From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

You Know The Drill – Issue 19 2010

Two or three times a year, I gaze out my office window and marvel at a most extraordinary sight. On the tarseal outside the gymnasium, in full view of the comings and goings of the entire school, the mobile Dental Clinic van parks and sets up shop. It’s a modern, friendly looking vehicle, complete with an awning and side-openings which make it look more like
a Mr Whippy van. That image is reinforced as streams of children throng around the opening, chatting to their friends and the clinic staff, or take a seat under the awning, willingly waiting their turn for a check-up. Inside the van, in full view of passers-by, the dental nurses, uniformly young, friendly and happy to be with children, go about their work.

It is a far cry from my primary school memories of the dreaded Dental Clinic, more widely known by all as the Murder House. Bad enough when names like that enter the student vernacular, but when my teacher one day received a note and announced to the class, “Peter Clague, you are to go to the Murd... I mean, Dental Clinic”, I knew there was no hope. Our school Dental Clinic was a gloomy building, tucked on the margins of the school and unsuccessfully disguised behind tall trees. A small child never felt more vulnerable than when sitting in the austere waiting room, windows too high to see out with only the distraction of brutal posters of the gum disease that would befall you if you didn’t brush regularly, adorning every wall. And from behind the large, foreboding clinic door, the blood-chilling sound of a pedal-operated drill grinding relentlessly and the woeful cries of its current victim.

When the door eventually did creak open, inevitably a pale and shaken little person would bolt out, like a caged possum set free. The only shred of joy left in their day being the mission to deliver a summons to the next target on the dental nurse’s hit-list. The nurse, who was at least 108, would then turn her chilling gaze on you, quivering in the corner, and
beckon toward The Chair. It may be a product of my scarred and failing memory, but I’m sure I recall voices chanting “Dead man walking”. And the only solace to be offered from the humourless nurse? A warped little voodoo doll made out of various bits of cotton that she would soon try to jam in your mouth and the chance to roll some liquid mercury around in your bare hands. If she didn’t kill you then and there, the poison would get you later.

The contrast between my primary school Murder House in 1970 and the Kristin Mobile Dental Clinic in 2010 prompts the wider realisation that, in the course of my lifetime, schools have shed much of the fear which was once so readily accepted as part of a child’s lot. No longer do our young ones get sent to walk the lonely path to the Principal’s office to ‘get the strap’ (I actually remember being made to carry the thick leather strap
back to my teacher so she could deliver the blows to my bare hands in person, followed by the pain and indignity of carrying the weapon all the way back to its owner). No more humiliations from the assembly stage, singling children out for public discipline. When I was in Year 5, it was my teacher’s practice to start the day with a maths test, one question
per student. You could only take your seat once you had the correct answer and I well remember some children still being forced to stand by morning break. We would be aghast if such practices were employed in a classroom now.

Which is not to say that any or all schools are without some trepidation for our young people today. We must always be vigilant against age-old concerns for children like bullying or the fear of failure. But in general, I delight in the fact that schools, especially this one, are predominantly happy, affirming places where teaching occurs through collaboration, rather than coercion. Modern educational research confirms what prevailing wisdom should always have told us; children learn best only when they feel safe and happy. Watching Kristin students, young and old, spill off the buses with excitement and good humour this first week back, I have felt a renewed confidence that fear of school is a fading phenomenon.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

You Do The Maths – Issue 17 2010

Here’s a quick maths quiz for you:

Questions
(a) If something takes six hours to construct and 15 minutes to consume, what is the ratio of labour to usage?
(b) Without knowing the scale, range, or criteria, express your child’s potential using a single number or letter.
(c) When is eight not half of 16?

Answer (a) 1:24 minutes.
That is, for every 24 minutes that go into the construction of a child’s term report (which you will receive shortly), the average parent spends one minute reading it. We are currently conducting a substantial review of the way in which we report to parents, with a view to improving our services and ultimately therefore, the quality of learning our students experience. Part of the review has included some focus group discussions with parents from each of the three schools. The outcomes have been illuminating. The construction of each report, from aggregating assessments, assigning grades, and composing comments, to printing, triple-proofing, adding summary comments and posting, takes about six hours of labour. Our focus group feedback has indicated that, again on average, the finished product is read, discussed and filed in quarter of an hour.

Which is not to say that the writing of reports is not a highly valuable ingredient in the learning process. But with so much teacher time dedicated to it, we must make sure that what we write to you is as useful and effective as possible. This includes scrutinising every element of our communications with parents, looking for opportunities to provide information more readily online, improving face-to-face interview sessions and ensuring that what is written is actually what is interpreted when read.

Answer (b) If you found this task tough, imagine how we feel!
All student reports, Junior, Middle and Senior, currently carry some form of an Effort grade. Focus Group research tells us that parents place a great deal of stock in this indicator and we know that many students are highly motivated to score well on this measure. Yet what is effort? Throughout our review, we are discovering significant variations in what teachers, parents and students understand by the term.

Like the word love, effort is a word most people automatically relate to and understand, assuming that everyone shares their interpretation. Yet when we investigate, we discover that each person has their own unique concept. In some families, effort equates to homework completion, attendance and punctuality. In others, it is considered to be a function of enthusiasm or motivation. Yet others cite attitude or behaviour. For some teachers, effort is marked by outward displays of self-control, polite conduct and interest. For others, it may be related to the number of questions asked or the personal sacrifices made to complete tasks.

And then there are gender differences. There is no doubt that effort in boys can present itself in vastly different manifestations that effort in girls. The research is clear on this, but our daily experiences as educators are even stronger. While being careful not to stereotype, most teachers can tell you that concentrated effort from girls is often exhibited as quiet and collaborative behaviours. Yet the very same level of effort from their male counterparts can involve movement, excited talk and persistent questions. Thus, there is always a danger to confuse genuine effort with issues of behaviour management and classroom control.

One of the main outcomes of our review thus far is the need to do a better job of describing the various learning styles and behaviours of your child in greater detail, rather than packaging it all into a single mark or grade which may be misinterpreted. Most importantly, we need to be telling you not just where your child is at in each subject, but what they could do to progress in their learning. Which leads me to the answer to the final question:

Answer (c) When is eight not half of 16? Always, when you’re talking about a child’s age.
It is natural for us all to want to help our children to grow up. Teachers are always looking for the next thing a young person needs to learn and our reporting to you often refers to ways in which they can move to the next stage of their development. Yet within the process, it is important that we check ourselves occasionally and make sure that we are not racing our kids through their childhood with undue haste or making them feel perpetually inadequate. To paraphrase a brilliant line from the great educational commentator Sir Ken Robinson, “an eight year old is not half a 16 year old.” That is, we should resist the tendency to see our child all the time as a work in progress. The fact is, you currently have a fully-formed and perfectly functioning eight year old, or six year old, or 13 year old (yes, there is such a thing). Our reporting, and indeed, our entire educational process at Kristin, needs to strike a balance between identifying ways for each child to grow whilst still celebrating the person they are right now.

