KEY POINTS:
Go on to YouTube, type "school fight" into the search box and you will find nearly 30,000 videos for your viewing entertainment and edification.
Most of the schools are from the United States, but St Paul's College in Grey Lynn found itself the focus of unwanted attention when
a video of a couple of its students brawling was posted on YouTube.
School fights make for ugly viewing - and this is from someone who enjoys watching boxing. The difference is probably difficult for those people who see all violence as equal to discern, but boxing bouts, between evenly matched fighters, both aware of the damage they can do and who are willing to abide by certain rules, are quite different from the random violence these kids inflict on one another.
According to men I've spoken to, school fights between boys have been around for years. Two young men with attitude and smart mouths would sort out their differences with their fists; the moment one went down, the fight was over and life resumed as normal with no hard feelings.
At Catholic schools, it appears that any animosity among young men was sorted out in the boxing ring at lunchtime with one of the brothers acting as referee and classmates acting as audience. Boxing lessons were as much a part of a Catholic education as knowing the difference between venal and mortal sins and, apparently, it didn't do any of them any harm at all.
I don't know whether these men were looking back with rose-tinted specs at the halcyon days of their youth or whether they were giving me an accurate picture of the past. Fighting didn't happen at my girls' boarding school - well, not physical fights. Vicious attacks were carried out under cover of darkness but words were the weapon of choice, not fists. It's hard to say which hurt more.
There does seem to be a particularly nasty overtone to the latest fights. Two boys with a grudge ending up in a fight and ending the fight and the argument when one man's left standing, has a certain natural narrative. There's a beginning, a middle and an end. One big oik who randomly attacks another just to get his fat face famous doesn't make any sort of sense.
Teenage boys are full of testosterone, and it appears even with the feminisation - some would argue especially with the feminisation - of our school system, that testosterone will find its way to the surface.
Interestingly, the same week that the St Paul's fight videos surfaced the principal of a private boys' school in Havelock North was quoted as saying that banning rough and tumble sports such as bullrush illustrated a softly softly approach to education that simply didn't suit boys.
Ross Scrymgeour emphasised that he wasn't talking about brawling, but physicality. Risk-taking and tests of strength let boys find their own capabilities and boundaries and made them better equipped for life.
Although I'm not the mother of a boy, I think Scrymgeour is right. Friends with sons were constantly finding ways to keep them physically occupied. The men of the family resembled a pride of lions with the young cubs constantly pitting themselves against the old lion until he growled and cuffed them when they got too rough or he'd had enough. Yet another example of just how important dads are.
Knowing your own character strengths and weaknesses is vital as you become an adult but knowing your physical capabilities appears to be equally as important for young men.
Fight clubs are nasty vicious and ugly and need to be stamped out - though in reality, the most you can hope for is that the fights are taken off school premises and go underground.
But boys need an outlet for their physicality and we must accept that. We failed girls for a long time with our education system - let's not fail the boys.
