Divide by Ten - and Then Some

The e-mail earlier this year was terse.   ‘My son had to write a Maths test today but he tells me that it was on work not done as the teacher had not gone through that section.’  I could just feel the indignation hanging in the air.

It is easy to work out what happened.  And so it proved.  After explaining the work and setting innumerable examples for homework, the teacher had tweaked the numbers for the test and approached the concept from a slightly different angle which clearly threw the boy.  ‘Isn’t that what Maths is really all about?’ the Maths teacher said.  ‘To make our boys think?’

To save face at home, the boy had resorted to the traditional finger-pointing-at-other-people exercise.

I have heard this generation referred to as the ‘Not Me’ generation. A motivational speaker, Bill Price, spoke to the staff and parents some years back and told the story of his own son who, on getting into the family car, slammed the door and the handle came off.  His first reaction when his parents turned round from the front seat, was to shout out – with the handle in his hand – ‘It wasn’t me!’

At some point, I must work out how many of my daily e-mails are from parents who have taken their son’s version as gospel.  I am sure that the House Heads will report a similar situation. A huge amount of management time goes into researching and responding to these e-mails which express outrage and disappointment - most of which could have been headed off, if parents had remembered what I told them when their sons first came into Grade 8.  ‘Remember to divide everything your son tells you what happened at school by ten.’

In my opinion, that should be Rule Number One for parents of teenage boys.

I usually add something facetious in my reply to e-mails which express concern about what has allegedly happened at school: ‘If you divide everything you hear about school by ten, then we will do the same when your son tells us what happens at home.’

One of the sub-paragraphs of Rule Number One is to keep reminding the boys that there is no such name on the School Roll as ‘Everybody’.  ‘Everybody’ seems to be a lucky chap and it is clear that he has a brother at every school.  He seems to be allowed to go to every party, until any hour, whenever he wishes.  He has the latest i-phone, the latest designer gear and even had his ears pierced at fourteen.  You should see his tattoo!

He has a cousin called ‘Nobody’, who, for some reason, never has to do homework, cut his hair neatly or polish his shoes.

When I finally find these two characters, I have promised generations of schoolboys that I have every intention of publishing their photos on Facebook. I am sure that millions of parents of teenage boys the world over are desperate to see who these two spoiled and overindulged brats are as they have been the cause of so many ructions in homes around the country.

It is an irrefutable fact that males exaggerate- especially when they are wanting to impress or when they are in trouble.  In fact, boys and men exaggerate for exactly the same reasons.  The size of the sandcastle built at four years old is no different from the description of the size of a fish caught by a thirty four year old or the length of the drive off the tee by a forty four year old  – all of which increase exponentially by the length of the journey home.

Then we have the excuse-making.  Boys, even as men, never seem to realise that a finger pointed at someone else, always has three pointing backwards.  William Brown had no such qualms.

My generation will all remember reading, as youngsters, the ‘Just William’ stories by Richmal Compton.  William Brown was eleven years old and was the archetypal little boy – dirty face, socks down, shirt out.  Personal  hygiene was not his forte.  One story that has stuck in my memory over the years was about William using his catapult in the garden to aim stones at birds.  The birds were relaxed and unmoved as they unconsciously realised that they were safe as long as he was aiming at them.

I loved that line.  For years, when coaching cricket, I would remark to my players that opposition batsmen were totally safe going for a quick single as long as we were aiming at the stumps. My humour was totally unappreciated by generations of Wynberg cricketers, who, hopefully, have not been emotionally scarred for life.

Of course, if they had read some of the Just William stories as boys they might have understood the humour.

In the meantime, it did not take long for William, while aiming at the birds, to send an errant stone hurtling through one of the windows of the house.  His mother stormed out.  ‘Just wait until your father gets home,’ she threatened.

There is no worse admonishment a mother can give a little boy.  This means that he has to wait the whole day for retribution.  However, being a typical boy, by the time his father came home in the evening, William had convinced himself that it was not his fault. Clearly some evil, divine power had caused the stone to leave the catapult at right angles and go through the window.  Thus it was comparatively easy, some hours later, to look his father in the eye and truthfully say that he did not break the window.  In his mind, he had already rationalised the blame to some third force.

