In the Glow of the Rainbow

Recently my wife, Pippa, placed a sticker on the back of her car:  I Love my Pooch.

‘Now you are just being provocative,’ I told her ‘you were very emphatically told by President Zuma some time ago that whites love their pets more than they love people.’

I was referring to the ANC rally where Zuma was drumming up support from the party faithful by saying that it was un-African to feed, care for and walk pet dogs – like white people supposedly do.

‘Absolute nonsense,’ was her retort, ‘unless he is referring to loving pets more than husbands.’

Knowing that this discussion was heading for the cliff edge, I put down my dish cloth and went out to mow the lawn.

Household domestic duties could not stop me thinking of why Zuma would make that comment. This comment evoked a similar reaction amongst dog lovers as the indignant response from Malawians when they heard his disparaging remarks on their roads.

Whatever the protestations afterwards from government spokesmen, it is undeniable that twenty years after our first democratic election we are still poles apart in understanding and appreciating other cultures within our country. Mac Maharaj was quoted by the BBC as saying ‘…the essential message from the president was the need to decolonise the African mind, post-liberation, to enable the previously oppressed African majority to appreciate and love who they are and uphold their own culture.’

If that is what he really intended – and I have no beef with that sentiment - then I just wish he made similar comments to appreciate the culture of all South Africans.

Everyone who has had to sit over the years through my history classes will remember the feisty debates we used to have about why wars start.  ‘There is no problem with patriotism,’ I used to pronounce, ‘but it is when you deny the other chap the right to be patriotic and love his country just as much you love yours, that the trouble starts.’

It is only right and proper for all Wynberg boys to stand up and vehemently espouse the good qualities of the House they belong to at school.  It is only correct and appropriate –  indeed expected – that they do the same when it comes to their School. ‘Cheer for Wynberg as loudly and as long as you like,’ I tell them over and over again in assembly, ‘but never, ever, ever  run down, demean  or jeer the opposition. ’

I remind them that the same sentiment must be extended to other religions and cultural groups. ‘If you have to run down – or point an accusatory finger -  at  a boy from another house, school, race group, religion or country – then you are merely pointing three fingers back at yourself .  You are weakening your own position.’

Being a sporting spectator, or a cerebral historian or a loyal Wynbergian also demands that we appreciate and acknowledge when others do well. Thus I found it hard to understand when Michael Gove, Minister of Education in the UK, pronounced recently that pupils in England should only study English authors and that American authors such as Steinbeck, Harper Lee and F Scott Fitzgerald were to be ditched.

Now that is not my idea of education.  Someone who is truly well educated should be taking the best from all cultures and then deciding what is best for him.   In my book it is as fitting for a black South African to own a dog and read Great Gatsby as it should be for a white teenager to read  Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ or Wally Serote’s struggle poetry.

If Gove has his way in England – and he still has to convince the exam regulator Ofqual – future generations of English schoolchildren could be denied one of the greatest lines in literature when Atticus,  in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, tells his daughter, Scout: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

Harper Lee might well have been American, but her writing is timeless and crosses all age groups, continents and cultural groups.  Atticus’ advice to his daughter should be written on every classroom wall in every school in every country.  When our youth learn that – then true transformation will start taking place in our country.

The harsh lesson which all South Africans have had to learn the hard way –  is that our job in schools is to educate all pupils together, not segregate them.  Real education takes place when issues are vigorously debated, robustly questioned and forcefully probed.  How is it possible to do that in homogenous groups where all think in a similar fashion?  Over the last fifty years, Cape Town youth have developed a reputation for being willing to question and engage on political and educational issues.  Cape Town schools have produced Andrew Feinstein (Wynberg), Jeremy Cronin (St Josephs), Ashley Kriel (Bonteheuwel High), Jonathan Jansen (Steenberg High), Zackie Achmat (Salt River High) and thousands of others with the courage of their convictions.

Our big challenge in South African schools, since 27 April 1994, it to preserve worthwhile traditions while continuing to ensure progress by moving with the times.

Years of segregation ensured that we started off in 1994 on the back foot.  I remember a discussion at a Ladies’ Association when schools were first opened to all young South Africans.  ‘What is halaal?’ asked one of the mothers, whose job it was to organise boerewors rolls at rugby matches on Saturdays.

Another mother responded: ‘I think it is when you have no butter on the rolls.’

I think we have moved forward since those days – but the point still remains that far more sensitivity is needed before we can say that we are definitely transforming as a school and as a society.  It will need continued effort to understand the different realities of our varied backgrounds and not to be restrained by stereotypes or ignorance.

I once heard Dr Max Price, vice-chancellor of UCT,  give a talk where he commented on how difficult it must be for a student from a rural area to come to UCT and identify with the colonial style buildings, European academic traditions and the different cultures. 

