This morning the whole of year eleven was treated to an hour long motivational talk designed to help us fulfil our true potential. Thanks to our speaker's inspirational speech encouraging us to spend more time and effort working I missed an hour's worth of coursework and am now a lesson behind, but at least 'my mind is focused and my heart is ready' (a phrase we were made to repeat over and over like some sort of education pantomime).
During the session, our speaker imparted unto us such pearls of wisdom as 'goldfish only grow as big as their environment.' and 'what you believe about yourself is the truth' (in which case I would like to enquire as to where my Hogwarts letter is) and my personal favourite, 'eagles fly, chickens fry.'
Apparently the reason chickens cannot fly is not that their wings are vestigial, but that they're lazy and have no motivation, whereas eagles are the bird world's equivalent of conscientious students, flying the highest of all the wingéd beasts. The speaker's evidence for the beneficial nature of motivation was 'I bet you've never had an eagle burger'. No, Mr. Speaker, I have not. Possibly because eagles are endangered.
I would also point out, if we are using birds to analogise success, that chickens are incredibly productive, often laying one egg a day, whereas eagles typically lay between one and three a year. Eagles are also predators who end the lives of other animals, which would surely place them in the category of people the speaker described as 'drainers' (friends who destroy your dreams and carry a 'dark cloud of negativity' over their heads) as opposed to chargers (those who encourage you to do well).
This wasn't the only bird-based analogy either. We were also shown a picture of a sparrow jumping from a ledge to illustrate risk taking. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think jumping from a height is much of a risk if you're a bird. The explanation went something like this:
Speaker: The other birds are watchers and observers. They're happy where they are and they're waiting for this little guy to take the risk before they follow on, but that bird has said 'I want it' and he's gone for it. He'll probably be like 'oh, man, what have I done?' but then he'll realise that he can fly and he'll spread his wings and soar! Just like you'll be scared at first but when you accept these challenges you'll find your potential and fly high.
Perhaps I'm overestimating sparrows' intelligence, but as far as I know birds don't tend to forget that they have the power of flight, and if they did, I'm not sure they'd be throwing themselves off buildings. I mean, if they didn't realise they could fly, how on earth did they get up onto the ledge in the first place?
The rest of the session was mostly more pantomimical chanting of 'I am successful', 'my mind is focused and my heart is ready' and 'I fly high' (with reference to the eagle), not to mention a group rendition of 'The lion sleeps tonight' and an anecdote warning us of the dangers of trying to be cool. The speaker was pretty keen on us all holding hands and singing Kumbaya at the end, but our head of year called the session to a close before things could get any more out of hand.
It was probably the most appalling waste of lesson time since the business and enterprise day, and no one is particularly amused by the amount of coursework we'll have to catch up on. Of course, now we know the key to success, making up the extra time should be no trouble, because we all have the eagle within us. And also the ambitious goldfish. I think.
Edit: I have recently researched chicken wings and found that they are not vestigial, but that they are often clipped. Apparently chickens in the wild can fly, though not very far, and roost in trees to avoid predators.
