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Opinion: Last Christmas, I went on holiday with my 13-year-old son, his mates and one of the boy’s parents. We stayed at their bach; a cool, little old-school one on a massive section that went on forever.
It was the stuff memories are made of: Lots of laughs, carefree teenagers clutching their prized phones at all times, bonfires, long days at the beach, some fishing and a few at night to send us off to sleep.
But it was soon over, and it was time to clean up.
The teens scattered as soon as they realised a bit of elbow grease would be required. Not much elbow, perhaps an hour, but enough to give the young ones an excuse to clutch their phones even tighter and pretend to be busy elsewhere and out of sight. No way, we said. Great holiday, now this is our price boys, we all clean up.
The inside was largely looked after, and bach owner Gavin emerged with the mower and pointed at the four teens, including my son, and said, “between you guys can you mow the lawn, just go up one way and back the other. Should take an hour, max.” Simple enough and the instructions were clear.
Now this is where the utter embarrassment took hold. The boys were worse than hopeless - maybe even that’s too kind - they struggled to start the mower and when they did, they struggled to keep it going.
Once we showed them it takes a decent pull to start a mower, one retired to the deck clutching an arm, and the other arm was clutching his phone. He was out.
The next basket one went 30m in one direction before complaining that he didn’t know what to do so he simply walked off and joined the other phone addict on the deck. Hopeless. I shook my head. My son gave it a twirl for slightly longer but fell into the trap of his phone and his mates, so he retired pretty quickly, too.
Gavin’s son mowed a few strips at the same time as watching TikTok on his phone as he pushed the mower in all sorts of directions. It was doing my head in, so I told him to give it to me and I’d finish it.
I finally did about 57 minutes later, it was harder than it looked, and it was hot, but it was satisfying. I was sweating copiously and walked past the boys on the deck who all stared at me wondering why I was so buggered. I’m not even sure it registered to them that I had finished the lawns.
I have always loved mowing lawns and couldn’t see why these boys didn’t share the same excitement. Once cut, the lawns scream out that you have achieved something even if that was it for the day.
I’m telling you this story because I thought about the boys’ hopeless efforts again this week when Auckland Grammar headmaster Tim O’Connor made some controversial observations and comments on Newstalk ZB and later on my podcast.
O’Connor called out a Christchurch School giving a small group of busy, stressed students two days off every week to study via video link on their own at home. He said what many of us might have been saying to ourselves for some time, that students have gone soft and need to learn to cope with the circumstances in front of them. That includes being less fragile, turning up five days a week, pushing through the hard times, toughening up and doing the work. He said not being at school makes it tricky for schools to determine which students are in genuine need of help and which are gaming the system.
“It does seem to me that the society we’re living in is too readily accepting of every wellbeing measure possible,” he said.
Given how scared most educational leaders are about speaking out and rocking the boat, O’Connor now looks like an outspoken outlier when his views, which have never changed, used to sit bang in the middle of the popular opinion.
It seems to me that during the past 20 years, teachers and parents have fled from the moral high ground to occupy the ground of the lowest common denominator, where excuses and tapping out are now part of the programme.
I think we do aid and abet our kids by allowing them to get away with too much, so there is much that I agree with about O’Connor’s stance.
But there are other things to consider.
Let’s start with the fact that our kids watch our behaviour with phones and see we’re addicted, too. So, really, they’re just copying us.
They’re smart, too, smarter than us but perhaps not as wise, but I don’t believe NCEA is a worthy standard for them to strive toward. Learning should be hard because when it is, it stimulates and encourages us to want to do better.
And let’s not forget the disruptions of the past few years. Kids have arrived at school after being locked away in their own world of social media and the endless digital universe to find themselves sitting in front of someone – a teacher - who appears one-dimensional and talks to them about stuff like algebra.
I don’t want to sound like one of those parents going on about how they walked five miles in the snow to school, but I do think we had tougher boundaries – the cane, for one thing – that helped keep us in line.
We were also fortunate to grow up in a simpler time – no social media, no mobile phones and not as much inequality or money. That meant we were more present and possibly more patient but, of course, the clock can’t be turned back, and, in all honesty, it wasn’t always good times.
We could be larrikins, and we definitely drank more; I remember kegs at First XV after-match parties and the schools seeming to have no issue with it.
All in all, I think kids are bored, they’re not being challenged enough and they’re allowed to get away with too much - but this doesn’t excuse much of their less-than-resilient behaviour.
I’m also aware that schools can be tough places - just look at our bullying and suicide statistics, and the number of after-school fights at the likes of bus and train stations.
What is different now is that there’s a label for everything and if you’re not feeling like turning up to school, you’re almost encouraged to stay away. We simply couldn’t get away with “pulling a sickie” that went on for more than a couple of days. I believe the longer you’re out, the harder it is to get back on the horse.
It’s a more complex and sophisticated world, partly because we have so much at our fingertips. It makes life complicated, doesn’t it, especially when you want to run things in an old-school kind of way.
O’Connor is running into head winds, but he shouldn’t be dismissed. Much of what he says is still relevant. Our education system needs these voices - and our kids need these messages and reminders.
