Editorial, Tuesday July 7, 2015

Peter Jackson, editor, The Northland Age

Who needs talent?

REMEMBER the old days, when kids got opportunities based on talent? When those who were handy on the football field made the 1st XV, those who could sing or act starred in the annual school production, and those who could reason were chosen for the debating team? Well those days, it seems, have gone. Now it's the kids whose parents can afford lawyers who get the breaks.

The government, principals and Crown Law are now reportedly drawing up legal advice for schools faced by angry parents. The story seems to be that the successful legal action taken by the parents of two boys who were briefly thrown off the St Bede's College rowing team earlier this year has opened Pandora's box, and now doting parents here, there and everywhere are taking up the legal cudgels on behalf of their little darlings.

According to the Herald on Sunday, some schools have delayed naming their 1st XVs because of legal threats from parents, while some parents have sought legal advice after their children missed out on leading roles in school musicals and places in debating teams. Others have seen a chance to elevate their kids into other school rowing teams.

What really beggars belief is that these parents think they are doing their children a favour. No lawyer can endow a child with talent, and no child without talent and the work ethic needed to exploit it can properly expect to represent their school at anything. The parent's role is to imbue their child with the necessary determination, and to rid them of any misplaced sense of entitlement.

Mind you, parents don't have to look far these days for examples of a lawyer's ability to overturn a selection process. It is no longer unusual for athletes to lawyer-up when they are overlooked by their particular code, and at least one All Black within living memory toyed with the idea of issuing a legal challenge when he was dropped.

There is no doubt that making a school team of any description is an advantage to the chosen few, but that rather depends upon those selected actually displaying a degree of talent that lifts them above the ranks of the also-rans. In the 1960s it was rumoured that those who made the 1st XV or 1st cricket XI at Kaitaia College were guaranteed to have University Entrance accredited. It was all rather academic as far as the writer was concerned given his lack of athletic prowess, but it was probably not true.

There are rewards for those chosen though, in the development of their particular talent, confidence, self-esteem and leadership qualities, all of which doubtless have strong appeal for parents who have great expectations of their offspring, and who see a snub at secondary school level as potentially depriving them of employment opportunities in the future. In reality any glittering potential is more likely to be harmed by the attitude they instil in their children, that they are entitled to success, and can buy it with the help of a lawyer.

At some point in the future these kids will be painfully disabused when they discover that Mum and Dad can no longer buy success, and that everything they aspire to is down to them.

Some leave that later than others. Years ago a very highly respected journalism tutor told the writer that he was being landed with kids who very quickly reached the conclusion that journalism was not for them. They had paid their money though, so stuck it out, and duly received their diplomas, if not because they deserved them then because to deny them would lead to legal action by their outraged parents. Armed with said diplomas, some then decided that they might as well use them, and commonly lasted about a week.

The world was a much harsher but fairer place for Baby Boomers, but it is their children who are raising these narcissistic little monsters who can't take no for an answer, and are prepared to do whatever it takes to have their meagre talents recognised.

This isn't just about spoilt rich kids though. Ever since Socrates, older generations have complained about ill-disciplined, disrespectful children, but those who fret today might have a point. The standards of behaviour demanded of some children now, and the lack of consequences for misbehaving, are foreign territory. Most of today's kids will no doubt become decent citizens, but that's a poor excuse for letting them run amok, as some are doing.

Last week this newspaper talked to a man who had left his job as a school bus driver, the only response left to him to behaviour that would not only have been unthinkable a few years ago, but was not restricted to one or two individuals. This man's problem was not so much the children's lack of respect but the lack of consequences for their behaviour. No one - not their schools, not his employer, not the law, and certainly not he himself - could or would do anything about it. So he walked away.

What has that taught these kids? They now know that if some old bloke takes exception to how they behave, nothing will happen. He will go away, no doubt to be replaced by someone who isn't so precious about picking up after them, repairing the damage they have done, even assaulting him.

Scandal broke out at Kaitaia College in 1969. That year's UE accrediting party, in a woolshed at Ahipara, saw everyone on their best behaviour when the principal arrived, ostensibly to congratulate those who had earned what was then a very valuable qualification but more likely to cast a suspicious eye over proceedings.

Turned out that someone had arrived at the party with a bottle of sherry. Just one. To say the manure hit the air conditioning on the following Monday would be a gross understatement. Twelve students were suspended for two weeks. Probably didn't harm their academic careers, but some parents were very, very disgruntled. These kids came from 'good' families, who did not expect their children to bring shame upon themselves or their parents.

Not one of those parents are known to have complained to the school. If they vented their spleen it was at their children, not the man who had punished them.

Imagine if that happened today. Apart from the fact that one bottle of sherry probably wouldn't make the cut for disciplinary action, suspending kids for such a breach of school etiquette would be a boon for the legal fraternity.

That experience didn't seem to do the Kaitaia College 12 any lasting harm. Their parents no doubt forgave them, eventually, and they learned the valuable lesson that actions have consequences. Some were members of the 1st XV, but that didn't save them. Nor did the fact that most could have described their parents as pillars of the community. Punishment for unacceptable behaviour was doled out without fear or favour in those days.

It is difficult not to believe that that generation was much better prepared for the realities of adult life than those whose parents now call in the family lawyer when they are overlooked for the school production or sporting honours. They will learn the same lessons, eventually, but potentially at a much higher price. The real worry is how these kids will raise their children, and whether by that stage they will have reached the conclusion that their parents got it badly wrong.