The challenge for a school like ours is, how can we be elite without being elitist? We are proud to be called ‘Elite’ because it is not a pejorative term.  It implies striving for high standards where our  pupils are learning and growing and being educated for life after school.

Elitistism, however, is the favouring of one group over another and is not a term with which we particularly want to be associated.  It was with this in mind that we asked the prefects a few years back to come up with what they thought was the ‘Brand’ of Wynberg.  After much discussion, debate and argument in their tutor groups, they came up with five points.  ‘One for every finger of the hand,’ said one of them – and the idea stuck.

The ‘pinkie’ was the first finger and named ‘Friendliness’.

The second finger was designated ‘Manners’.

The dignified central finger was given the honour of ‘Pride’.

The forefinger always pointed up and so was labelled ‘Aim High’.

The strongest digit, the thumb, carried the school motto ‘Supera Moras:  ‘Never Give Up’.

These virtues are timeless and cross-cultural.  If embraced whole-heartedly, they will certainly enable us to produce worthwhile citizens who can help to transform society so that we can feel proud of who we are but at the same time are totally accepting that everyone else has just as much right to be as proud of who they are.

Nick Martin, Head Prefect of 2012, intuitively summed it up in his inaugural speech to the school at the Prefect Induction:

OUR BLAZERS:    The Fabric that Binds us

OUR MOTTO:   The Words that Remind us

OUR PASSION:  The Force that Drives us

OUR BROTHERHOOD: The Difference that Defines us.

Nick understood the true meaning of transformation.  He understood that we are all different – but that at the same time, we are interdependent.

We are Brothers in an Endless Chain.

From Adolescents to Adultscents

I was walking back from supporting a basketball match and was off to the swimming pool where an afternoon water polo match was taking place, when I saw her sitting in her car next to the outdoor theatre reading a book.  She was the mother of one of the First Team water polo players.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’ I asked her in amazement.  ‘The water polo boys have already started their big game and it is going to be a real humdinger.’

She paused before replying. ‘My son has told me not to watch his matches.  He says it makes him play badly.’

‘Well, isn’t that just too bad,’ I said, ‘he will just have to learn to deal with it.’  I opened the car door and offered her my arm before gently guiding her up the hill towards the swimming pool. When her son left school at the end of the following year, she told all and sundry that I had ‘frogmarched’ her to the pool. I had done nothing of the sort – but I do remember being fairly adamant that she had every right as a mother to watch every minute of her son’s sport in the five years that he would be playing for Wynberg.

I have long since forgotten the result of the game, but I do remember making  a point of standing next to her when her son came up to her at the end of the match and grudgingly grunted a greeting to her. I decided to take no prisoners. 

‘Are you going to thank your mother for taking the time to come and watch you play?’ I asked provocatively, mischievously enjoying his discomfort.  He mumbled something unintelligible to some point to the left of her shoe.

I winked at his mother and breezily wished them a pleasant evening.  I would love to have heard the conversation in the car home afterwards.  But the point must have been made because she never missed a match after that.

I had been in a similar situation once and so I really can see the issue from an adolescent point of view.  I vividly recollect giving my father a similar instruction when I was playing U15 cricket. ‘No need to come and watch today,’ I said.  ‘It will just be another boring cricket match.’

He said nothing and just ignored me.  Shortly after the match started and we were fielding, I saw him arrive and stand under a tree.  There is no doubt that I was secretly pleased but I would never have released that classified information to anyone! Later in the match, I took one of those gentle looping catches at short leg – the type that it is easier to catch than to drop – and my immediate reaction was to look round to ensure that he had seen it. Just in case he was in any doubt who the catcher was, I tossed the ball casually from one hand to the other as the batsman walked out.

He made no sign and I didn’t dare ask him in front of the other boys later at the tea break.  By the time I arrived home, I was bursting with impatience. ‘Did you see my catch?’  I asked.

‘Of course,’ he said, kindly refraining from making any disparaging remark about the straightforwardness of the feat.  Tactfully, no mention was made by either of us that he had been given clear instructions not to attend.

No-one ever said that parenting was straightforward.  It is quite a balancing act.

There is no doubt that there is an art to being a worthy parent spectator.  Being there, with your son knowing you are watching, is all that is necessary.  He doesn’t want, or need, coaching from his father - or advice - or interference – or ‘suggestions’ to the referee. The chances of his playing representative sport or performing to a standing ovation at Carnegie Hall one day are statistically so remote that parents might as well just let their sons get on with enjoying the moment. The lessons of participation and the gratification he receives because he is playing and competing with his friends are the real reasons he is standing on the field of play.

