WEEKEND PROFILE: Meet Mr Education

Graham Young has dedicated his life to educating tomorrow's leaders. Now, as the new president of the New Zealand Secondary Principals' Association, he will be leading his colleagues as well. Anna Bowden reports.
Ordinary boy. Extraordinary man. Graham Young is the epitome of the adage he hammers home to his pupils every day.
For the past two decades, he has been principal of Tauranga Boys' College and has seen young boys falter and strive, relinquish and conquer.
The 57-year-old has kept a watchful eye on the rise and fall of his students and laughed and cried with them as they forged their own futures.
His calm voice suggests confidence in a job he knows inside out, and a certainty in his decision-making for a school which caters for more than 1400 boys. It is a calm, commanding voice, rather like a father telling a story before bedtime.
And it is the voice of a man who will now represent hundreds of principals around the country as president of the New Zealand Secondary Principals' Association.
His new position was announced last week and the role - to be taken on officially in June - will place him at the forefront of education policy-making and see him become a leader to many more than his Tauranga Boys' staff and students. He was also one of 12 education experts who made submissions on the future of the troubled NCEA scholarship system.
The Western Bay's longest-serving principal was ready to share a tale or two when we met in his sun-filled office this week.
Themed in a friendly indigo blue, the room was not at all how I remembered my principal's office to be.
Not a dungeon.
His blue desk is littered with papers. There are rings around the inside of his coffee mug, and three polished shells stand out in the clutter - something to hold when thinking, I am told.
His laptop is closed because he hasn't had a chance to open it yet.
Various trophies and awards are placed on the floor waiting, he says, to be delivered to recipients.
Young is dressed in casual attire for the school holidays: Tan dress trousers and dark blue-green shirt.
He leans back on the small couch in his office. I ask him about his own school days. He smiles - and his blue eyes smile too.
Growing up in Auckland as the second eldest of five, Young was a fairly ordinary student.
He was "average to above average" academically and involved himself in hockey, rugby, volleyball, basketball, swimming and athletics at Pakuranga College.
He revelled in school-life.
That, he says, was the wonderful thing about schooling in the 1960s: "You could do everything".
Now, he believes we are forcing children as young as 14 to choose their life paths.
He cites world golf number one Tiger Woods as an example of the supreme success of child prodigies, who specialise in something at a very young age. Young says while it is a different concept to focus on one facet to all extremes, he did not think it was a bad idea.
"You never make judgments about things of yesterday using the values of society today," he says, recalling his own school days.
"On one hand, you had a range of different experiences but we never ever reached the level of achievement students do today. They are just so much better at everything."
But while Beatle-mania, flower power and rebellion marked his teenage years, Young is reluctant to confess exactly what his hairstyle was like.
Schools 40 years ago were designed to cater for students heading to university, like Young. But for those heading to careers in trade industries, the system was simply not equipped to teach them.
"Schools in those days said 'this is what we do' and if your child is not suited to the school, your child goes without," he explains.
During the protest movement, children lived in a culture where they were "seen and not heard".
"That was the upbringing two generations ago, children just weren't listened to," he said.
Young describes the school system as "teacher-directed" in his day and says it has evolved into a "student-centred" service.
"The mind of a child used to be looked at as a filing cabinet and it was the job of the teacher to fill the filing cabinet. Today, schools are student-centred. It's about looking at learning through the eyes of a student. Their mind isn't treated like a filing cabinet it is treated like a resource."
After secondary school, the University of Otago beckoned an 18-year-old Young as a good place to grow up and study physical education.
After completing his degree in 1967 , he began teaching at James Cook High School in Auckland, where he met Barbara Sinclair; they married three years later.
"The day I was married was the greatest day of my life," he says with a sincere tone and thoughtful glance. "I don't think I'd ever made a commitment to the extent to what I was making that day. It was a similar feeling when my first child was born."
He clearly recalls the night his daughter was born. He was studying maths in his spare time and a few hours afterwards, sat a statistics exams tired and "befuddled".
He had been present for the birth and "just can't believe the generations of men, fathers who missed out on the experience of childbirth".
The couple had their family - Elizabeth, David and Hamish - in Tauranga after shifting here from Auckland in 1971.
Young took up a teaching position at Tauranga Boys' College, became head of maths in 1979 and two years later was promoted to deputy principal.
In 1985, he was appointed principal.
Outside work, he chooses to spend his leisure time walking his dog at Mount Maunganui beach near his home and paddling his sea kayak to escape the world for a moment.
Young enjoys the finer things in life. He appreciates a good coffee, strong with all the trimmings.
A patient man with a keen knowledge, he settles his mind each night by reading - novels mostly.
Working six days a week, he has little time for himself; the school is without doubt a second-home.
It is these experiences that contribute to the genuine nature of a man who has maybe not seen it all but seen many things.
As he ponders the memory of one student who holds a place in his heart, his tone becomes solemn.
A teenage boy died after a struggle with cancer that began with a sore knee.
Having waited it until after his university entrance exams before addressing the problem, the student discovered he had cancer. His leg was amputated but the disease spread to his lungs and he died soon after.
At this point, Young turns, picks up a fading photograph of the boy from a bookshelf next to his desk and hands it to me.
It is nestled in an oval wooden frame and has collected no dust. It's been 15 years since the boy died - and it still brings a tear to Young's eye today.
He cares not to divulge other stories of students who have impacted on his life, because in a way, they all have.
"I guess that's the thing about the job, we cry with our students, we laugh and share in joyous celebrations, he said.
"It never ceases to amaze me how some people have a setback in life, almost a crisis, and they use it as an impetus for success where other people use it as an excuse for failure. I have spent all my life as a teacher trying to unlock that secret."
For Young, these lessons in life are all part of his role as principal - a position he never "wanted" but has thrived on in its continual challenges.
He says that through time, challenges have risen, been worked on, evolved and resolved, only to manifest themselves in some new way.
"I know that when I leave, even after 20 years, the job still won't be done."
Today, 35 years since his first day at the school, Young still believes heads of departments make the most difference to students' learning.
He says schools need to "empower" their students. "They are asked to take responsibility for their own work. They have the resources and will be held accountable."
He recalled once more the "ridiculousness of the 60s" where punishments included having write essays or run around the field.
"What does that say about creative writing? What does that say about physical education? Is it a punishment? We actually want students today to find those things joyous."
Having spent decades watching youths struggling to succeed and battling against failure, Young is adamant that this generation is the best.
"They run faster, think quicker, are more articulate; the level of music and art is so much higher. Everything is so much better.
"I have complete faith in this generation."
Education is clearly his life and he is a natural teacher, as I find when he sits me down to explain the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).
He demonstrates on the boardroom whiteboard with a black felt pen - he the teacher and I the student.
Neither a supporter nor a knocker of the school achievement system, he explains how it is designed to benefit all students.
"It is about educating a nation," he said.
"Schools haven't invented standards-based assessment, they have borrowed it from the business world."
For a principal with more than three decades' experience in leadership and schooling systems, Young is a forward-thinking man who is embracing the changing future of education.
And, after being appointed to his new role at the Secondary Principals' Association, Young is sticking by his stance to never sit back and let decisions be made around him.
The new job involves raising education levels across the country and promoting good ethics among principals.
Tauranga Girls' College principal Pauline Cowens said she had known Young many years - so long she wasn't sure how they met.
"He is a wonderful principal and is so experienced," she said.
"He puts a lot of energy into defending the rights of principals in schools and is very knowledgeable."
Young says he will be at the "cutting edge" of policy development for schools across the country.
As we stroll through the polished corridor at Tauranga Boys', we pause at a board displaying news clippings of old boys' achievements.
Systematically pointing to each photo and story, Young recalls past students and the endeavours they have undertaken.
He knows their names, remembers what sort of students they were, what sports they played and who they were friends with.
"I see so many ordinary boys become extraordinary men," he says turning to me, away from their faces.
This is indeed his second home - and within its walls lie the beginnings of young lives about to burst into exciting futures.
It is those lives that make Young's life the extraordinary one it is.
"Lots of people have a job, a charity and a sporting interest. This job is all of those things for me."