Hester Callaghan on global citizenship

Former IB-student Hester Callaghan (graduated 2008) gave one of the anniversary speeches at the reception last friday.

Hello! It's quite surreal standing here, I haven't been here for 3 years and I still remember the first time that I step foot in this hall. Everyone was speaking Danish and I didn't have a clue what was going on. It's nice to be back and understand all the nice things that are being said about the school! I am quite aware of the fact that I watched the election all night yesterday and so I am going to have to try quite hard to not make my speech sound like a political manifesto.

 It's a little bit strange to think that just a few years ago, this place was my school, my social life, the first place that I lived away from home and the first place that I ever came to in Denmark.  It feels like just yesterday and a decade at the same time. I am originally from England and I moved to Grenaa five years ago to take the IB and I lived at the boarding school for the two years that I studied here.

 I was one of the first classes of IB students in Grenaa, or more precisely, I started when the very first class of IB students graduated so I remember arriving amid flying gossip and rumours about JUST how hard it was. "Did you hear about how many CAS hours we had to do" "Yeah it was crazy, I am going to have to start doing some sports". I just remember standing quietly thinking, "not only am I going to have to start doing some form of physical activity, I have no idea what CAS is!"

 I could ramble on about all my memories from my two years at Grenaa and all of them are flooding back as I am standing here talking to you but I am supposed to be talking about Global Citizenship so I will try to focus on one particular memory that I have.

 On one of the first days of school, we were used as guinea pigs by some IB2 psychology students. They were exploring the effects of nationality on identity and we were asked to fill in a questionnaire. We were asked what country we were a citizen of, so I filled in "Britain". The next question asked which country we considered to be home and I felt a little lump form in my throat as I wrote "England" there too.  When I moved to Denmark I was nervous that I would lose some of the Englishness that I considered to be a defining part of my personality. I was somehow afraid that if I could no longer call myself British, I wouldn't be able to call myself anything. I would become Hester Callaghan - from nowhere. It sounds ridiculous now but it was a genuine concern that I had during my first year in Denmark, being both away from home and away from England.

 Whilst we were filling in the questionnaire, I remember looking over my shoulder in a typical teenage way to see what the person next to me had written. He had written that he was a citizen of Denmark but considered home himself at home in both Somalia and Denmark. I remember looking at what he had written and being unable to understand how he could feel both things. How could you feel at home in two places at once?

 As I have grown older and met more cultures and travelled outside my comfort zone, the more I have realised that no one is confined to just one culture. The more that you expose yourself to international influences, the more you develop different facets of your personality and the more you challenge those values and characteristics that you once had. By challenging your own values and views, you naturally become more tolerant, you gain inspiration and your confidence grows. This is possibly something that Pia Kjærsgaard could learn something from.

 But opening yourself to the outside world isn't something that just happens. The world has become in many ways smaller thanks to the internet, globalization and not least, Ryanair but it is still possible to close yourself off and stubbornly hold onto your own values, whether they be inherently Danish, English or anything else. More and more people decide to take a year off to travel, learn another language and more people are deciding to study abroad, whether it be a university exchange or taking the IB. Most of my classmates were Danish and had simply decided to try something new and meet people from around the world. I think that this is something to be applauded and encouraged.

 Most of my fondest memories from my time here are based around the international aspect of the school. Meeting so many different people with so many different backgrounds, assumptions and perspectives on life. I remember learning Danish by accident during a French lesson, being taken on journeys to Aboriginal Australia and Mexico in art lessons, pretending to speak Welsh in English and somehow pretending that reading children's books in Danish was a service to the community. Perhaps most fondly of all I remember my time at the boarding school where I was surrounded on all sides by Danes and people from other cultures and never feeling more at home. It was the most perfect environment to be in having moved away from England and from home.

 When you expose yourself to other cultures, nationalities and traditions, you not only develop new perspectives and expand your horizon, you also learn more about who you are and what defines your own culture. I don't think I have ever felt more English than I do now at University, studying amongst a class of Danes. I have become Hester Callaghan - the English one. But something has changed, I am not the same person I was when I first moved to Denmark because I have inevitably picked up some elements of Danish culture, but likewise I have become more aware of my English traits. For example I am currently struggling to combine the Danish directness and straight-forward approach with the English fear of offending anyone! It's a pretty tricky thing to unify those two traits, if anyone has any ideas, please let me know!

 Over the last five years, I have become used to the idea of not being 100% English. I actually quite like the idea of being a kind of hybrid. It also now makes perfect sense to me how my classmate was able to feel both Somalian and Danish because culture isn't something in limited supply. Nor do you have to give up some of the one culture to make space for the new.  The more that you expose yourself and open yourself up to other cultures, the less tied you become to your homeland and your birth nationality. You are suddenly able to make yourself at home in two different places, or three places, or infinitely many places because you realise that the most important thing is not where you come from, but where you decide to make your home. Right now my home is Aarhus but I feel comfort in the idea that I can move elsewhere and still be me.

 My time at Grenaa Gymnasium was memorable and taught me a lot about myself and what I would like to get out of life. It was an inspiring place to be and I can only hope that more people in the future decide to take the IB in this tiny, picturesque coastal town in Djursland, and that they will have just as wonderful an experience as I had.

 Thankyou and congratulations with the 50 years, Grenaa!

 

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