to class and received some high fives and slaps on my back from my friends, it did not make me feel good. It actually made me feel ashamed.

Deep down I knew that I had not been raised to be the sort of kid who capitalised on the mistakes of others, showed disrespect and showed off for my peers.

I reflected that my teacher was just a person who wanted to do his job and there was no reason that I should make this unpleasant for him.

I decided to make a change and from that day forward tried really hard not to ever disrespect my teachers and rather tried to see them as partners in my school experience.

I wanted to share this with you because at the start of a new year we can all strive to be the best versions of ourselves that we can be.

For some of you this may involve a revolution in your approach to your learning, your friendships or your behaviour. For others, it is about making incremental changes that lead to improvement.

There is a concept in Japanese culture called Kaizen. Kaizen is a phrase that is derived from the word Kai meaning change and Zen meaning virtue. Kaizen means making positive changes.

Kaizen has been adopted by Japanese companies, most notably, Toyota. It requires every individual who works there to constantly look for the little things that they can improve. This collectively can lead to vast improvements in outcomes, culture and strategy.

A comparable approach at an individual level has been adopted by James Clear who popularised the idea of making 1% improvements every day in his book Atomic Habits.

He explains that in order to change we need to adopt achievable behaviours that then form sustainable habits.

He says that “every action you take is like a vote for the person you want to become.” Think about this – “Every action you take is like a vote for the person you want to become.”

What would KDS look like if each of us found little ways that we can improve ourselves?

What habits can you adopt that make you a better friend, a more empathetic classmate and a more studious and respectful student?

As we step forward into 2025 let’s all commit to finding little ways that we can be even better. The collective impact of this will be wonderful.

If we all make little improvements we can make deep changes – shifting tectonic plates and pushing up new volcanoes and mountains for us to scale in 2025.”

Shabbat Shalom,
Marc Light