Footnote: The Focus Groups have been extremely helpful in our review of reporting but I would also welcome any other feedback from any parents. Please feel free to email me any thoughts – I may not be able to reply to all but your comments will assuredly be considered as we seek to continually improve our service.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

Preparing For Take Off – Issue 13 2010

I don’t recall ever seeing a photocopier while I was at school. Wikipaedia tells me that they were only just coming into production in the 1970s, but low decile schools in South Auckland weren’t the most likely early adopters of new technologies. If my teachers wanted a copy of something, they relied upon the trusty Gestetner duplicator, which had the dubious advantage of providing a multi-sensory experience for the class as we wrapped the still warm newsprint sheets around our faces and gleefully inhaled the fresh fumes of methylated-spirits.

If a student wanted a copy of an important document though, we were out of luck. Which is why the five-page, handwritten application form I took along to the Careers Office in my final term of school was the only version in existence. With impressive phrases painstakingly crafted from my teenage vocabulary and the sort of neat printing usually reserved for thank-you letters to my grandmother, I had produced a short novel designed to convince the Civil Aviation Authority of why I should be an Air Traffic Controller. It was a compelling piece of literature and I handed it proudly to our Careers Advisor for proofing before submitting it. An eccentric character who commanded respect and awe despite his taste in homespun cardigans and an outrageously unkempt beard, he read it through carefully from cover to cover. And then, with some degree of reverence, he tore it into little pieces and threw them away.

As I sat there struggling to come to terms with the sight of my sole career aspiration, not to mention a whole weekend’s labour, disappearing into the bin beside his desk, he slid another form across the desk. Bewildered at what terrible mistakes I had made that should warrant a complete rewrite, I glanced down. Bizarrely, this form did not bear the CAA crest but rather, the Auckland Teacher’s College logo. It was headed “Application for Secondary Teacher Training.” My immediate response is unprintable. Suffice to say, you don’t ask a prisoner on the day of his release after a 14-year sentence, whether he’d like to stay a while longer.

My protestations fell on deaf ears, however. Smiling enigmatically through his beard, the Careers Advisor let me finish my tirade about how cool tracking radar blips and saying things like “Roger Charlie Tango, come right on Vector One Nine” would be. In exasperation, I fired my final volley. “Anyway, I hate schools” I said. “Well help fix them” he suggested. I left his office convinced that the lunatics were running the asylum. I’m certain that if I’d had access to a photocopier, a back-up version of my application would have been winging its way to the airport that afternoon.

Obviously, though, I relented and ended up following his direction. In all honesty, there has not been a single day in the past 25 years that I have had cause to regret it. No doubt the skies are safer for it, too. As I’ve grown older, I have discovered a love of team interaction and an innate desire for innovation which I probably wouldn’t have experienced to the same degree in front of the radar screen. I’m not sure what creative and collaborative air traffic control would look like, but I don’t imagine the travelling public would appreciate it. The extra blessing for me is that I had the opportunity, many years later, to be able to thank that Careers Advisor, now long retired, for recognising something in me that I did not comprehend at the time.

Last week I had cause to remember that episode and it reminded me once again of the paradox inherent in preparing young people for the future. We are charged, parents and teachers, with the responsibility of equipping our children with the qualities and qualifications they need to fulfil their dreams. Yet the possibilities they see for themselves in the future are often defined by the past. Personal experiences, family expectations and traditional patterns can invisibly limit their aspirations. When I left school, career choices were reasonably proscribed, fairly static and well-understood. Even so, my Careers Advisor still needed to open my eyes to unseen possibilities. Today, new fields of endeavour emerge every year and career paths vary wildly from historic trends. Yet still, the best guidance that we can provide to our young people is not a specific direction but rather an affirmation of their character and their worth. Surely the highest qualification for any graduate is to enter the modern world with an insight into their own talents, a faith in their abilites, and the confidence to exercise them?

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

Grasping the NETTEL - Issue 9 2010

After more than thirty years of tramping and hunting in the more remote parts of this country, I know there is little to fear in New Zealand’s bush. We have no carnivorous animals, no venomous snakes, no man-eating reptiles. Our only poisonous spiders are fairly scarce and most of the times I have been up close and personal with a cave weta, I’ve usually jumped further than it has. So, in the absence of anything that wants to eat me, the threat which usually concerns me most in the back-country is a common shrub. Urtica ferox, more commonly known as ongaonga, is a vicious stinging nettle, endemic to New Zealand. Significantly more potent than other nettles around the world, simply brushing against its deceptively fine hairs can deliver a dose of poison which causes a painful sting lasting up to five days. In extreme cases, dogs, horses and even a hunter have died after receiving multiple stings whilst pushing through a large patch of the stuff.

I have been victim of ongaonga often enough in the past to always try to give it a wide berth. Sitting around the fire at night with your hands and legs still tingling with toxins is not as pleasant as it sounds. My worst encounter involved hurdling over a fallen log in a river and collecting an entire plant between the legs as I landed downstream. This was in the early eighties, when the only shorts good Kiwi blokes wore were indecently small Stubbies. On this day, they were not only a fashion disaster but also a distinct threat to my welfare. The memory of a thousand hypodermics in your groin is not one which fades quickly. The trouble is, once you’re alert to it, nettle seems to be everywhere, camouflaged, shin-high amidst the fern, sprouting from an essential handhold on a waterfall climb, or choking a creek that is your only easy route back to camp. The sight of its needle-laden leaves induces panic, the threat of another bout of electric thighs triggering fright or flight responses. Eventually, you don’t even need to see the nettle - its mere existence can be anxiety-inducing.

Which is why I found it ironic recently to read about nettle of a very different type, which nevertheless still seems to produce similar psychological symptoms. Australian social researcher Bernard Salt has coined the term NETTEL (Not Enough Time To Enjoy Life) to describe anxieties of many modern families. Experience-rich but time-poor, the only thing nuclear about many families today is that they are in meltdown. Salt’s descriptions of overly busy parents and harried children huddled around the table co-ordinating calendars and synchronising schedules are depressingly familiar. In an effort to cram every wonderful opportunity that the modern era offers us into our lives and those of our children and still work long and hard enough to pay for them, we may, paradoxically, be sacrificing the time needed to enjoy the results. The frenzy of parents racing to and from full-time, high-pressured jobs to pick-up and drop-off children, fearful of overlooking a single investment in future happiness and security, may be robbing us of the simple pleasures we need to enjoy each day. We may be living longer than we did last century, but a day, a year, and even childhood itself, are still the same length they have always been. Jamming more in must come at the expense of taking something out and often what is dropped is relaxation, holidays, or family time. Like the bushy, native variety, this newly introduced NETTEL carries quite a sting and can have lasting consequences. But it can also be avoided if we know what to look for.

So these Easter holidays I encourage you all to bury the Blackberry, mute the mobile, remove the remotes and ignore the invites. Reintroduce yourselves to the people closest to you, the ones you work so hard for and share with them a little of your most precious resource, not money but time. This applies equally to children and parents. For only if we ‘go bush’ occasionally (either literally or metaphorically), can we avoid the NETTEL.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

The Challenge of Creativity - Issue 5 2010

Benjamin Franklin was a creative man. He was also a very lucky one. Of the many inventions credited to him, perhaps the most well known relates to his experiment of flying a kite in a thunderstorm in order to prove his ideas about electricity. By touching a metal key to the kite’s string at the height of a storm, he felt a tingling sensation in his fingers which confirmed his theory that lightening was electric. Creativity is the act of recombining that which exists to make something new. By taking the known scientifi c facts of the time and experimenting with them in a different way, Franklin’s creative thinking was the source of new knowledge that has benefited humanity ever since.

