THE PRINCIPAL OF Hamilton’s Fraser High School, Virginia Crawford, has been roundly criticised for warning her students about the strong correlation between truancy and failure in the world beyond high school. The push-back against Crawford’s address culminated in a walkout by around 100 of Fraser’s senior students on Monday 24 September 2018. But, what if she was telling the truth?
Very few people have been willing to test Crawford’s claims empirically. To ascertain whether the behaviours she warned her students against: truancy, substance abuse, petty crime; are, indeed, common factors in the much more serious social indices of functional illiteracy, long-term unemployment, prolonged periods on social welfare, repeated incarceration, mental health problems, sexual assault, domestic violence and, most disturbingly in relation to young New Zealanders – suicide.
This is strange, since a great deal of work has already been undertaken in this area by those convinced of the efficacy of the National Party’s “social investment” initiative. The whole point of the social investment project was to identify the “warning signs” of individual and/or family dysfunction so that the authorities could intervene and, hopefully, forestall, that individual’s and/or family’s decline into irremediable social pathologies. Those warning signs were precisely the behaviours alluded to in Crawford’s address.
“Every student who walks out of the gate to truant is already a statistic of the worst kind, highly likely to go to prison, highly likely to commit domestic violence or be a victim of domestic violence, be illiterate, be a rape victim, be a suicide victim, be unemployed for the majority of their life, have a major health problem or problems, die at an early age, have an addiction – drugs, gambling, alcohol or smoking.
“The more you truant, the more likely you are to end up as one or most of those statistics. I don’t want you to be one of those statistics. Economic research confirms everything I am telling you. It’s been proven. Some young people at Fraser today are still proving that message to be true.”
One of the Principal’s sternest critics is Herald columnist, Deborah Hill Cone, whose argument is best summed-up in the old aphorism: ‘Give a dog a bad name and hang him.’ “Being told by an authority figure you are certain to become a grim statistic is more of a danger to young people than skipping class”, Hill Cone warned Crawford. “In some very pervasive, unconscious and dogged ways we become what we are expected to be.”
There is something quite touching about Hill Cone’s faith in the individual’s ability to rise above the awful impetus of social causation and statistical correlation. “And try to remember this,” she advises the students of Fraser High in her Monday column, “your principal, Virginia Crawford, has absolutely no idea what your life is going to be like. None of us do. And she has no right to tell your story.”
Many would argue, however, that Crawford not only has the right, she has the duty, to speak plainly and forthrightly about the awful statistics to which so many of the students attending Fraser High School are likely to contribute in the months and years ahead of them. Telling them, as Hill Cone would have her do, that: “It’s your soul, and your story to construct” is all very bracing and Kiplingesque, but it is highly debateable as to whether it will do as much good as telling them that buckling down and working hard at school is just about the only way out of the dead-end working-class suburbs which for so many of them constitute the boundaries of the known world.
A number of the parents of Fraser High School students have taken offence at Crawford’s comments and are threatening to withdraw their offspring from the school until such time as its errant principal is replaced. Like so many of us, they do not like to think too much about the uncanny ability of insurance underwriters to correlate specific behaviours with specific outcomes in the setting of their clients’ premiums. Rather than condemn Crawford for her predictions, might it not be more helpful for their children’s futures to ask themselves whether the behaviour they have been modelling in their own lives bears out or refutes the Principal’s fears?
Nothing did more to shatter the rigid boundaries separating New Zealand’s social classes than the First Labour Government’s ringing affirmation that every New Zealander “whatever his [or her] level of academic ability, whether he [or she] be rich or poor, whether he [or she] live in town or country, has a right, as a citizen, to a free education of the kind for which he [or she] is best fitted, and to the fullest extent of his [or her] powers.”
It is impossible to listen to Crawford’s speech without hearing in every word and phrase her passionate understanding of just how important education is to freeing people from the social conditions – and expectations – that imprison them. She knows that there is a vast, beautiful, exciting and intensely rewarding world beyond the borders of “Nawton or Dinsdale or Western Heights” – just as she knows that the students of Fraser High School who play truant on a regular and prolonged basis are, statistically-speaking, the ones most unlikely to ever get to see it.
Well said Chris.
Glad someone had the guts to write that on the Daily Blog.
Truth hurts, and all that.
Occasional wagging school is no big deal , everyone is entitled to a bit of timeout.
The serial wagger is a big problem and leads to all sorts of bad outcomes.
The teacher is saying out loud what every other school teacher knows , thats the easy part.
The part this school and every other school needs to address is the really hard part the why…? and an answer to that why.
But i suggest they know the why and have NO real answer to the problem.
The Teacher and Mr Trotter become like every one else who shoutout Blared Blared Blar Blar platitudes.
Ineffective.
