DAY 179: INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, GENEVA

18 October, 2011

1737 miles/ 3,775, 601 steps

I have in life three great passions: politics, peace and education—I am continually inspired be the possibilities of all to build a better world. So when on Monday I received an invitation from Shona Wright, Headmistress (Middle School) to address the International School in Geneva, I didn’t take much persuading to delay my return to Milan for an extra day to undertake that visit and I am so very glad I did.

The International School, had been founded as the school for the children of diplomats serving at the United Nations and is the oldest international school in the world with over 125 nations represented amongst the student body of over 4000. What is more, the atmosphere going through the gates was not at all as the regimented, austere exam factory which has become so fashionable in the UK in recent years, the International School was full of colour and life—there was no uniform and students were at ease with using first names for the headmistress and even visitors, but it was clearly also a vibrant place of learning.

Having addressed a few schools along the way on this walk, often the students sit through the presentation and are perfectly polite, but you get the impression that they haven’t engaged with the subject matter; at the International School I got a wonderful round of applause and cheers just as a result of Shona Wright’s introduction. I had barely started talking when hands started to pop up around the hall with questions: “What do you eat?”, “Have you seen any snakes?”, “Do you still have to brush your teeth?” “Which was your favourite country?” “What music do you listen to on your iPod?””How will you cross the English Channel?” “How do you wash your clothes?” They reminded me that whilst sometimes we have lofty ideals and ambitions, there is nothing better than children to bring them down to a human scale and yet in doing so increase not diminish their magic.

I had three lessons from the journey which I wanted to convey to the students:

First, that we have a choice as to whether we go through life as a spectator constantly complaining the world isn’t the way you want it, or, as a player seeking to make a contribution to a better world.

Second, that often along the way I had been refused rest, a meal or even water from a garage shop because of my outside appearance; I was smelly, unshaven and dirty. People judged me from the outside and didn’t want me anywhere near, but had they just stopped to enquire as to what I was doing, then they might have been pleasantly surprised.

Third, that when I am asked which country was the most hospitable, I tell them that they were all the same, because in all countries, and from all backgrounds there were people who were amazingly kind and generous and there were a small number who were not so. In other words the response people made to a stranger passing through was not a matter or their nationality, but of their humanity.

We did three assemblies with over five hundred students and in between I had the opportunity to meet many of the excellent teaching staff, gate-crash a Parent-Teacher Meeting and even to meet with the Student Council to discuss how they might help promote the Olympic truce. They had drafted a letter which they intended to send to each of the national delegations to the UN in Geneva from the Student Council congratulating the various missions on signing the truce and then asking them what they intended to do to implement it—it was an inspired idea and was likely to have far greater effect than another communication from a politician. I urged them to come up with ideas about how to promote the truce around the school and then implement them because the effect of their letter would be all the more effective if it began ‘At the International School we are doing X Y and Z to implement the Olympic truce, and we would be delighted to know what you as a signatory to the truce are intending to do.’

All too quickly the time had gone and I had to dash for my train back to Milan but the warmth of the welcome from the teachers and students inspired me to pledge to come back when I had concluded the walk to see how they were doing with the project and also to meet the students in the other school campuses. Before I left I was presented with the school mascot, one for me and another for my grandson and also a tube of sweets for extra energy to help me over the Alps and even a packed lunch to eat on the train. What an amazing school, with great students and inspirational teachers—you just can’t fail. As I left Shona Wright’s office I noticed on the wall a wonderful quote from Pablo Casals which underlined the schools philosophy: