Assembly Speaker, 7 February
Katrina Scior, Professor of clinical psychology and stigma studies
Katrina Scior, a professor of clinical psychology and stigma studies at UCL talked to the sixth form about how we can use our voice and ourselves to make a difference in the world; she gave us 10 lessons to follow.
Lesson one, find your own voice and purpose. Her example was Greta Thunburg, as a young environmental activist she is a great role model for young people. She shows the world how one's passion can lead to global change and is someone who inspires people to get their voice heard.
Lesson two, find your purpose and stick with it. Relating back to Greta she was able to influence the world with her passion, she stuck to it. Currently still active in making a change on global warming and other environmental crises.
Lesson three, figure out if you’re a team person or a lone wolf. Katrina found out that she was a team person and developed her team at UCL.
Lesson four, ask nicely… and then ask again. This lesson talks about persistence and telling people about your vision. Katrina’s example was a 2015 survey on disability experts and organisations conducted by her team in UCL. Thinking this project wouldn’t have been very successful, they contacted organisations across the world and successfully had 667 respondents representing different organisations from 88 countries. This shows us how simply telling people about our vision allows our ideas to spark change.
Lesson five, always place ‘good enough’ over ‘perfect’. Her example was that when she saw a headline saying ‘secret filming abuse of disabled and autistic patients’, as a professor of Stigma Studies one of her main focuses is disability. She decided to write about this on her blog ‘Dehumanisation captured on the BBC’ making the decision to have a good enough article over a much more polished one because writing it as a blog quickly meant that it drew attention more quickly. The message behind this lesson was that perfectionism is bad for success and mental health.
Lesson six, don’t assume that everyone else is already doing it, and that even though people may have the same vision as you there is no reason to not continue, work for a cause and do it yourself.
Lesson seven, is think carefully about your values (but don’t let them dictate to you), this example was on the abortion laws in the UK. As mentioned before one of her passions in her work is working with disabled people, this law meant that women can abort up to birth if they know their child had Down Syndrome. In cases of many women they were repeatedly asked by medical professionals if they would want an abortion and Katrina felt it was necessary to question the stigma attached to having a Down Syndrome child. Although it was against her views on abortion as the right of every woman, she believes that the law allowing aborting a disabled baby right up to birth was wrong.
Lesson eight, when a door opens, step in. Meaning that when an opportunity comes, take it as you miss 100% of the opportunities you don’t take.
Lesson nine, believe in yourself… and find others that do. Focus on the people who do believe in you. The quote by Chimamamnda Ngozi Adichue “your solid unbending belief should be: I matter. I matter equally, not ‘if only’. Not ‘as long as’. I matter equally. Full stop” this quote allows us to focus on people who are positive and ourselves positively.
Finally ten, If you don't have self-doubt, you’re not trying hard enough. Fake it till you make it.
It was a powerful, engaging and eye-opening assembly!
Halle
Senior Prefect
