Lindisfarne is a wonderful place for us to work, to learn and for many of us, to live.  I see examples every hour of every day of staff and students treating each other with the care and respect required to develop and grow a safe and caring community.  However, I also see weekly examples of students failing to understand what it truly means to be kind and respectful to others, regardless of their similarities or differences to us, and it is these moments that stand in our way of truly being a safe and caring community FOR ALL yet.

When we speak of the importance of Kindness as one of our underlying Character Flags, we utilise the following whakatauki:

He aroha whakatō, he aroha ka puta mai

If kindness is sown, then kindness is what you shall receive

To me this is in perfect alignment with the essential life lesson we have all been taught (but some of us forget) to treat others the way we wish to be treated.  Nobody wishes to be mocked or disrespected for their physical appearance, for their family situation, for their skills and abilities (or lack thereof), or for any other aspect of what makes them who they are.  Therefore, nobody should think that it is acceptable to do this to others for their own personal satisfaction or for any other selfish or cruel motivation.

Over my 20+ years working in Boys’ education I have repeatedly been fed the excuse to minimise unkind behaviour from boys, from parents and even from teachers that “boys will be boys”, as if by job description boys and men are supposed to be cruel and unkind to others.  White Ribbon NZ, an organisation that strives to end domestic violence in New Zealand, has done a wonderful job of starting to change this narrative.

No longer should we minimise poor behaviour from boys and men as just a part of their DNA as the outdated excuse above implies.  Rather, we should challenge our boys and our men to be active contributors to safe and caring communities by being caring, supportive, respectful and awesome!

We have plenty of these caring, supportive, respectful and awesome boys in our community, but we also have some who feel like they can be selective with their care and support for others.  Generally, those selected as not worthy of care and support are those who stand out as different or diverse from the rest.  This frustrates me immensely in my work in pastoral care and wellbeing as it is societies diversity that is its biggest strength.  What makes us different from each other is what makes us awesome, not what shows we can conform to perceived ‘normality’.

There are some absolutely amazing examples of kindness going on in our school all of the time.  Just in the time it has taken me to write this piece I have seen our Head Boy, Fergus Morunga shaking the hands of multiple junior students whilst engaging with them about how their day is going.  We have put together a list of boys that have volunteered to support Reverand Dunnett this afternoon with gardening at the Hastings Women’s Refuge house.  I have received multiple alerts from Kirk Doyle’s Intermediate School ‘Caught Being Intelligent’ page which allows these youngest members of our community to praise their peers for the display of our essential character flags. 

I have also just come from my daily connect with my Year 9 tutor class- a group of young men I will be supporting over the next 5 years of their journey here at Lindisfarne (as is the case for all of our staff and boys).  These boys will have gone from this tutor session to engage in a series of lessons with skilled and passionate teachers, in small classes allowing for more positive learning focused relationships to develop with these teachers who truly care about each of them.  They will then go to a wide array of sporting and/or cultural opportunities where they will continue to be challenged and cared for through the generosity of time and energy from their coaches etc.

All that I ask from you as valued members of our Lindisfarne community, is to:

• Prioritise kindness in your lives and in the minds of our boys
• Build a value for difference and diversity in our society
• Stop excusing poor and unkind behaviour as ‘normal’ for boys
• Start expecting our boys to be the type of man who builds others up around them rather than breaks them down
• Don’t allow the fear of being branded a ‘snitch’ or a ‘nark’ to stop boys or families communicating with us when bad things happen
• Build a narrative that it is courageous to speak up and act when someone is being treated poorly
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If we can all do these things, then I firmly believe we can be the ‘safe and caring community for all’ we strive to be.  Ultimately, as the Lindisfarne Way states, “We are one big family who relies on each other”.

Article added: Monday 08 July 2024