While it is doubtful that any parent would fall for the divine, third force story (well… I hope so…), parents are certainly more open to persuasion if this third force is a teacher, coach, umpire or someone else’s child.  In essence, though, all stories should fall into the same ‘Let’s talk this one through’ category.

All parents of teenage boys will appreciate this apology e-mail which I received recently from a boy.  ‘To be old and wise, you first have to be young and stupid…’

How could I not let him off from whatever heinous misdemeanour he had committed?

I cherish another e-mail which I received two years ago, when a Grade 11 boy had his cell phone, which had rung in class, confiscated.  The boy had spent days trying to persuade me to give him his phone back.  He told his father that he had ‘only been looking at the time.’  Huh!

The following day, the following e-mail arrived from his father:

‘My son wanted me to write to you insisting that he needs his phone back.  Please do not even think about it.  My argument with him is that if he cannot even obey a simple school rule, how is he going to learn to survive in a community one day where he has to obey even bigger rules?  Thank you for sticking steadfastly to the rules and teaching him a vital life lesson.’

I seriously considered making that into a poster and putting it into every classroom.

Casey Augoustides, who matriculated in the late 1980’s, had a father with a sense of humour.  Casey reminded me recently about this.  ‘Do you remember my father’s infamous absentee notes he used to write for me?  The severe case of ‘impending weekenditis’ and the ‘gastric stomach’ were two I remember.  As a schoolboy I was very nervous bringing them in and didn’t really appreciate his sense of humour.  He used to enjoy them so much that he wrote more than one letter for me, sealed them all and told me to pick one at random and take it to the teacher.  I felt like I was in a jeopardy TV show as I never knew what I might have to explain to my teacher!’

Here is one example: 

Dear Mr Richardson

I am sad to confess my son now stays out of school whenever it pleases him and has become a pathological liar.  He comes up with the most fantastic stories to explain his absences and I am afraid that this is spiralling out of control – I need your help to restore law and order.  I am sure that if you ask him why he was absent yesterday he will tell you something absurd like his dog gave birth to 10 puppies in his room last night and that he did not get sufficient sleep.

Yours Sincerely

Nick Augoustides

How does a fifteen year old boy talk his way out of that one – especially as the story of the puppies was true?  I can do business with Nick Augoustides!

I wish one particular mother had a sense of humour like that. Many years ago – when I was still in the teaching trenches – I was discussing William Golding’s  ‘Lord of the Flies’ with a Standard 6 class.  We had spent a wonderful term together debating the pertinent issues which the book  had brought up – all of which are relevant to adolescent boys.

The final page had twelve year old Ralph running away from his tormentors  along a beach and falling down in the sand at the feet of a rescuing naval officer.  Now that he was safe, the realisation of the depths of depravity to which the boys had sunk on the island,  sank home to Ralph.  Without adult supervision, they had soon abandoned all vestiges of normal civilised behaviour.  The book ends with the words ‘…Ralph wept for the end of his innocence.’

None of the fourteen-year-old boys in that Standard 6 class had a clue what this meant – and then I had a brain wave.  ‘It is rather like Father Christmas,’ I said. ‘When you are young, you have the idea that the world is perfect, but this innocence is shattered when you find out that life isn’t quite as flawless as you originally thought while growing up. This is epitomised by your eventual discovery that Father Christmas doesn’t really come down the chimney on Christmas Eve.  What is worse, you are told years later that your father ate the mince pie and drank the milk you left out for your nocturnal visitor.’

We spent the rest of the period discussing the moments when they had ‘lost their innocence’ about Father Christmas.  A few of the macho ones  – typical males – said of course they had never really believed in him at any stage but had played along with their parents to ensure a continuous supply of presents.

Yeah, right! But then they are Just Boys.

The next day, I had my own innocence about teaching shattered, when a mother marched in demanding to know why I was talking about sex with her fourteen-year-old son.  I did not have a clue what she was talking about and suggested that she was perhaps thinking of another teacher.  She was adamant.  ‘You asked him yesterday when he lost his innocence.’

The penny dropped.  My immediate reaction was to laugh  – which of course only exacerbated the situation.  My attempts to explain were rebuffed and she stormed out. She never apologised.

I am not always known for my tact, but something at that stage told me that it would be best not to remind her at that point about Rule Number One for parents of teenage boys.

If I had, I might have lost more of my innocence.