Yet not so fortunate was another physicist, Georg Richmann, who tried the same experiment less than a year later. Benjamin Franklin had been fortunate that his kite only conducted the latent energy in the thunderclouds. Richmann ran a metal wire from his roof into a bowl of wet iron filings and managed to conduct a direct lightening strike. The 200 million volts which shot down the wire and through the metal bar he was holding left him completely unmarked, but completely dead.

Therein lies the great challenge of creativity – the risk of failure is equal to the risk of success and yet neither can be confidently predicted.

The paradox of trying to foster creativity in our children is no different, although fortunately a lot less lethal. In order to be creative, one needs to experiment. Inherent in experimentation is failure. Failure can sometimes hurt and, as we don’t like to see our children hurt, we as parents try to shield them from failure. Therefore, in trying to protect our children, we can sometimes stifle their creativity.

Schools too, can be guilty of this. Children come to us at the height of their creativity – a five-year-old child is the most inquisitive creature on earth. Our job, over the next 14 years, is to educate that child so that they are best prepared for success in their adult lives. Increasingly over the past two decades, it has become apparent that successful adults are those who are flexible, adaptable to constant change, inventive and resilient. In other words, they are the creative amongst us.

So a school takes an innately creative young person and endeavours to educate them in such a way that they are best able to become a successful, creative adult. And yet many of the traditional education methods employed by schools repress creative behaviour. Telling children to sit quietly and absorb “facts”, to accept authority and expertise without question, to use digital tools only under strict controls, and above all to fear failure, may make for easier classroom management but it does little to prepare them for the realities of the dynamic world they will enter when they graduate.

Kristin’s commitment to creativity and inquiry-based learning may challenge some traditional teaching models, but the proof of its success is overwhelming. Our examination success rates are world-class. Our graduates are leaders in all sectors of society. Our young people are confident achievers. Our innovation in the use of digital technologies is respected nationally. And our teachers, who are encouraged to foster creativity in every classroom from Kindergarten to the Senior School, are our greatest asset and our point of difference. We teach our students that in a fluid world, it is more important to be inquisitive than to master fixed content. We encourage academic risk-takers, recognise occasional failure is a by-product of creative endeavour, and celebrate loudest when children question well. We are proud to innovate.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

Surf’s Up - Issue 2 2010

The holidays may be at an end, but I’m still giving thanks for the return of an Auckland summer, such as those I remember from my childhood. For those of us raised in the Southern Hemisphere, summer heralds new beginnings. Straddling the celebrations of an old year closing and the exciting prospects of a new one opening, it is a season of optimism, a time to picnic on the rewards of the past and the promises of the future. For our children especially, the current golden weather sets the scene for a fresh start, new waves of experience as they return to school.

Such thoughts bring to mind the wisdom of a jandal-wearing, five-year-old philosopher I overheard on a beach recently. This little sage was earnestly helping his frazzled mother to coax his younger sibling from the shallows, where the boys had been playing happily for hours in the breaking surf. Plainly exhausted and getting cold, the younger brother was nevertheless still enjoying the thrill of each new wave knocking him forward and the fun of turning to catch the next one. Having had no luck in convincing him that it was time to call it quits, his mum finally waded in and plucked him bodily from the tide. As she struggled to hold on to the protesting little surfie, his slippery sun-screened arms clawing for the sea, his older brother hovered behind her up the dunes, offering placating words. I passed them at that moment, close enough to hear him say, “Don’t worry Kevin, we can come back tomorrow.” And then he added, with great insight, “They make new waves for you every day.”

I’d like to think that your child has had a similar assurance as they returned to their new classes or courses this week. Perhaps you haven’t quite had to drag them kicking and screaming away from school at the end of each day! But hopefully they have felt the excitement of a new wave of opportunities as they’ve returned to Kristin and the realisation that we will replenish those choices and challenges every day, every term, every year.

As we get older, we learn of the currents and tides which run through our lives. We learn when to go with the flow and when to stand against the undertow. Our children will learn those things too, in time, but for now let them splash around without fear or inhibition. There will be time enough in their adult lives for drudgery, limits and caution – while they’re young it’s our responsibility to ensure that their natural energy and enthusiasm is given every possible outlet.

So that should be our New Year’s resolution – teachers and parents together - to endeavour to find new waves for our young people to ride every day. It is certainly my promise to them all, from the newest Kindy entrant to those Seniors in their final year. As for you, the dedicated and supportive parents who make up the rest of the Kristin community, I wish each of you a prosperous and enjoyable year ahead. May you, too, remember the childhood exhilaration of the surf and perhaps discover your own fresh waves to ride in 2010.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

A Young Person’s Guide to Surviving the Christmas Holidays – Issue 37 2009

Students, as the long Christmas holiday yawns invitingly ahead of you, you’re probably looking forward to some much-needed down-time and a relaxing break after a year of intensive studies. Unfortunately though, you will not be the only ones with time on your hands - most of your parents are going to be on holiday too. Whether you are a helicopter child who is used to keeping a very tight rein on your parents, or one who is more comfortable letting them go free-range, you are going to have them on your hands full-time for the next few weeks. To save you the stress of them constantly nagging at you or wandering round aimlessly getting up to mischief with their friends, I offer you some tips on how to keep them entertained.

Day Trips
You need to get in quick here. The likelihood is that you’ve been to Kelly Tarlton’s, MOTAT and the Zoo so often that you probably can claim controlling shares in a polar bear or a steam engine. Before your parents pack you off down those well-worn paths, suggest a few more novel expeditions. A visit to every house they have ever lived in for instance, or the exact spot they caught their first fish. Writing your name in rocks at the bottom of a volcanic crater, throwing flax darts from the Manukau Heads lighthouse, and lying on your back at the end of the Whenuapai Airforce runway watching planes land are also worth a crack.

Car Journeys
Wherever you go these holidays, it will probably involve a long trip in a car at some stage. It is important to assist your parents to stay focussed and alert at times like this and the best way to help is by asking regular questions, such as “Are we nearly there?” and “How much further?” These questions have the added educational bonus of testing their geographic knowledge and clock-reading skills.

Tidying Their Rooms
However, holidays are not all about having fun are they? Your parents need to start taking some responsibility and a good way to encourage this is to get them to tidy their rooms properly. It wouldn’t hurt dad to get rid of some of his more suspect ties or return his shorts to the 1980s, and does mum know that there are millions of starving people in the world who are living without 19 pairs of stilettos? If they need some help getting started, you could perhaps offer to clean out the wardrobe where the Christmas presents are stored.

Time For Reflection
Christmas and New Year are traditionally times of reflection and if you’re strategic about it, you can use this to help your parents gain a bit of perspective on their lives. Most parents are opsimaths. You, of course, know that an opsimath is a person who learns late in life. But they probably don’t know what that word means, so start by teaching them the term and reassuring them that it’s ok to be one. The next step is to see how they have been going in their learning this year. At dinner, ask each parent in turn to tell you one new thing they learned that day. Do not be fobbed off with answers like “Oh, not a lot”, “Don’t be silly”, or “Pass the salt.” If, after three or four days, they have not been able to name a single new thing that they have learned, ask them what they’re doing with their life? They’re sending you to a top school to become life-long learners, so why aren’t they modelling that behaviour? If all the latest research is correct, your parents stand to be around for a good many years to come, so they had better start to learn how to keep learning, otherwise you’re going to be looking after them forever!
Be kind to them as you guide them in this though. Remember, they did not have the opportunities that you had growing up. They were only taught the three ‘Rs’ of reading, writing and arithmetic – you have had the added benefit of learning three more: risk-taking, resilience and personal responsibility.