I’ve never been motivated by a negative rant … don’t know many teens that are either. I wonder if there are some more sophisticated and effective motivational tools that Ms Crawford needs to model and develop e.g respect, empathy, listening? Educators need to rise above low-level yelling at kids, negative tirades that express their frustrations. I believe (based on research and implementation of established interventions e.g. Dr Ross Greene’s CPS model) that educators and school leaders need to develop some real skill in empathy, understanding of development, motivation. Of course we want to yell in frustration however that pushes students, teens away from us when it is trusting relationships that we know make the difference and brings teens towards us and our positive influence.
Interesting, what exactly makes you feel that Crawford’s speech was a ‘negative rant’? Because she told kids something they might not like to hear? I resented some of the people who did that at the time, but went on to value what they told me once it sank in with experience. Pointing out that there are often negative consequences for short-term not automatically negative, and conveying that information is not automatically a rant.
She spoke about a correlation between truancy and failure in later life. I instantly thought, ‘sounds well meaning and motivational’; you thought, ‘negative rant’. I’m interested in why our reactions differed so much. Do you think that kids shouldn’t be given challenging perspectives in order to make an informed decision? Surely if you intend to be a positive influence on youth, engaging with the interplay of decision and consequence is vital in creating powerful individuals who will grow up to be in control of their own lives?
Firstly, I classified Crawford’s speech as a rant because I listened to the audio and I felt the tone, emotive language and the personalising of the problem made it come across as a rant.
I’m not afraid of having hard conversations with teens and I have very high standards for youth I work with. High expectations are important – but how we deliver and support these are more important.
Educational outcomes are complex. There are so many issues beyond the control of a student’s influence that impact both achievement and attendance that need to be addressed – community and family influences, executive functioning skills of students, school assessment (NCEA), teacher workload, lack of time for professional development – the list goes on. My concern about Crawford’s speech was the use of such negative statements with students when many factors may not be in their control. A student’s individual lagging skills and unsolved problems are best dealt with “one at a time” (not clustered), in an appropriate environment and with a collaborative mindset.
I agree it is ideal to retain students in positive learning environments as long as we can. “Lashlie (2005) found that one of the factors important for successful school leaving for boys was merely staying at school until the end of the Year 13. This is because it takes boys longer to achieve a high level of maturity and self-management than girls, and that boys’ schools in particular can “hold boys steady while the chaos of adolescence sorts itself”. Simply keeping boys at school (by making school relevant) until they have decided what they want their next step in life to be can reduce the chances of a boy “arriving at a prison gate”.” (Source: https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/indicators/main/student-engagement-participation/1955)
My key point was that “emotional engagement” is an important factor in retaining students at school. School Leaders need to put emphasis on not only developing trusting relationships between teachers and students to support emotional engagement but also on developing an engaging, relevant, student-centred curriculum that draws students in to have success.
Yes, I want our young people to stay at school and have success and I encourage schools to coach students to make great long-term decisions. I believe to have success our secondary schools need to change fast to be emotionally and educationally engaging and relevant – it is complex.
BTW, best wagging memories #1 taught to drive Mini by boyfriend (now husband of 20+ years) #2 afternoon at the beach – still remember those days.
Firstly, I classified Crawford’s speech as a rant because I listened to the audio and I felt the tone, emotive language and the personalising of the problem made it come across as a rant.
I’m not afraid of having hard conversations with teens and I have very high standards for youth I work with. High expectations are important – but how we deliver and support these are more important.
Educational outcomes are complex. There are so many issues beyond the control of a student’s influence that impact both achievement and attendance that need to be addressed – community and family influences, executive functioning skills of students, school assessment (NCEA), teacher workload, lack of time for professional development – the list goes on. My concern about Crawford’s speech was the use of such negative statements with students when many factors may not be in their control. A student’s individual lagging skills and unsolved problems are best dealt with “one at a time” (not clustered), in an appropriate environment and with a collaborative mindset.
I agree it is ideal to retain students in positive learning environments as long as we can. “Lashlie (2005) found that one of the factors important for successful school leaving for boys was merely staying at school until the end of the Year 13. This is because it takes boys longer to achieve a high level of maturity and self-management than girls, and that boys’ schools in particular can “hold boys steady while the chaos of adolescence sorts itself”. Simply keeping boys at school (by making school relevant) until they have decided what they want their next step in life to be can reduce the chances of a boy “arriving at a prison gate”.” (Source: https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/indicators/main/student-engagement-participation/1955)
My key point was that “emotional engagement” is an important factor in retaining students at school. School Leaders need to put emphasis on not only developing trusting relationships between teachers and students to support emotional engagement but also on developing an engaging, relevant, student-centered curriculum that draws students in to have success.
Yes, I want our young people to stay at school and have success and I encourage schools to coach students to make great long-term decisions. I believe to have success our secondary schools need to change fast to be emotionally and educationally engaging and relevant – it is complex.