I once worked under Peter Anderson who was Headmaster of Bishops Prep.  I was still at university with a career in teaching stretching ahead of me. ‘The trouble with teaching,’ he once said to me, ‘is that it is like a two-sided coin. The strengths of a teacher are in reality also his weaknesses.  The strength of a good teacher is the fact that he personalises the fact that little Johnny can’t read - and it becomes the focus of his life to rectify it.  However, on the other side of the coin, it is also his weakness in that he allows this to take precedence over the real world problems of divorce, poverty and crime. ‘

The same two-sided coin can be said to apply to parents when watching their own sons.  Like passionate teachers, they also may choose to ignore the bigger picture.

‘Sometimes the worst part of playing sport at school,’ Gary Kirsten once said in a seminar I attended, ‘is the journey home in the car.’ Certainly, he wasn’t referring to his own father who, in spite of being a provincial cricketer himself, always made a point of staying in the background.

I wonder how many boys have given up sport because of the unrealistic expectations and demands of an ambitious parent?  Earl Woods, father of Tiger, and Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena, have done no favours to talented young sporting boys and girls. They have sent the message to parents around the world that successful sportspersons are created from a young age by relentless and aggressive parental pressure.

Fortunately this is still far removed from most of our boys who find it confusing when their parents step into other roles.  Teachers are teachers.  Coaches are coaches.  Refs are refs.  Parents cannot mix these responsibilities as it sends bewildering and conflicting messages to teenagers.  A basic premise for bringing up children must be that all adults speak with the same voice on matters of  sporting ethics and ethos.

Arguably the most motivating message a parent can give his son is: ‘I love to watch you play.’  Ironically that is why many boys prefer grandparents coming to watch them because they are uncritical in their spectating and unstinting in their unqualified support of their grandchild.

After a number of decades in teaching, I am now able to look back at the many boys who have gone on to make a success of their lives  - of which sport is, of course,  only one facet.  There is invariably  one common theme -  and that is good, balanced, sensible and supportive, parenting.   Good parents intuitively understand that the main role of schools like ours is not to create great sportsmen, but to create the environment in which great men (and sportsmen) – are able to grow.

This point is made by Mark Twain who tells the story in one of his books of a man who died and then met St Peter at the Pearly Gates. ‘Saint Peter, I have been interested in military history for many years. Who was the greatest general of all time?"

St Peter quickly responded, ‘Oh, that's a simple question.  It's that man right over there.’

‘You must be mistaken,’ responded the man, now very perplexed. ‘I knew that man on earth, and he was just a common labourer.’

‘That's right my friend,’ answered St Peter. ‘He would have been the greatest general of all time, if he had been a general.’

Finding those generals and encouraging their potential is our role in schools.

After a recent rugby game, a few of us were talking afterwards about some of amusing incidents we had seen on various sports fields over the years.  Someone recounted how, when once running the U10 100 metres many years ago, he had been overtaken by the local priest, cassock blowing in the breeze and loudly exhorting his son to greater efforts.  Clearly concerned that higher forces might be brought into play, the other runners hesitated, allowing the son of the priest to surge to victory.

The Times recently ran a story about a father who had intervened in a school rugby match by shoving out a restraining foot to trip up an opposition player (see picture). Amusing as  these incidents may seem in the re-telling, one feels the embarrassment of the sons because of the actions of their over-exuberant progenitors – ‘adultscents’ as I once heard them described.

"It's just not rugby as dad steps into the fray." The Times, Thursday 1 May 2014

My own story to the gathering concerned my much loved Latin colleague at Wynberg, Tom O’Reilly. Full of Irish tales and Gaelic bonhomie, he has inspired many legendary stories from his classes over the years.  One year he was officiating at the annual triangular between Paul Roos, Paarl Boys’ and Wynberg in the Coetzenburg Stadium and his role was to indicate to the runners how many laps they had completed.  All he had to do was flip over the number as the leading athlete went past.

The 3000 metres race was late in the afternoon and by this time the heat and exertions of the afternoon became too much for Tom who nodded off in his chair after a number of laps had been completed. Many laps had been completed when someone noticed that the numbers weren’t being changed and shook Tom awake. In a scene reminiscent of Herman Charles Bosman’s dominee in the Bekkersdal  Marathon, Tom awoke with a start and pronounced that the runners were entering the final  lap.  He then proceeded to ring the bell vigorously. 

Apart from a throwaway remark afterwards from Kallie Pretorius, master in charge of athletics, that the 3000 metres winning time was a little slow, no-one seemed to notice anything amiss.  The athletes ran their hearts out for their unexpected extra lap and the spectators cheered themselves hoarse as the athletes came down the final strait.  I doubt that there is anyone now who remembers the result of that race.

Isn’t that just what school sport should be about?