So this Christmas holiday, try to use time together as a family to impart some of your experience and learning to your parents. And remember, if they’ve got themselves a bit over-tired and wound up with all the stresses of 2009, they will need your help to relax a little, to see how blessed they really are to have you in their lives and to be growing up in this beauty-filled country at this marvellous time.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

What Did You Expect? - Issue 32 2009

Imagine that you have just received your child’s end of year school report and it contains the following comment: “[Your child] has achieved to their full potential in [subject] this year.”

What reaction would that elicit in you? Pride or scepticism? Would you think “Great, s/he has achieved their best ( I always knew s/he was bright like me)” Or would you perhaps think, “I’m really glad s/he has done well, but “full potential”? – surely there’s always room for improvement.” There’s no absolute right or wrong here, but our responses say a lot about our beliefs regarding the influence of nature versus nurture when it comes to human intelligence. Those who believe that we are born with a fixed capacity for intelligence tend to consider achievement as an ability attribution. That is, we can get the marks/successes/rewards that our innate gifts allow us to reach. The theory being that some are born with a capacity for high intelligence, some average, some low, but we can all strive to reach the maximum that our potential allows.

Others however, believe that nurture, or environment, is the influencing factor in achievement. This is known as effort attribution, a belief which supposes that everybody has a relatively unlimited opportunity to excel, dependent upon how much help they receive and how hard they are prepared to try. From this perspective, there are no limits on potential, other than those which we impose. Whether we impose them on our children, or they impose them on themselves, is a crucial consideration – more on that shortly.

The nature versus nurture debate is as old as human thinking and I am neither wise nor brave enough to venture a definitive answer. However, recent brain research certainly seems to be confirming my commitment to the power of expectation. Studies using fMRI scans, which map brain activity while people are conscious and thinking, have shown significant differences between children with ability and effort attribution mindsets. Given a problem that is too hard for them to solve, a child who believes that their overall intelligence is pretty well fixed (no matter at what level) will panic. Scans show a high level of emotional activity as they stress about how to hide their inability to complete the task, or their embarrassment that they aren’t as smart as they should be.

Scans of children faced with the same challenge but who have an effort attribution, produce different brain reactions. In these children, there is little or no emotional activity. They aren’t humiliated or fearful about their failure to master the problem. Instead, most of their thinking is taking place in the frontal lobes as they try to figure out how they could find out a solution (or even look forward to the next one).

To me, the message from this research is simple, but of fundamental importance to what we do together as parents and teachers. Most children accept that as they grow, they will learn more ‘stuff’. But if they believe that their overall intelligence, relative, say, to siblings or peers, is fixed, then they are more likely to accept defeat when they hit a wall and will divert their energies into justifying or hiding the fact that they’ve reached their limit. (A simple test: ask your child whether their brother/sister/friend is smarter than them. Then ask if that will always be the case?).

On the other hand, if we can get our children to believe that they have the power to increase their potential to learn things, they will do just that. The educational researcher Guy Claxton uses the wonderful simile of seeing the brain either as a bucket or a balloon. If your child grows up thinking their mind is a bucket of fixed size, whether big or small, they will be predisposed to stop trying to learn when they think it’s full. If they believe their brain is as elastic as a balloon though, they will just keep trying to fill it. To paraphrase the old saying, they achieve because we forget to tell them it’s impossible.

As is often the case with advances in brain research, these new findings don’t so much tell us something new as confirm old wisdoms. I have long held an absolute conviction that young people will always meet our expectations, no matter what. The only question is whether we let them see that those expectations are high or low. Children will believe what we show them we believe, so it behoves us not to limit their potential.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

Love Thy Neighbour - Issue 28 2009

Although I didn’t know it at the time, my first girlfriend was Samoan. That is, I didn’t know she was Samoan, but neither did I know she was my girlfriend. Boys aren’t too sharp about things like that at age 10. I discovered she was my girlfriend the day she threatened to thump the two hoods who regularly relieved me of my lunch in the bike sheds at school every morning. Truth be told, I wasn’t usually too sad to hand over a packet of raisins and two squashed Marmite and cheese sandwiches, warming as they sweated inside my Dan Dare lunchbox. It seemed a small price to pay for the protection services of two thirds of the school’s front row.

However, Taoaluga was incensed when she discovered these Primary School mobsters at work and assured them that if they didn’t stop stealing her boyfriend’s lunch, they’d never play Rugby with the use of all four limbs again. It was news to me that she was my girlfriend but, like the now-quaking bike shed heavies, I wasn’t about to argue. She was feisty and fast. She was funny too - I liked her and we were mates. I didn’t think too much more about the fact that she was also a girl. Neither did her culture mean much to me. Other than thinking that her name was much more melodious than mine, it never really registered she was any different to me. Her family laughed, bickered and tumbled through life just like mine, albeit in a different language.

Maybe that’s why the recent devastation in the Pacific Islands has affected me so much. I know that I should feel equally upset at any human suffering of this scale, but a childhood affinity for the Samoan culture and a decade of teaching Pasifika children in South Auckland schools makes their current plight so much more vivid for me. As do the memories that still haunt me from my visit to Sri Lanka following the 2006 Boxing Day tsunami. I journeyed there with the Head Prefects shortly after the disaster to see what help we could offer. Images of the incomprehensible destruction that single wave could wreak upon coastal communities and the aftermath of fear and despair that followed, are still very fresh in my mind.

So I returned at the start of this new term with a couple of powerful personal motivations to suggest that we offer some sort of assistance to the victims of the Samoan earthquake and tsunami. I returned ready to encourage our students, to energise them, to impress upon them the need to think of the needs of other, less fortunate people in the world. Yet, as is so often the case in this school, I returned this term to be humbled by the character of our kids.

Before I could even start to propose my ideas, I was bombarded by students who already had their own. Junior School students who wanted to know if they could send their Christmas Boxes to Samoa. A group of Middle School girls asking whether they could fundraise (actually, I think they were telling, not asking). Even in the midst of their exams, the newly formed Prefect team were debating whether their altruistic project could focus some sort of rebuilding task in an affected village.

To all of you who have talked to your children about the recent disaster in terms of what they can do to help – bless you. Thank you for supporting us in Kristin’s determination to empower young people. To build in them the confidence and initiative to believe that they can actively make a difference in the world, rather than just watch events unfold. I am proud of the fact that not only will there be a response to the aftermath of the tsunami from this community but, as is our way, it will be student-led.

Just as the memories from my school days remain a powerful influence in my life today, so too will your children’s experiences at Kristin now be a defining factor in their futures. Together, we are teaching them lasting lessons about the common humanity that all people share and their ability to positively impact the lives of their neighbours. As the final term commences, I feel privileged once again to serve a school community that shares these values and to be educating the future leaders of our society.
 

