KEY POINTS:
Hats off and full marks to the high school principal who has decided to crack down on children who don't do their homework, have the right attitude, turn up to school on time or bring the right gear to class.
More power to the arm of headmaster Craig
Monaghan, of the highly-regarded Westlake Boys' High on the North Shore, who has ruled - with the approval of his board of trustees and parents - to hold back first- and second-year boys if they cause problems for teachers and fellow students.
His decision is that such boys, no matter how bright they may be, will have to do the year all over again if they don't play the game according to the way the school wants it played.
I can't think of a better way - apart from some disciplinary measures long out of fashion - to encourage recalcitrant children to behave than to threaten them with the humiliating loss of face that doing a second year in a third- or fourth-form class would impose.
There have been a couple of inconsequential protests, but so far Education Minister Chris Carter has shown an unusual circumspection. It's election year, of course, and I suspect that Labour Cabinet ministers will take great care with what they say since they won't want the public to be reminded of their predilection for social engineering.
Mr Monaghan, on the other hand, knows that this disciplinary action works, for it was introduced at Shirley Boys' High in Christchurch five years ago when he was deputy-head there and is still in force.
In that time about nine boys have faced being held back and most of them were taken out of the school by their parents to avoid the punishment. I have said it before and I'll say it again: Any child who is unwilling or unable to abide by the rules of the school, which are laid down purely to ensure that the school is able to undertake its function, should be removed from that environment unless they come to heel.
And that the simple answer to classroom misbehaviour is for the school authorities to return offending children to their parents on the understanding that they will be readmitted to school when their behaviour has been modified.
Mr Monaghan's proposal is an excellent compromise and if a few parents take their children from the school in protest, then it will become a simple way to get rid of the ratbags who spoil things for everyone.
Such removals, of course, tell us a great deal about the parents, who are the ones to blame for their children's unacceptable behaviour in the first place.
And that, strangely enough, brings me to the state funeral of Sir Edmund Hillary, and particularly to the tributes paid to him by his children, Sarah and Peter, and his grandchildren.
Not for them memories of the man who mounted Everest, the knight of the realm, the adventurer, the High Commissioner and the philanthropist, but heart-warming, intimate and moving memories of Sir Ed as dad and grandad.
I was entranced as Sarah and Peter recounted for us their lives as Ed Hillary's kids, and how much it meant to them, and moulded them, to have had such a loving, caring, interested, involved, wise and wonderful father.
Peter Hillary made the powerful point that the experiences he shared with his father meant they had a shared history, and how that generational learning gave him a real sense of identity.
He recalled that his father had told him "Don't be afraid to stand alone" and how that advice had at one time saved his life.
And, so typical of the man who will be remembered as our greatest New Zealander, Sir Ed told his son: "It's not where you go, it's the people you go there with."
"He took us to the most amazing places," said Peter. "These were wonderful experiences ... They were totally shared experiences - father, mother and three kids sharing truly wonderful times."
Grandson Sam Mulgrew, too, recalled Sir Ed as the benevolent patriarch: "He was a real family man. Throughout my whole life, even up to a couple of weeks ago at Christmas, there was nothing he liked more than having a gang of people around him, having a good time."
And it came to me that this was Ed Hillary's greatest bequest to New Zealand, and the true measure of Sir Edmund Hillary the man - his example of fatherhood in an age when it is in such short supply yet most needed. Generations of Hillarys will benefit.
And I'll bet none of them will ever be held back at school.
