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It’s not the opposite of child abuse, it just happens a bit later in life.

Last Thursday, I interviewed nine year 11 students at my daughter’s school in a process where they provide a CV and then have a mock interview with ‘the appropriate individual’.

It’s a brilliant scheme and they do it across the whole of year 11. Whatever you’re interested in or might be interested in going forwards you can have a mock interview in.

So last Thursday morning I had nine students in the morning for 20-minute interviews and feedback.

It’s another one of those things I could do without in the midst of a hugely busy month and a session to catch up on admin would have been much appreciated, but instead I was sat in the school hall at West Bridgford to interview these kids.

Firstly, and most importantly, these kids are utterly exceptional to a man (and woman) I know they’re self-selected because they’re the ones that want dentistry and medicine and their grades are going to be good and they’re committed. But my God… was I intimidated!

To have a long conversation with a 15-year-old lad about religious philosophy, ethics, why he wants to be a doctor and how his family are going to open up a clinic and they’re all going to train in different specialisations and they’re going to make it brilliant. You can see the future in his eyes… flipping ‘eck!

To have a beautiful young woman sat in front of you and say “I want to be a cardiac surgeon”.

At that age, to know what they want to do and to know what’s involved in doing that…blimey! It was impressive!

I did this blog last year too immediately after I had done the same process and I asked the same question and I still don’t have the answer…

‘What do we do to damage these people between now and then?’

What do we do to damage our children who are full of ethics and high ideas and an urge to change the world for the better. How do we grind them down?

But grind them down we do.

How do we inspire ourselves to greatness when nothing else will do?

I’m not absolutely sure but I think it comes day-by-day and minute-by-minute and interaction-by-interaction.

I think as we teach these guys self-reflection and they hopefully develop a thick shell of resistance and begin to understand that it doesn’t matter what their friend wears on Snapchat or what so and so said about them three minutes ago before it deletes.

I hope I’ll do this every year because it really restores my faith in humanity and it ties in with a project we have at work now with a local charity where we’re doing work experience for kids who come from backgrounds that don’t usually get into medicine and dentistry but have shown an interest in this.

Let’s hope we can inspire them too so that they can inspire us back.

Blog Post Number: 1851