Cheryl Cole - person who has made the most positive impact in the world today?

[NorhamGardens]

My Sister's very gifted 14 year old daughter was asked to pick the a person to do a project on. The emphasis was on choosing someone who had overcome huge odds to make a positive impact on the world today or similar. Person that deserves huge admiration and respect, that sort of thing. Deserves to be a national icon and so on.

Three quarters of my niece's class chose Cheryl Cole. No Nelson Mandela? No Mother Theresa?

I questioned her. She explained that it would have been all to easy for Cheryl to descend into drugs like others on her Estate. She has huge talent and gifts - a great dancer who studied at the Royal Ballet School and stayed despite teasing and bullying. (A quick google showed she did a summer camp or similar and didn't pursue in part due to bullying/teasing).

I am noticing that my niece and her generation appear to value 'prettiness' above all else and that is really why they admire Cheryl in the main. That and thinking she's cool. Let's face it if she was plug ugly it's very likely she would never have gone as far as she has.

AIBU to think that it's pretty shocking they didn't think to choose someone else? AIBU to hope that so many didn't tie up their self worth with their 'attractiveness'. (A look at their Facebook accounts would make you weep? Or is it all about being a teenager and Cheryl is to be admired in this way? She's cool, she's down to earth, beautiful and talented etc..Maybe I am the old fart here ?

sethstark- there is a great mary seacole one that we read recently- will google it for you
dd loves hearing about florence nightingale too atm

seth, my DH and I are actually writing a series of books for girls which will be stories be based on cool/quirky things women have done in history - and not your usual Queen Elizabeth and Florence Nightingale(yawn) but spies, revolutionaries, scientists, thinkers, explorers, and so on.

But we're being a bit slow, so someone will probably beat us to it!

cool! Are you writers/have you got a publisher Takethatlady?

brilliant idea - let us know when it's ready!

I'm an academic and I'm about to publish my first academic book ... not sure if that counts as being a writer! But I used to work at a literary agency and they do children's books, so I'm hoping that's an in!

This is quite funny Cheryl on twitter - sort of.

There's a great book about Gladys Aylward, although it's not really suitable for a five year old. Definitely worth getting when she's a bit older.
(Gladys Aylward went to China to be a missionary, but ended up taking in abondoned children, buying children that were being sold into slavery and setting up her own orphanage. when WW2 hit, she walked with over 100 children across the mountains to get them to safety. Now that's inspiring I think )

For me (token man) Cheryl Cole will never be properly attractive because she sounds like Wearside Jack.

OP - interesting name. Are you/were you at LMH?

@ your contacts! Good luck with the book. I will buy it.

Seth and takehatlady great idea. How inspired! Hopefully be compulsory reading at school in time, might just go some way to change things a little bit. A journey of a thousand miles and all that sort of thing...

What might change things too is family debate around the table at least once a week. Take about who we admire and why? etc.

I was just thinking about Mary Seacole and I suspect not many at school know who she is (although I might be wrong).

Touching on some of the comments about Cheryl's tirade in the loo versus Jade's racist remarks. Is it easier to forgive someone who causes ABH (I remember seeing the eye of the loo attendant, all inflamed, black eye, not pretty)? Were Jade's racist words much worse? I guess one of the differences might be Jade disgraced herself live on TV. Cheryl explained that was how she learnt to defend herself on the estate and felt threatened and under pressure so naturally hit out of course. She was swiftly forgiven. Effigies of Jade were burned globally.

I think that Jade used the words she did to express frustration at Shilpa's annoying/princessy behaviour and were not racially motivated. Jade used the 'language' of her estate and Cheryl the actions perhaps?

takethatlady - my DD is 9, I need you to get that book published and into the hands of DD before she hits secondary school and Heat magazine gets her. I'm doing my best to keep them at bay, but God, I need some help here!

We as adults may pick role models based on sensible criteria, but teenage girls have different drivers.

I would much rather a teenage girl chose someone like this who they were interested in, and knew something about, and would really engage with in a topic, rather than someone 'sensible' which would bore them rigid.

I had to do GCSE coursework on comparitive fiction when I was a kid - all my earnest classmates chose Jane Austen, Virginia Wolf, George Orwell, all 'classics'. I had no interest in that and chose Riders, Rivals and Polo by Jilly Cooper. The head of English was scandalised but that coursework was the only piece of coursework for that examining board to recieve 100% when marked. So don't dismiss something because it is low brow.

I wouldn't necessarily hold up Mother Theresa as a paragon of virtue, either, tbh.

God that is tragic yanbu at all!

Takethatlady, what age group is yours going to be aimed at? I really want something to read aloud to my 5yo but equally it's clear that preteens need something. (Just thinking, if I do this too we may not be in competition if we're aiming at different age groups.) Just noticed you're doing a series, not just one book - from what I have read about publishing I imagine it would probably be easier to get a series published than an individual book, but from my POV a big book with lots of stories would make it easier to expose them to a good range of stuff.

Tombliboob I can sort of see what you mean. Jade also evolved in time I think but wasn't forgiven until she became ill. Perhaps her crime was worse?

Getorf

I don't think Cheryl is being condemned for being lowbrow but for lacking merit - for being "not fit for purpose."

Cheryl Cole is considered beautiful by the standards of our time - tiny frame, fake tan, hair extensions etc. If I remember correctly, Jade was bigger, less pretty and appeared to be a bit thick (not being judgey, just saying how it came across on TV). I remember the press tearing into Jade because of her poor vocabulary and she became a national laughing stock.
This whole thing is about the values and standards of the society we have created.
Sad but true IMO.

Who?

Pre-teens seth - how about yours? This is exciting!

I haven't started anything yet Takethatlady - it's just this morning as a result of this thread and my dd's enthusiastic reaction to a story about suffragettes the other night I'm thinking I would love a book for my 5yo dd's age group that makes suffragettes etc as exciting as princesses! Start 'em young, I say. God knows how I would convince a publisher though - it is not what girls of that age are 'supposed' to like IYKWIM. Yours is a much more viable proposition. I may just end up writing for my dd and could always just stick it online for anyone else with a weird dd

Seth send it send it send it to lots of publishers - it sounds great! The lit agency I worked for is Felicity Bryan (based in Oxford) if that helps. Or post it on mumsnet (somehow) and it's bound to get picked up by the press and you'll get fortunes!

She has only improved of late because she has been micro managed by Simon Cowell. After her assault charge she was still making comments about Lily Allen looking like a chick with a dick, just horrible.

I do think the mags are a wee bit to blame though as they often consider someone to have had "so much to deal with" when they have repeatedly gained back the 2lbs they lost. Unfortunately the people that would be better role models are too busy actually living and working to appear knicker-less in Heat (I had such high hopes at the last olympics).