Robert Land Academy - The Five Values of Robert Land Academy

The Five Values of Robert Land Academy

The Academy emphasizes five core social values in everything it strives to teach to its students, within and beyond the bounds of the class: Loyalty, Labour, Courage, Commitment and Honour. As the Academy's parent's handbook explains:

• Loyalty as a concept is self-explanatory. How one makes it tangible as a value determines the nature of one's conduct. Modelling plays an important role. It is paramount that loyalty is displayed to each other and the Academy. We expect loyalty as a matter of course and it is rewarded when displayed. The necessity and benefits of loyalty to something outside and other than oneself must be demonstrated in a concrete fashion, through verbal explanations and providing opportunities to demonstrate its value in life situations. By graduation, each Cadet should understand and be capable of displaying loyalty to something greater and other than himself.

• Labour for Robert Land Academy Cadets entails far more than the routine performance of menial jobs. We are committed to labour as a way of life and to the importance of fulfilling one's life work with an attitude of self-respect as well as respect for the labour of others. We view life itself as labour, in the sense that one must work for what one earns, whether rights or remuneration. This is not to say that we believe life to be drudgery; rather, as Robert Land himself believed, life is a toiling after the best, in the realms of work, rest and play. We instill this value in our Cadets by demanding from them their best in all activities. All Cadets share in the work done at the Academy, and their work must meet our standard of excellence. Our Cadets also labour in academics, life skills and extra curricular activities, and again, they must labour to be the best they can be.

• Our Cadets are taught to have the Courage to speak their minds, act on their convictions and be able to finish what they start, despite hardships. With courage our Cadets will learn to master their limitations and exploit their strengths in order to achieve maximum success. ... courage is not the absence of fear, but its conquest. The person who has never been afraid has never had to display courage.

• Commitment is perhaps the most fundamental of our values. Robert Land's life was based on a commitment to principles and institutions which were not accepted universally. For this he suffered considerably. Commitment breeds endurance in adversity, a necessary attribute for anyone seeking success. Cadets must learn that commitment means binding one's self to someone or something else, and that such binding is both necessary for one's development and beneficial to one's personality. Cadets will be taught to show commitment to each other, to the Academy and its values, and to excellence in all their endeavours.

• Cadets at Robert Land grow to Honour themselves, their families, their friends and the Academy. The service theme facilitates the development of all of the values in our Cadets, especially honour. Through the continual insistence of honour for the values of our Academy, our Cadets will learn respect for a code of conduct that will stand them in good stead for the rest of their lives. The honour associated with the life of Robert Land should be a fine example to the entire Robert Land community.