The Rev Tim Hastie-Smith, chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, said in a speech at its annual gathering that young people would succeed not by retreating from society but by engaging with the big questions in a mature and reasoned way: "Offering possible answers and challenges rather than the passing fads of an X-Factor culture”. Apart from the sideswipe at the X-Factor, of which I am something of a fan, I have to agree with him, and I felt the keyword he used was challenge. A challenge implies a task that is not going to be definitely achievable, but a task you may fail at but also learn something. I really believe that allowing our Changemakers to fail is an essential part of their success.
Many organisations I come across seem to believe that building confidence in young people is about propping them up and putting them in positions in which they are cushioned from failure. This has created a fear of failing in our young people, a fear of Getting It Wrong. The big questions are not easy and I believe that part of our young people’s reluctance to engage with political issues comes not from laziness or ignorance but from a fear of not coming up with an immediate answer, of having to deal with the unsatisfying grey areas of life rather than the clear-cut. I believe in letting young people Get It Wrong, and supporting them through the process of discovering that it’s not life-threatening. Stopping them from ever Getting It Wrong is truly life-threatening.