Knight of old school can still cause a stir

Sir John Graham has never been afraid of speaking his mind. The 76-year-old's biography reveals a rich and fulfilled life. Photo / Richard Robinson

It is almost 20 years since John Graham was last at the classroom chalkface. But this standard-bearer of the old school - knighted last month for services to education - can still stir the dust.

Given the chance, he contends, he could shape the kind of school where boys especially would thrive, and shorten the long tail of failure.

The model, unsurprisingly, springs from the school where he reigned supreme for two decades - Auckland Grammar, where his firm headmasterly hand let go in 1993.

He would start beating the drum with parents, insisting they engage with their child's school.

"I would say to them: 'You parents have an obligation to get involved in the school. I'm going to make sure your youngster attends school, behaves in class, takes part in extra-curricular activities'."

As headmaster, he would get parents in his study when pupils played up. It would be immediately clear to him if the home front was the trouble.

"You're not going to enjoy this," he would start, "but the problem is not with your Tom, it's with you."

"I was told a number of times, 'You have no right to make those comments, Mr Graham.' I would say, 'Well, I'm trying to help your boy and you've got to help me do that'."

In the Graham school, staff, too, would get their riding instructions: "You say to the staff, 'Get off your lazy chuffs and stop being negative about your students'. In other words, you have high expectations of them."

All it would take, he suggests, is four or five top-flight teachers, whom Sir John would make faculty leaders and give them an extra $10,000 or so a year. That would keep the best and brightest in the system, teaching rather than managing, and inspiring a generation of school kids.

Done right, he insists, a school would hum: "That will work anywhere if you've got the balls to do it."

Sir John actually tried the recipe when he was made commissioner of the troubled Nga Tapuwae College in Mangere. But instead of hiring top teachers, Education Ministry bureaucrats built a classroom block: "Cost a helluva lot more too."

Sir John - 'DJ' to legions he taught - offered these reflections to coincide with the release of his biography, written by the influential broadcasting figure Bill Francis.

Progress was disrupted when Sir John had a brain tumour removed. He says he's recovered, and been given a second chance.

The book gives the 76-year-old a chance to revisit an episode that created racial uproar and caused him great distress - his "lazy Maori" remark in a 1984 newspaper article about the future of education.

Sir John: "It wasn't a wise statement to make. There were other reasons why those boys didn't succeed but once said, it couldn't be taken back."

For weeks after the story appeared, heat came down on Sir John, who on legal advice kept his lip buttoned.

"It was not a pleasant thing to be accused of racism and denigrating an ethnic group. But the advice saved me, really."

Instinctively, remarked the former All Black, he would have got stuck into his critics because it was not in his nature to back off.

What he intended to say was that many Maori pupils succeeded and did well. Those who failed - Maori and non-Maori - fell down because they didn't apply themselves in class and didn't want to work.

The furore obscured Sir John's stand on race issues. Returning from the 1960 All Black tour of South Africa, the raw-boned flanker was rebuked by a crusty Rugby Union for having the temerity to warn that the apartheid regime faced a revolt by its oppressed races. And in 1981, as New Zealand tore itself apart over the Springbok tour, Sir John stayed home from the games.

His love of the game never diminished, though, and for years he was at the heart of its administration.

Asked about the All Blacks' World Cup prospects, Sir John, who played 22 tests, three as captain, observed that three leading contenders - Australia, France and South Africa - had defeated New Zealand at the cup.

"There's no doubt we can win it. That's not to say we will win it."

Sir John Graham: Sportsman, Master, Mentor by Bill Francis (Trio Books, $50)