By Amy Campion
It can feel strange to spend years raising a child, getting to know their quirks and humour, their kindness and resilience, their peculiar passions and special talents, the things that light them up and the things they find hard, only to reach the end of school and suddenly become terribly interested in a number. So many parents understand this pressure to perform, to reach benchmarks that seem to define what success looks like.
For Mornington Peninsula educators and parents Dan Steele and Laura Pitt, that number, and the enormous weight we sometimes allow it to carry, became the starting point for More Than a Score, a locally produced podcast with the important message that young people are much more than their academic results.
Dan, a former assistant principal and teacher, and Laura, a former secondary teacher and VCAA marker and supervisor, have more than 30 years’ combined experience in education. They have seen young people flourish at school, but they’ve also known bright, capable and interesting kids who came away believing they didn’t measure up when their scores weren’t what was hoped for.
“We started this podcast because we wanted our own kids, and everyone else’s, to grow up believing they are more than a number,” Dan says.
While an ATAR can certainly open a particular door at a particular moment, it tells us little about many of the qualities we eventually value most in life. Dan talks about curiosity, courage, emotional intelligence, ingenuity and persistence as qualities that parents can nurture in children to help them build satisfying, meaningful lives.
Across more than 40 episodes, Dan and Laura have spoken to educators, artists, entrepreneurs, leaders and others whose lives have rarely followed a neat line from school to career. Their stories are reassuring for parents and children alike, reminding us there are many ways to make a good life, and few require having it all figured out at 17.
Now, as More Than a Score celebrates its first birthday, the conversation is leaving the podcast studio. This month, Dan and Laura will host their first live event in Mornington, bringing parents and young people together for an evening exploring what success beyond school can look like. School principal Kristy Kendall, business owner Thomas Pitt and Funlab global CEO Blaise Witnish have taken different routes through education, work and life. The evening is intended not as another careers night but as a genuine conversation about pathways, pressure and how adults can help young people imagine a future bigger than a score.
That is probably what makes More Than a Score feel particularly timely. Our children already live in a world rather fond of measuring them with marks, rankings, followers, likes and milestones. Sometimes they need the adults around them to remember what cannot be measured at all.
More Than a Score: A Live Conversation About Success is on Wednesday, September 9, from 7-8.30pm at Lenzo Events, Mornington. Tickets via Humanitix. Listen and subscribe at www.muchmorethanascore.com
