Weeknote 25+26/2025: My Travelling Companions on the Road to Character
Lessons in character from storms, students, and stillness.
Hello!
The last two weeks of the school term flew by in a mix of catch-ups, cinema visits, birthday celebrations and presentations. However, I made time each morning for some reading. Breaking away from Wallabag for a while, I finally began to read David Brooks’ “The Road to Character”, albeit in a poorly formatted epub to make up for the fact that I couldn’t convert my Amazon purchase to a Kobo-readable file.
In this book, David Brooks highlights the contrast between our resume virtues and eulogy virtues, something I’d never thought of before. These are the qualities people remember about us after we’re gone. He argues that real character emerges when we stop performing and start serving something greater than ourselves.
Through my writing, I’ve begun to delve deeper into character reflection over the past two years. I still consider it navel-gazing, so I try to balance this with stories, but I am now finding these reflections more valuable than career or professional achievements. I hope you are finding these interesting at the very least, but I hold out hope for usefulness too!
I wrote a few weeks ago about trust, inspired by current events and how others were being treated, but ultimately processed through reflection of events from over twenty years ago. By the way, I would like to thank you for your kind messages both online and in person regarding this matter. It spurred me to examine my character more deeply and, following the pathway of the stories in David Brooks’ book, through my actions.
So I decided to look at how I actually spend my time and energy, and five clear patterns emerged:
1. Generous service
A few weeks previously, I was invited to contribute to a Startup Grind workshop on how to use no-code AI platforms to enable entrepreneurs to create their own MVP or minimum viable product. Despite it being the last week of summer term, when educators are essentially running on fumes, I was honoured to present alongside Nicole Christie and then support a room full of professionals turn their ideas into working prototypes in under an hour. Watching professionals light up as their ideas took shape reminded me why I love teaching - there's something magical about helping others discover what they're capable of. The positivity in the room undoubtedly gave me an extra jolt of energy!
From the beginning of my teaching career, I have given my time freely to professional development opportunities such as TeachMeets or Pedagoo events. This has evolved towards coding and entrepreneurship over the past three years. These were always opportunities to connect with and learn from others, and I always managed to take away something that helped me grow. My aim has always been to provide value to my peers in return. If I were able to get a few slices of pizza or a branded USB drive on top of this as a bonus, it was gratefully appreciated but not expected.
2. Empowering others
Klara and Oliver were completing their final day of the Teaching Experience Internship - two weeks where I'd watched them grow from (only slightly) nervous computer science students into confident educators. When I learned this coincided with my former colleagues' end-of-term celebrations at The Manchurian, it felt like perfect timing for a double celebration. After all, I'd managed to attend NESCol celebrations for the first time (and that included when I worked there!), so why not make it about recognising emerging talent too?
I had made sure Klara and Oliver had opportunities to lead lessons, encouraged them to bring their humour into the classroom, and supported them as they built relationships with students. They repaid the faith I had in them in spades. I know both have successful careers in Computer Science to focus on first, but I’m incredibly proud of the skills they demonstrated as future educators and hope to meet them again in the future. The celebration meal also provided essential fuel to survive a manic afternoon administering a whole school quiz, rounding off their experience in style.
3. Authentic relationships
In a world where I often need to be 'on' professionally, these relationships offer the safety to just exist without performance, and in the past, I’ve definitely been guilty of neglecting the importance of these as well as underestimating their value at times.
My son's birthday brought the family together as my daughter and her boyfriend visited with their new dog. Instead of elaborate plans, we did what grounds us: headed to the local bowling club for an emerging tradition of darts and pool. It reminds me that the strongest relationships aren't built on grand gestures but on showing up consistently for the small things and, whether I'm winning or losing at darts, whether we're concentrating or laughing as we fail to pot an easy shot or nail a double, these are the people who see me as I am: just a dad or partner.
4. Restoration through nature
There are very few things in the world that can convince me to be present more than watching a thunderstorm. I can still recall moments from my childhood sitting at the front door in my parents’ house in Altens as thunder raged directly overhead. I can recall the earthy smell of a particularly large storm in Milan where the sky and lightning were various shades of purple.
The feelings of calm and awe at the beauty of nature that these invoke never fail to soothe. It’s always a full sensory experience that allows my ceraunophilia to flourish as, for a little while, I find myself restored to a simpler, more grounded version of myself.
I am fortunate enough to live in Scotland where, on occasion, the sun breaks through the cloud and allows my family and I to vanish into the countryside. We regularly take our dog to one of his favourite walks through the woods surrounding Crathes Castle. It was slightly overcast this time around, but while the walk provided the necessary physical exercise, it also provided essential time together to discuss what was on our minds. In the past, I chose to walk the streets between Porta Romana and Brera, headphones in, gaining perspective on events or conversations that knocked me off-kilter but doing the same in the middle of nature has much more impact. The mental space to process recent experiences and restore balance is so important to me and appears to be a trait my children have embraced for their own mental well-being.
5. Reflective practice
After myriad school trips, it was to be expected that the risk of falling foul of some kind of lurgy would increase. With increasing numbers of staff and students calling in absent, I wasn’t surprised when I woke up on Sunday morning with stuffed sinuses. In the past I would have pushed through it and gone to work the next day regardless of how I felt, but I’ve learned over the years - and especially over the past year - to listen to my body when I need to recuperate.
After posting suitable cover work for my classes I took an hour or so to write my previous weeknote with my dog keeping me company on the sofa before returning to David Brooks’ book. When I bought this from Amazon back in September 2024 I had been researching for my AI and Ethics course and stumbled upon his work. At this point I was celebrating my writing becoming a discipline rather than a hobby but I think, looking back, I didn’t understand that what I wrote each week reflected aspects of my character and as a result I was still letting myself off the hook, drifting through experiences in the shallows.
I’ve always strongly believed that reflection is essential in order to grow and improve. If you’ve read a few of my weeknotes I hope you agree that this is a common and recurring theme. That said, I was perhaps idly musing rather than reflecting on the good and bad with genuine improvement as a goal. My post a few weeks ago about trust took a while to write as I wanted to balance my instinctive position with a period of reflection to ensure I was being true to my standards, which I'm only now beginning to truly understand. And while I’ve noted that this slows down the writing process as I move from what were fairly quick summaries of a week-in-the-life to analysing how my actions and activities reflect my character development, I genuinely feel that I’m understanding myself and previous decisions better.
Current and former students and colleagues will know that I tell a lot of stories. All the stories are true. However, what I am learning from more closely reflecting on those experiences is to question why I chose to share those stories in the first place and that the impact of these on others isn’t always what I hoped.
While I’m writing about character this week, I want to highlight that this post is an assessment of where I am at this point, not the end of the road.
Over the coming weeks and months, I want to continue to reflect on my actions to try and move from a fragmented life to one that is more committed. And when I look inward, I want to be able to see that moments from the chaos of existence are signposts toward a life where I am content because my actions align with my values, creating harmony between who I am and how I live.
When I think about Brooks' Road to Character, I feel that these five patterns are less like destinations and more like travelling companions who teach me something different about the journey. Generous service reminds me that the road isn't about me; empowering others shows me we're all walking together; authentic relationships provide the shared experiences that make the journey meaningful; nature offers the quiet moments to appreciate the landscape, and reflection helps me get a little better with each mile travelled.
Take care and have a great week! xx
Delighted to hear you're discovering David Brooks - The Second Mountain is also excellent on this stuff. I often talk to students about eulogy virtues, though I'm not sure that stuff lands until your a bit older.