Average - it’s a concept that’s all over the place in our society. This basic idea of an “average” person is threaded through all aspects of life. Governments plan for average people. Retailers advertise to average people. Builders build houses, car makers make cars and clothing designers design clothes, all for average people. We often refer to ourselves as normal or average people. But as ubiquitous as this all-encompassing identification of average or normal is, its not been around for all that long.
We can trace the popularisation of this way of classifying ourselves to the 1800’s. Adolphe Quetelet (pronounced “ketlay” I believe) a young Flemish astronomy graduate, convinced the Dutch government to build an observatory in Belgium. The reason for this being, the Dutch controlled Belgium at the time, plus, everyone who was anyone had a big telescope in the 1800’s and, well…Belgium didn’t have big a telescope like everyone else.
After many distinguished years as an astronomer, during a tour of Europe, circumstance necessitated a career change. With a bit of a revolution happening and his observatory occupied by rebels, returning to a life of observation and analysis was out of the question. Never to miss a beat, Adolphe turned his eye in a different direction. Surrounded by the upheaval of revolution and the chaos that comes with it Quetelet set himself the goal of studying the physics of social behaviour.
As an astronomer he was highly proficient in the collection of data and the use of probability and statistics to analyse said data. Coincidentally, the beginnings of industrialisation in this era also ushered in the beginnings of big data. Information collection was rife. Numbers of people, amounts of harvest, births, deaths and so it goes.
In the early 1840’s Quetelet took a particular interest in a specific data set published in an Edinburgh medical journal. It listed the chest circumference of 5738 Scottish soldiers. Why collect this data? I have no idea. Nevertheless, Adolphe Quetelet added each of the measurements and divided this number by the total number of soldiers. The average chest circumference of a Scottish soldier was 39¾ inches. The maths of it is not remarkable, the fact that this was one of the first times in human history that anyone had calculated the average of a human feature, was. Like a child with a new toy Quetelet went on to calculate many averages - births, marriages, crimes. Best known of his works is the invention of the Quetelet index or what we now call the Body Mass Index (BMI).
History making Maths? Definitely not. History making concept? Well…yes, because here we see the birth of the average person - each of us as the added measurements of our characteristics, divided by the summed uniqueness of us all.
But back to reality - as interesting as this is, none of us are average. Everyone brings with them their gifts, talents and experiences. Each person is just that little bit different to the person, in front of them, behind them, beside them. While we may identify as average, because of the things we may have in common, individually we most certainly are not average.
So, who is the average Eddies student? He is tall and short, lanky and solid with blond hair or dark, and loves country music or not. Each of our young men and all of us are part of the Eddies Team. As a team we have much in common. As individuals we develop our strengths and skills, work on our challenges and hopefully take our opportunities so as to not be average.
Over the past few weeks, we have been acknowledging the successes of our young men in academic pursuits. Awards for honours, merit and improvement affirm the efforts of students who have identified an aspect of themselves and developed it. I congratulate these young men for their efforts to become better and develop their talents. This said, opportunities available at Eddies are numerous.
Quetelet may have viewed the world with the thought of identifying the average person for us. Our dream for our young Eddies Men however, is to not be average and to rejoice in their talents, build their skills, take their opportunities. In the words of our College song (third verse) “in culture, sport and learning, we will strive to achieve” and that’s definitely not average.
Parent Survey
Next week all parents and caregivers will receive an email with an invitation to provide feedback for the College. All of us, parents, caregivers, staff and students, affect and create the community that is St Edmund’s.
Every voice is important, and I encourage all parents and caregivers to follow the link provided in the email and take some time to answer the survey questions. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.
St Edmund’s Family - Vale Chris Davy
It is with sadness that I inform you of the passing of former staff member Chris Davy.
Chris was a well-respected member of staff and teacher of Manual Arts and Engineering. With a quiet, no-nonsense approach, he demonstrated a genuine commitment to the young men of the College.
We keep Chris’ family in our thoughts and prayers.