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

The Tolling of the Bell – Issue 27 2009

Growing up in a large family, the ringing of the phone was constant and often led my father to paraphrase the famous lines of John Donne, “Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, one of you kids just answer the damn phone!” The actual quote, “Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee”, comes from the same poem that gave us the phrase “No man is an island” and is a treatise on how all people are connected to one another, whether through joy or sorrow. Despite our increasing isolation in modern societies, created by overly-busy lives and a virtual world that encourages solitary confinement in front of a screen, the sentiment is as true today as it was in 1623. The modern day equivalent of John Donne’s funeral bells tolling is probably the ping of an incoming email or a text message, yet news, good or bad, still reminds us of our common humanity. Donne said that he cared what news the bells brought because he was “involved in mankind”. As are all great people.

Which is why the departure this week of our own bell-ringer is such a sadness. On nearly every school day over the past decade, if you had followed the sound of a small brass hand-bell through the grounds of the Middle School at the start of the morning’s classes, you would have found the inimitable Ted Berry. Not that his bell-ringing was a portent of doom (unless you were late for class). The sound of Ted doing his morning round was actually an uplifting one, a reassurance that someone who cared was at hand. The clanging was invariably punctuated by cheery greetings and echoes of laughter.
Prudent steward though he was, Ted’s hand-bell was not some cost saving measure – we have a perfectly adequate electronic bell system that gets students to class on time. Neither was the hand-bell a sign of a man defiantly clinging to a bygone era – if ever anyone has been able to adapt and enthusiastically embrace change over the generations, it was Ted. Nor was he seeking attention – although he did at times appear on a corner like the town cryer, vigorously waving his bell and exhorting the gathering crowds to embrace the day.

The truth is, Ted Berry’s morning bell-ringing round was the craft of a great Principal in action. Through this daily routine, he built and maintained the extensive and caring relationships with young people for which he was renown. His ready welcome to all he met, warm humour, concerned enquiries about family or friends, gentle but firm admonishments about uniform, personal example of picking up litter – every moment of that morning walk built the positive culture of the Middle School. Even if students didn’t appreciate that he had cut short meetings or deferred urgent tasks in order to be out there with them to set the day off right, they all knew the most important fact – that this man genuinely liked and cared about them. As in Pavlov’s famous experiment, I’m prepared to bet that many hundreds of Kristin students will, for the rest of their lives, associate the sound of a hand-bell with fond feelings of security and care.

Just as, in Donne’s meditation, a continent is the lesser for every clod of earth washed from its shores, so too is Kristin the lesser for Ted Berry’s departure. However, we are also infinitely richer thanks to the culture he leaves behind and I am confident that his legacy will not be easily eroded. This good man, so involved in mankind, has been a lasting inspiration to all who have worked with him and been taught by him. As the last notes of his morning bell are replaced by the chimes of rigging against the mast, I wish my friend and colleague safe travels, adventure, contentment, and proud reflection on an exceptional career as an educator.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

Daughters are from Mercury – Issue 23 2009

Our annual Mother/Daughter and Father/Son Breakfasts are soon to be held. A friend asked “What does the school do for fathers who only have daughters or mothers who only have sons?” Fair point. I explained that there are only so many functions we can host in a year, to which he countered that maybe then, I could write something about father-daughter relationships. In particular, teenage daughters.

I’m fairly sure that he doesn’t actually wish me any harm, but for most blokes, venturing opinions on gender difference is akin to searching for land mines on a pogo-stick. Besides, I am as bemused as any other man by the species known as daughter. Men may be from Mars and women from Venus, but daughters circle the galaxy in battle-cruisers looking for hapless worlds to conquer and buy shoes. Or perhaps, mercurial as they often are, they come from Mercury?

The best I can offer are the following lessons, learned the hard way:

The Phantom Foot
If you have ever taught anyone to drive, you will know the experience of sitting in the passenger seat and watching your foot uncontrollably stomping down on a brake pedal that doesn’t actually exist on your side of the cab. Your mouth may be saying “You’re doing great, I’m really impressed” but your body is saying “For the love of God, STOP – you’re going to kill us all.” No amount of stamping thin air is going to slow the car, but instinctive habits are hard to break in a time of crisis. The same is true of raising a teenage daughter – old childhood control techniques just don’t work the same way as she starts to steer her own life. As protective as we still feel, dads need to learn that our role is increasingly one of helpful navigator rather than driver in our daughter’s life. Let go of the wheel, but do your safety-belt up tight.

Wall Bracing
That said, don’t surrender the basics. I once saw a builder shoulder-charging a wall he had spent the morning framing up. Helpfully, I offered to help him tear it down. He looked at me quizzically and said: “I don’t want to knock it down – I want to make sure it will stay up.” When girls push hard against their father’s rules, more often than not they are testing to see that they are still solid and reliable. Brace yourself, bend occasionally, but don’t buckle. Despite what they throw at you, they don’t necessarily want you to duck.

Russian Dolls
Lift the lid off a teenage girl and you will find inside the defiant and stroppy two year old she once was. Inside again though, is also the cuddly toddler, the angelic four year old, the innocent child and the mischievous imp from days gone by. Right at the centre is daddy’s girl. The challenge for any father is to know which face he is looking at in any given moment. I have often heard the door get slammed and the brother abused, only to see the charmer walk around the corner. Rather than trying to work out which version of your daughter you are looking at, sometimes it’s best just to remind yourself that the others are all still in there somewhere.

All parenting is an exercise in standing in front of an uncompromising mirror – our kids show us who we are. For fathers with daughters, that mirror has a particularly bright light shining on it, illuminating your every flaw. But it is also a reflection of enormous pride. Raising a child of the opposite sex is innately difficult because you have never experienced what it is to be young and their gender. Yet therein lies the huge opportunity to provide balance and empathy in their lives. I don’t claim to be any shining light as a father, but I have learned the need to constantly adapt your parenting. As men we feel a powerful responsibility to protect our daughters when they are young. As they grow, we need to stay strong in their eyes, but not unbending. Control must give way to influence. And most of all, we should remember what lies at their very core, no matter how alien their behaviour might appear. Fathers and daughters may sometimes seem worlds apart, but there is no greater love.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

A Measure of Our Success – Issue 19 2009

From the top of New Zealand House, London sprawls out in every direction, as far as the eye can see. Squint and you can spot Auckland just on the horizon. Or at least, that’s how it seems, as a steady stream of more than 70 of Kristin’s old boys and girls arrive on a warm summer’s evening to enjoy the 2009 Kristin UK Reunion. Kiwi accents are dusted off at the door, familiar faces from across four decades filing into the growing din of nostalgic conversation. Within clear sight of so many English icons – Tower Bridge, Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus, the River Thames – a little slice of the North Shore flourishes for an evening.

A week later, a similar scene plays out in a ballroom in Seoul. Albany is transported to Korea and it’s not just the torrential rain outside that draws Kristin close. Ex-students converge from across the country and around the world. As with the London gathering, the talk ranges from university experiences to job opportunities to travel stories, but always returns, fondly, to school days. It is humbling to hear how proud these fine young people remain of their school and how certain they are in attributing their subsequent successes to their time spent at Kristin.

There are many ways to measure a school’s success and often they are contentious. The current level of worried debate about the Government’s proposed National Standards testing regime for Primary schools is a good example. Teacher fears about the spectre of league tables for Junior students are pitted against parents’ obvious desire to know whether the school they select for their child is a good one. A simple numerical measure would be helpful, but in my experience, there is no such thing as a simple measure.

