It costs nothing to be kind

A few days after I started working here, a boy cornered me and asked me why I hadn’t spoken to the school at assembly yet. I told him at the time that I was very nervous and that I’d wait until my turn on the assembly roster came around, and so here we are. That boy’s comment made me feel a little better about talking today, because I know that at least one person is interested in hearing what I have to say. I share this short interaction with you because it was a small act of kindness that helped me address something that I was finding quite challenging.

What do you say, in your first opportunity to address an amazing school like Jeppe High School for Boys? It is an incredible privilege to be able to share ideas with and hopefully influence a little, the young men that are going to be shifting our country forward in the next 30 years. It’s also an incredible responsibility because I don’t want to give anyone here any bad ideas!

Some of you may know that my history with Jeppe spans 28 years, more than half my life. I was a schoolboy here from 1995 to 1999, a student coach from 2002 to 2004, a teacher from 2013 to 2016, and a frequent visitor in all the times in between. I think that this experience makes me uniquely placed to tell you about what has changed, what hasn’t changed, and perhaps about what needs to change in the future at Jeppe.

So first,  let me tell you about some things that have changed.

In 1995, the grounds and buildings were a little different from what they look like now. There was no astroturf, and the first hockey team used to play their matches on the top fields. In 1995 this very hall burnt down and it took 4 years to fix. We had assembly on the bottom fields for most of my school career! 

There were some fairly significant social changes too. The school landscape in South Africa changed significantly in the early 90’s for two reasons.

1. Prior to South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994 the laws enforcing racial segregation in schools changed, and for the first time in South African history children of all races were allowed to attend school together. 
2. At a similar time, corporal punishment in schools was also banned. For those of you who haven’t heard that term before corporal punishment is the use of physical pain to discipline children, and it used to happen all the time. Not only the headmaster, but teachers and even prefects used to hand out hidings to keep the school in line.

As you can imagine, two big changes like that led to a lot of confusion and conflict as Jeppe and South Africa as a whole got used to new ways of doing things. Standing here today, I am so pleased that this school managed to weather those storms and is now a place where all boys feel welcome, and where all boys can feel safe. Also, I can tell you that the boarding house food has improved a great deal since my school days.

So with all the change that has happened, what can I tell you has stayed the same at Jeppe High School for Boys. To a large extent the attitude and ethos of Jeppe has remained constant. Jeppe is an aspirational place where the students, staff and community strive for continual improvement. The school’s motto; “Nothing is too difficult for the brave” encapsulates this and is a call to continually take on even greater challenges. Jeppe is a place where boys are valued for what they do, not who their parents are or where they come from. I like to believe that when you put on your black and white blazer and walk through those gates, you are judged only on your effort and how you conduct yourself. 

Thank you for giving me the chance to reminisce about the past of this school, I hope that you enjoyed at least some parts of the history lesson, but now for my message about what needs to change at Jeppe in the coming years.

Jeppe is a tough, demanding environment. There is pressure everywhere - pressure to perform in the classroom, pressure to perform on the sports field and in the cultural arena and pressure to cope with life in the 21st century - a time which is objectively the most stressful time to live in human history. We are living through a mental health pandemic, with anxiety and depression being reported at the highest rates ever in human history. 

I have been present on the school campus for exactly eight school days, today is my ninth, and I am already troubled by the way that I have heard some of the people in this community speak to each other. In many of the conversations that I have overheard, there is a complete lack of care for the other person in the conversation. I have noticed people saying things that range from being thoughtless and insensitive to deliberately hurtful. 

I’ll give you an example of what I mean - 

In one case I overheard some boys “chirping” each other. It was fairly standard intellectual stuff along the lines of “Hey boet, you’ll never get a girlfriend, you’re funny looking and your eyes are too close together”. Friend responds with “Ja well, at least I’ll be able to get a job, you can’t even pass geography.” I know right, I’m sure that Chris Rock was hiding in the bushes taking notes off of these two comedic geniuses.

But let’s unpick this interaction a little bit. Why does the first boy start a conversation in such an unfriendly way? Could it be that he is in fact feeling anxious or insecure and doesn’t know how to manage these emotions. In order to make himself feel better, he choses something that is a little different about another learner and chooses to make fun of it. He tries to make someone else feel like a little less so that he can feel that he is a little more. Unfortunately, following the initial verbal assault, the second learner follows in kind and we are now involved in a race to the bottom to see who can inflict the most damage and come away with the most credibility from this interaction.

I am here today to tell you that the old saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is probably the greatest lie that was ever told to children. 

How we treat the people in our lives, and how we make them feel ABSOLUTELY matters!

Every single day, we see Jeppe Boys achieving impressive things, but my message to you today is that WHAT you achieve is much less important than HOW you achieve it. When you are successful are you successful because you lifted others up with you, or because you stood on others to get to the top? In life, you will be remembered for how you made people feel, not the things that you did.

I want to challenge everyone of you today to make an effort to treat those around you better. We often talk about Jeppe as being a brotherhood, but it’s time that we considered what kind of brothers we want to be. I’ve also seen examples of what we can be like. In the past two weeks I have seen numerous examples of matrics taking time to help our new Grade 8’s find their way and 1st team players assisting with the u14 practices. Let’s be the kind of brothers that lift others up rather than put others down to make ourselves look a little better. It costs us absolutely nothing to be kind, and yet the impact that it makes in the lives of those around us is remarkable!