A Difference of Character

Shawnigan Lake School provides everything students require to pursue personal excellence. Our teachers will inspire you to find your intellectual passions. Our coaches will push you to discover your physical resources. Our Fine Arts instructors will invite you to explore your inherent creativity. In this we are like many other fine schools.

But that´s not enough.

We believe in character. People admire many things in others, but it’s character they remember. We believe character is the difference between a good school and a great one. The Shawnigan difference is the difference of character.

As a society, we have a tendency to undermine our young people by doubting their abilities to draw on their inner strengths. At Shawnigan it is very much a part of our mandate to develop the strengths of each individual in whatever way we can, for this inner strength is the foundation of character. Our message is always the same—“Develop your strength; we will help you, encourage you, remind you, hold you to your word, test you, stretch you and support you. You have to be strong enough to believe in yourself, to believe in your ability to confront any challenge. You won’t win all the time, but you must confront every challenge.”

Education should strive to develop the capacities of young people to deal with the multitude of stimuli and information with which their world will assail them, in thoughtful and measured ways—through character.
   
Of course, character that stagnates is character diminished, so we must educate students against the "taking for granted" syndrome. As parents we wrestle with this all the time, as educators we challenge it continually, and as citizens we need to be reminded of it frequently. Nelson Mandela, so long a prisoner in his own land, and later a leading player on the world stage, expresses the sentiment powerfully in his Long Walk to Freedom:

"After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb . . . I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger for my long walk is not ended."

We are all engaged in a long walk of our own, and the trick is to make the journey more rewarding than the destination.

Shawnigan will not shrink from its part, whether it be in the classroom, the residence, the corridor or the Chapel. The true joy must surely come from a wise approach to life. From character.
   
 -- David Robertson, Headmaster