Annual attempts by the media to catalogue and rank schools invariably overlook the hundreds of complex variables which determine which school is right for your individual child. Tables that purport to rank schools may sell magazines, but they are also a distraction from what matters most in education. We are not looking to win some artificial citywide competition; we want Kristin to be the best school for your child, the best school it can be. As a passionate advocate for choice in schooling, I would always counsel that the best research is your own.

Which is why maintaining connections with our graduates is so important to us. Nothing speaks more definitively about the worth and values of a school than the lives of the people who were educated there. Admittedly, thoughts of Alumni membership, reunion gatherings and even Year 13 Graduation and Leavers’ Dinner may seem a long way off if your child is in the Kindy. Yet the answer to the question “What will this school do for my child?” the proof of our success is evident in those places. Not so much in the impressive list of university degrees, prestigious scholarships or remarkable careers that were the talk of the two functions I recently attended. But rather in the self-confidence, social competence and mature world view that generations of Kristin students seem to possess.

Statistics are important and I am as hungry for data as any Principal. But I will take the cross-section that those 100 confident, competent and contributing global citizens represent as the true measure of our success any day.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

Feet of Clay – Issue 17 2009

Pottery is a strange business isn’t it? With a million perfectly formed china cups and bowls lining the shelves at Farmers, you’d think ‘how hard can it be?’ With thousands of people churning out identical crockery every year, here’s a chance to apply your individual stamp, exercise your latent creativity, give the world something unique - why not give it a go?

So you find yourself in a pokey wee studio following a wizened little fellow who’s sporting sandals and a beard like a gorse bush. You glance scornfully about. An eclectic collection of earnest types in homespun cardigans are hunched intensely over lumps of misshapen clay, muttering to themselves or mud wrestling, wild-eyed, as they try in vain to forge something that even resembles a man-made object. You can’t wait to show them how it’s done.

Twenty minutes later, you’re seated in front of your very own potter’s wheel, looking like the victim of a roadside bombing. You are covered from head to toe in sludge, your fingers are bleeding and there is a crater whirling round where your bowl once was. “Watch how she’s doing it”, gorse beard advises, nodding at a slight woman half my size who is effortlessly coaxing a cup into existence.

But I’m a bloke, we don’t do multi-tasking. If I take my eyes off this maniacally spinning clay for an instant the whole thing is liable to rocket off the wheel, decapitate the show-off next to me and re-plaster the ceiling. “If I could just stop the wheel for a moment?” I whimper, as my demonic slab of mud rears up once more and grows limbs of its own.

The bearded-one chuckles, squeezes my shoulder with wiry hand and says cryptically, “The world turns”. There’s no time to contemplate that as I throw my body across the wheel, sacrificing myself to protect innocent bystanders from the next imminent detonation. The world turns. It makes you think.

Parenting is just pottery with people. Everyone else in the world is making their own kids, so you decide to have a crack. Getting going is fairly easy. Your children are born, perfect raw material and you begin to mould them.

It all starts off fairly smoothly – they’re just little lumps rolling round on the carpet - but the task gets trickier as they rise up. They grow and grow and soon you’re working flat out to keep up with them. Then they start to lurch out of control at times and little eccentricities begin to appear. Increasingly, you’d like a break, a chance to catch your breath and reflect, but the wheel is relentless and never stops turning.

Rough edges form and each time you smooth out one lump, another appears. Points of instability develop, or patches where they are too strong. You want to stop and smooth each one out, but life doesn’t slow down long enough and your child’s personality continues to form beneath your hands.

Here’s what you learn about pottery and parenting:

• both are messy, awkward, and can leave you with mud on your face
• they’re unrelenting and totally absorbing
• it’s impossible to make identical pieces
• success always lies in time spent forming a solid base
• strength and fragility are simply matters of perspective
• if you stuff it up, you can’t really give the end result away to the relatives for Christmas

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

Excerpts from Mr Clague's address at Amelia Christian’s Memorial Service –
Issue 13 2009

This is a school. I am a teacher. Schools are places of learning and teachers are supposed to help students find the answers to questions. But it is hard to see any lessons in the catastrophe of a child’s death and I have no answers to the million questions that lie in the minds of all of us, young and old. They may remain unspoken out of confusion, fear, or respect; but they are questions nonetheless.

There is one enormous question that hangs, even now. Why? It is a question for which this teacher has no answer. I feel utterly lost, no use to you at all, because, truly, I cannot explain this. I cannot rationalise it or deduce it. Nor can I make the pain of not knowing go away. I cannot teach you the correct answer this time.

I do know that there will be no single answer. I know that when someone makes the choice Amelia did, it is never, ever, for one simple reason. I know that her choice was a bad one, a rash one, an impetuous choice with disastrous consequences. I also know that she never would have intended for all this to happen. I am completely convinced of that. For you know, as I know, that she was an outgoing, joyous, outrageously fun-loving girl with a huge zest for life. A beautiful and talented person, a social creature, a great friend. And I know that this one hasty mistake will never, and can never, undo or erase all the incredible good that made her the Amelia that you knew. I know all this, but I do not know why.

But then, perhaps the reason I can’t give you answers is because we are asking the wrong question. Perhaps it is not for us to know why – that was Amelia’s alone to know. However, we can know the answer to the question “What should we do about it?” For that, I have two answers for you. The first is to talk.

Experts worry a lot about whether or not to talk openly to young people about a death like this. Some believe that in doing so, there is a danger of glorifying it. I do not share that belief. The young people I work with, including those who have summoned up their courage and their love to be here tonight, they are not blind nor gullible. They can tell the difference between a brilliant life and a tragic death. The thing being glorified here tonight is the wonderful life that Amelia Christian lived, not her death. That is the very reason that her grieving parents have let so many other young people into their world this past week, so that they can know the beauty of Amelia’s life and the terrible consequences of a momentary lapse of judgement.

So I urge you – talk to each other about Amelia. Do not gossip, do not speculate, do not spread rumours, do not judge things you don’t know about. Talk. Talk about the good things you remember. Talk about the amazing richness of her life, not its end. And when you finish, keep talking to each other. Say the things that sadly, often only get said out loud at times like this. Tell of your friendship, your admiration, your respect for each other. Talk to your brothers and your sisters, your whanau and your neighbours. Talk about the million things that unite you rather than the couple that do not.

Then turn around and talk to your parents. Tell them the things they don’t know that concern you and listen as they tell you how things can be better in a single moment. You just have to let that moment come and let the love of those around you hold and keep you until it does. Talk and talk and talk and talk until you understand that as much love as you witness around you here tonight is there for every single one of you.
Because that is the second answer to the question “What should we do about this?” We should look around.

This is a school. This is Kristin School. This is your school. This is Amelia’s school. We embrace her still as our own. Amanda, Brett, Harrison and Samantha have lost a family member and so have we. But Amanda and Brett and Harrison and Samantha remain still, as members of the Kristin family and the enormous outpouring of compassion and comfort that they have witnessed over the past week will always be here for them. Always. As it will for each of you. I implore you all - see what a tragedy as great as this might teach us about the families and communities to which we all belong and learn from it. Learn, if you do not know it already, that this school is also your home, these teachers also your caregivers, these friends also your family. Look around and learn what incredible support there exists for you to be the person you want to become. Learn what Amelia taught you, what she teaches us all – that life is for living.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

Great Expectations – Issue 9 2009

I am pleasantly surprised not to have perished in a nuclear holocaust yet. Throughout my childhood the prevailing expectation was that the Cold War would inevitably become a very hot and irradiated war. The question was never whether it would happen, just when? This gloomy outlook extended well beyond the daily media who, it may be argued, have a financial imperative to forecast impending disasters - bad news sells papers. Unfortunately though, the certainty of being obliterated in an instant because Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon finally got fed-up with each other was also being promoted in the classrooms of our schools.

