Education matters

Yesterday I saw a child commit an act of compassion. 

At the side of a busy road, a small group of men were working in the midday heat fixing a hole. The cars stopped next to me and the men at some traffic lights. Like everyone else, I sat in my cool car looking at them, thankful that it wasn’t me. But then, one of the windows of the car in front of me rolled down and a child’s arm leaned out holding a large bottle of water.

The workmen, embarrassed at first, didn’t know what to do. Was it that much of an unusual act? Eventually, one of the men took the bottle and passed it around to his colleagues.  When the lights changed and the cars began to move, they waved at the child who, as we all turned the corner, I could see had a huge grin on her face.

Compassion is a quality often seen in children because it comes naturally to them. It is only us as adults who sometimes seem to be desensitised to the struggles of others since there seems so much of it in the world and it never seems to end. But those of us who are lucky enough to work with children of all ages see compassion regularly and that is something that should give us hope.

Recently, I heard a story that took place in a High School in Wigan in the UK. As most of you will know, on May 22, a madman decided to blow up children, parents and other innocent bystanders at the end of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. Twenty two people needlessly died, the youngest being just eight-years-old.

Many people around the world were affected by this atrocity and wanted to do something about it. Some gave money, some went into the city to lay flowers but one 14-year-old girl from Standish High School in Wigan by the name of Lydia Melling, with the help of her teachers, used her school design and technology project to create something that people could take pride in, and they did, more than 4,000 of them and counting.

The symbol of Manchester is the worker bee, because the people of Manchester played an enormous part in building the country during the industrial revolution, working in the mills and factories that helped make Britain a world powerhouse in the nineteenth century. After the bomb in May, the Manchester Bee took on more significance as a symbol of strength. Inspired by this, Lydia designed and made a few bee symbols and made them into key rings. She sold them to her family and friends and gave the money to the charity set up in the names of the victims. Word soon spread and more and more of the key rings had to be produced to keep up with the demand.

Members of the police force, British Airways, doctors and nurses in the hospitals that helped the victims, parents of those at the concert, children, young adults and everyday members of the Manchester public all wanted a Manchester Bee key ring because of what it represented and because all of the money made from the key rings was going to the families of the victims. 

Acts of compassion often go unnoticed. Sometimes they start off small and build into something enormous because of what they represent, but how big or small they are doesn’t matter, it is the fact that they happen at all that does. And even though the acts of compassion are the reward themselves, that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be recognised and praised by others when they see them because after all, being compassionate is what makes us human.