I can remember Social Studies lessons in which we were earnestly instructed on how to construct underground blast bunkers in our backyards (no great hardship for 13-year-old boys I might add). We were taught a shorthand vocabulary of atomic annihilation: MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile), RAD (Radiation Absorption Dose). In Science we learned the difference between fallout and yield. Our English teacher fed us a diet of novels about the doomsday scenario and movies depicting life in a nuclear winter. I still have a cartoon given to me by a teacher which shows a dozy-looking Ronald Reagan waking up in the White House. His finger hovers uncertainly over two buttons above the bedside table – one labelled LUNCH, the other, LAUNCH.

Mushroom clouds over Auckland may seem a little silly now, but the fact remains that my generation grew up with a fair degree of fatalism that the end of the world really was nigh. And I sometimes wonder how that has affected our subsequent outlook on life. Are we more cautious, less committing, perhaps even cynical and blind to some of the joys of life as a result of being raised in a climate of such pessimism?

Such introspection might not really matter, were it not for the fact that mine was not the only generation to have been educated against a backdrop of global fear. Throughout the past four decades, successive generations of young people have grown up knowing variously they were all going to die from either HIV/AIDS, SARs, Ebola, or Mad Cow Disease. An electronic infection, the Millennium Virus, threatened us all for a while, but it didn't catch on. Sadly, Terror did, and the Net Generation were born into a world which threatened bombs on buses and guns in schools . More recently, the threat has gone truly global - climate change, oil shocks, ozone depletion and now, an economic meltdown that apparently jeopardises everyone on the planet.

I do not mean to be flippant; each of these crises undoubtedly held the potential for disaster. But my concern is the effect of all this doom-saying has on impressionable young minds. Our children learn to expect what the adults in their lives expect. If we constantly portray the world as a fragile and doomed place, what impact does this have on their outlook?

Expectation is a powerful force. In the late 1960s, Dr Robert Rosenthal of Harvard University conducted a study in which a school principal called three teachers to his office at the start of the year. He told them, “Based on your teaching excellence over the past three or four years, it is clear that you are the best teachers in the school. As a reward, you will each be given a class of 30 of the brightest students in the school to teach this year.” The student’s selection would be based on their high IQs and their keenness to do well. He added: “Teach the children as you would any other class and do not tell them or their parents that you know they are special.”

At the end of the school year, these three classes led the entire school district in academic accomplishment, performing twenty to thirty percent above average.

The principal then dropped his bombshell on the teachers; “These students were not chosen for their academic ability – they were chosen out of a hat!” Surprised, the three teachers could only reason that the students had excelled because they, the teachers, were brilliant. But then the principal dropped bombshell number two – the teachers had also been chosen out of a hat!

The teachers simply believed in themselves and expected the students would do very well. The students proved them correct. The message is simple and time honoured, people usually rise (or sink) to your expectations of them. Could it be that the same is true for our children's expectation of the world they are growing up in? As you spend time with your kids over the holiday break, I encourage you to encourage them. Even if it's a little harder to find these days, accentuate the positive and maybe help them build tree-huts, not fallout shelters.

Middle School Learning Centre Opening - Executive Principal's Welcome

Tihei maurioa!

E te manuhiri tuarangi e

Haere mai, haere, mai, Piki mai, Ka Ke mai

E hara te pae

I te tawhiti rawa

Ki nga mea

E haere ti Katia

Prime Minister and MP for Helensville, the Honourable John Key, distinguished guests, parents, colleagues, friends of the school, Kristin students.

Can I extend to you all the warmest of welcomes this afternoon and thank you, sincerely, for joining with us to formally open our Middle School Learning Centre.

Good teachers recognise that inside every stroppy, glowering teenager there still exists the cute and cuddly, playful happy toddler they once were. They may be buried deep, but they are still there. Likewise, it is true that buried inside every middle-aged male school Principal there still exists a ten year old boy who secretly wishes he could be a digger driver.
Over the past decade, we have seen a major construction project on the Kristin campus almost every year. Throughout that time, miraculously some times, the school as continued to function around earthmovers, heavy machinery, cranes, trucks, teams of tradespeople armed with all manner of building equipment.

And whilst many of my colleagues have struggled with the noise, dust and constant distraction of construction outside the classroom window, I confess that I have spent more than a few moments gazing longingly at the machinery that has been on-site.

It's not just my desire to play with the big boys toys - I am genuinely interested in how things are made. I am intrigued by how pieces come together, the order in which they created. And the order that they create.

Over these past ten years, I have become a bit of an expert on modern construction methods. I have sat through countless stakeholder meetings and listened to all manner of experts. I know about geotechnical reports, screw-piling, cranage limits, tilt-slab concrete panels. I know the difference between Marmoleum and Linoleum. I know how long it takes cedar to go grey. Give me a hard hat, two weeks and a hammer and I reckon I could build you a skyscaper. Give me a digger and … I would be eternally grateful.

But this building, this Middle School Learning Centre, well, its construction has been different. This building does not seem to have been built in the usual manner (but please don't tell that to the resource consent office – no offence to our guests from the Council, but I never want to go there again).

You see, whilst it may contain glass and steel and concrete, this Learning Centre has actually been built out of unique materials. It is a building made of ideas, forged from experience, held up by optimism. This building is the physical manifestation of what our own, local, experts, know to be true about building greatness in young people.
The educational experts who are the Kristin staff have used their accumulated understanding of adolescence to build a monument to how kids learn best. This is pedagogy you can touch.

This building opens its arms to the school gates and welcomes people in. Kristin is not a private school, hiding behind high walls and fences. It is an Independent school, which stands square to the main road of its community, saying come in if you wish, you have choice in education.

This courtyard, as with every social space in the complex, is the product of what students want, not what adults think students want. It was designed with genuine input from the young people who will use it. Not patronising, pat-on-the-head input but genuine engagement between architects and adolescents, pouring over plans together, discussing what works for them.

And it's not just the building and the atrium which invite people in – every classroom and every office is is as extensively glazed as we could make it. Not so you can check whether Mr Berry is asleep at his desk over there, nor to allow staff to spy on student behaviour in the neighbouring rooms. But because you have a Principal who is an integral, daily part of your school life and because we are proud of what happens in our classrooms and we want everyone to see it.

All those windows let the world in on your learning. So too does the high tech. digital fit-out of this building let you go out into the world for your learning. Kristin proudly boasts the fastest and highest capacity internet connection of any school in the country.

Parents, we are teaching your children in these rooms in ways that you can barely imagine. The spaces they work in and the technologies they routinely access are so different from what you or I experienced at school that you would scarcely realise they were classrooms were it not for all the chairs (and even they are all custom-sized and ergonomically adjusted).

Twelve years ago, Kristin began New Zealand's first true Middle School. It was a great innovation, an idea ahead of its time and we are glad that the State is now starting to open similar schools and recognise the merits of grouping these critical developmental years together.

In those twelve years, we have amassed a wealth of experience about the social and emotional needs of emerging adolescents. We have tested theories, refined practices, perfected systems and created a culture of high expectation and even higher affirmation. We have taken what we know works in the education of early teens: inclusivity, challenge, community, access to technology, security, trust, a sense of belonging. We have taken those things and we have written them into the landscape of the school.

I began with the proverb:

E hara te pae

I te tawhiti rawa

Ki nga mea

E haere ti Katia

No horizon is too far if properly prepared.

The horizons for our young people are boundless. And whether they may be darkened by the clouds of an uncertain economy or brightly lit thanks to the infinite possibilities of modern technology, our children will at least be well-prepared for what the future holds by having passed through this unique learning space.

Some months ago, on a drizzly morning in November in fact, we gathered on this same spot to bless the Learning Centre before it was occupied. At that time, I acknowledged the many hands and minds that had contributed to its creation and I would like to publicly offer them thanks once more.

To our architects, Bren Morrison and Sarah Hewlett Diprose from Warren & Mahoney, who over the years have taken a genuine interest in the culture and values of this school and as a result, have designed buildings which truly reflect what we stand for, our sincere admiration and thanks.

To Robert Cunningham Construction and all of those who gave their labour and skill to craft this Learning Centre, thank you. Most particularly though, we extend our gratitude to Murray Hogan and Ivan Kete, who have overseen the building of both the Learning Centre and the Humanities & Commerce block. You have come to school nearly every day for the past two years guys and it's time for a well-deserved holiday from teachers.

To the Board of Governors, whose commitment, faith and foresight continue to keep Kristin at the forefront on Independent education in this country. I thank you especially for the trust that you have placed in the hands of the management of the school and the unfailing support we have received every time we have mentioned that there was just one more “essential” facility. I know that you will be relieved that we have now come to the end of this decade-long building phase (do need a quick word about Aquatics Centre).

But perhaps most of all, I want to publicly acknowledge and thank the one man who for the past twelve years has been the architect, not of a building but of a culture. A man who is synonymous with Middle Schooling, within Kristin and throughout New Zealand. In my view, it is no accident that Middle School Principal Ted Berry's office is at the heart of the Middle School Learning Centre, for he is the very heart of Middle School learning and it has been my very great pleasure to see him take up residence in this place.

So ladies and gentlemen, and most especially students, would you please join with me in thanking the contribution of all of those people.

It remains for me now to welcome another fine man and a long-standing friend of the school to speak to you, before we invite him to formally open the building. Prime Minister, your connection to Kristin dates back a number of years, originally to your gifting of a trophy to the Senior School prizegiving, the Liberalitus Cup for altruistic service,

More recently, you have personally supported our Future Problem Solving team in their quest to compete internationally and have then taken the time to call in and see how they got on.

I would suggest that those two personal priorities, service and innovation, along with your obvious commitment to education, are the sort of attributes that every person person would wish for in our nation's leader.

It is my very real pleasure to invite you to address this gathering.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Prime Minister, the Hon. John Key.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

We Have Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself - Issue 5 2009

If you could bottle parental anxiety and sell it, America would be out of its recession tomorrow. I confess that I have sometimes subscribed to the stereotypical view of Americans as brash and overly confident. But having just returned from a major education conference in the States, I am rapidly revising my opinion of those who inhabit the Land of the Free. Free to be anxious perhaps? They are lovely, friendly people but they worry; a lot.

Admittedly, as I left to join my US counterparts, I was feeling less than sympathetic toward them. Remote though we may be in distance, the fads of American teen culture still seem to find their way all too easily into the lives of Kiwi kids. Once, global influences trickled slowly down to our little corner of the Pacific; now they flood in continuously via our TV’s and computers, threatening to submerge us in other people’s neuroses. We are like poor people in the global village, living downstream and having to drink the water in which those who are better off have already bathed and emptied their waste. A steady flow of cultural corruption that threatens to poison us if we consume it long enough.

And so, intent on waging a one-man crusade against the wholesale export of rap music, rampant consumerism and reality television, I arrived in Chicago last week. I was going to have a quiet word with Barack Obama about my concerns, but in the end I managed to get to someone even higher – Oprah. Well OK, I didn’t so much meet her as sit in the same room as her, but I was still clearly in the presence of royalty. Certainly, when hundreds of normally conservative, staid and fusty school principals from the most prestigious ivy league schools suddenly leap to their feet cheering and whistling like the mosh pit of a rock concert when she appears, you start to understand the power of celebrity in America (as an aside, maybe I’m just a bloke, but I’m bemused by the fact that the first thing people keep asking me is not “What did she say?” but “What was she wearing?”).

Anyway, unable to press home my point with Her Majesty (pearls, a bright yellow jacket, and fawn trousers in case you’re wondering), I turned to the next best option, the doorman at my hotel. “Awwwh, Nuuu Zealand,” he grimaced, “that’s the place where texting came from, right? Youse guys shoulda kept that to yourselves, we gotta enough gadgets to worry with.” Fair enough - I know when I’m beaten.
Disarmed, I went inside to the conference, where I soon realised that, in the immortal words of Fred Dagg, we don’t know how lucky we are. Forget about the economic crisis (or as my doorman would drawl “fogeddabowddit”), it would seem Americans have much bigger things to worry about just being parents.

I met a fellow Head who was dealing with a mother who had stitched a GPS-enabled cellphone into the lining of her little darling’s school bag, then tracked the progress of the school bus in real-time on the net, phoning the school every time the driver exceeded the speed limit down Main Street. Other colleagues told of children routinely arriving at summer camp with three cellphones; one to be handed in as they weren’t permitted during your time in the wilderness, one to sacrifice to confiscation when you were inevitably caught phoning home, and therefore one still left as a backup so that anxious Mummy and Daddy could have an uninterrupted commentary on the state of the toilets and whether you were eating properly. Another school had been forced to provide priority mid-day parking spots for parents delivering lunches, sports gear or homework that their children had forgotten to bring to class. I was reminded of a comment King Edward VIII made in the 1930’s: “The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children.”

Clearly, there are many things in the modern world that should concern us as we raise our kids. But the pervasive sense of fear and lack of trust that seems to surround parenting in the US at present was sad to witness. It is breeding a level of hyper-involved parenting that seemed both obsessive and oppressive. I came away feeling much more forgiving of the waves of cultural exports that wash up on our shores. At least most New Zealanders still retain an optimism and sense of moderation about our place in our children’s lives. With all their other neuroses, the Americans don’t need me complaining about gangsta lyrics, first-person shooter games, internet porn or super-model syndromes – they’re stressed enough already. As I said to the doorman as he wished me well back in “Nuuu Zealand”, we’ve got no worries mate.

Senior School Academic Awards Assembly Address

Peter Clague, Executive Principal of Kristin School delivered an inspiring address to our 2008 Graduates at their Academic Awards Ceremony. It is available below for all the school community to reflect on.

Or gave these sorts of answers in tests:

Chose a little pain over being plain

Do Not Be Ordinary.

From the Desk of Peter Clague, Executive Principal

Rain Does not Fall on One Roof Alone - Issue 1 2009