Ahumaria
I haven’t listened to the speech , but I strongly suspect that Ms Crawford would endorse wholeheartedly all of these additional issues that you speak of in regard to a teenager’s development and prospects. None of them seem to me to contradict her point that a basic education is fundamental to a successful happy life in our society, and if kids aren’t going to school they aren’t likely to be getting one.
I’m sure she doesn’t think truancy is the only issue to be addressed with the education system. What about you call her and have a discussion over a cup of tea. I bet you would find you were actually on the same wavelength .
D J S
I left school at 15 but mentaly I had left school at 13. The stuff that I really need to know like how to keep a girl friend, how to open a bank account, what’s superannuation, is Santa a Coca Cola conspiracy, yknow the things kids really need to know they don’t teach that stuff in schools. There’s this huge gap in a person education that the system can’t fill because they’re still working on Victorian era religious discipline. But the point is talk is cheap.
So basically, Ahumaria, you have retracted your position, moderated your language and agree essentially with Ms Crawford’s (“rant” has become “speech” etc.)
The bigger issue is the massive overreaction of parents and students to a well-presented opinion. What the parents have done is undermine the authority of the Principal. What good will that do?
I’m not concerned about establishing a position – basically I don’t agree with Crawford’s deficit model. My main focus is to support young people who deserve the best pastoral care, whanaungatanga and understanding that the current research allows us. If I were Crawford I would apologise (a great opportunity for her to model that when we over-react we should restore). Crawford is an adult and a professional and although she may be overwhelmed and frustrated she should “be the adult”. All school leaders need to deeply understand how they impact student motivation and belonging through their powerful words and actions. If you would like excellent examples of educational leaders who can lift and inspire others through their words try listening to Welby Ings or Barbara Cavanagh and the students always she invites to speak.
I think young adults should stay at school (or in formal education) as long as they can. Recent research into brain development has improved our understandings of just how long the brain takes to mature – late 20’s. Staying at school needs to be an experience that grows great people. But should they stay at any cost? Sadly, there is a huge variation in offerings at secondary schools throughout NZ. Some are still stuck offering the curriculum of last century with behaviour management policies to accompany them (detentions etc.) Some students don’t want to be there, don’t feel they belong. Other schools have innovated and reflected upon the needs of students, have informed themselves on the complex and sometimes counter-intuitive nature of motivation, rewards and punishments (read Alfie Kohn for starters). These schools are developing students through a range of improvements that engage students culturally, academically and through truely respectful interactions with young people.
Crawford has not had her leadership undermined. The parents, commenters and students are right to be concerned about the way she spoke. It seems to me she showed a lack of understanding of the reasons students misbehave (https://www.acesconnection.com/blog/dr-ross-greene-educated-and-kids-who-have-been-traumatized) it showed a lack of self-control, it showed a lack of compassion. Perhaps it showed she has a lack of support and resources to do the complex and tough job she has of leading a school in rapidly changing times in a community that needs more social support.
Truancy highlights an individual student’s unsolved problems and lagging skills – these problems will not be solved by hearing another negative rant that makes them feel their failure is a personal fault. Truancy needs to be addressed by systematic understanding of the individual’s unsolved problems and lagging skills and Dr Ross Greene’s model has been proven to be effective and would be a good starting place for Crawford to change her lens on the the reasons students misbehave and wag school.
She seems like the head keeper in Trumps petting zoo.
The upbringing of a child will determine how they will react/act to things. A parent is responsible for their own children.
A child is often, almost always incapable of making informed judgements that will determine their future. They simple do not have the experience (normally) to make sound long term planning. Hell, a large % of adults don’t show much in the way of long term planning.
Any sane person would differ from Trumps petting zoo – if the kids don’t want to go to school at all, then being in school probably won’t be doing them much good anyway. From an early age, their path paths where chosen – they will join the ranks of the working class in factories and manual jobs. So be it.
The current problem is due to the increasing attitudes of denying responsibility.
Absolute rubbish, Trotter; it’s all about CLASS; propertied class versus the underclass. You’re either in one or the other. Education is nothing more than a holding pen and/or a business in this day and age. If you aren’t on the property ladder, all the education in the world means jack shit. An educated underclass, however, will hasten the advent of “our” second civil war 😉
Great article Chris! Thanks.
As the son of a single mother living on a benefit, I got up every morning, polished my shoes, made my own breakfast and went to school to learn.
Not because of any particular virtue on my part but because I was terrified of what I would become if I didn’t.
These kids need the same motivator I had: Fear. Because it works!
So you had a mother who was determined that you would get what you needed as a child and the wherewithal to make it happen. You had a mother who never gave up on you.
Sounds like she was tough but it also sounds she like she was a role model for hard work and determination. Not every kid gets that.
You’re correct Aaron
She may have been an invalid and had mental issues but she had high standards.
Isn’t this a cause vs correlation issue. I would have thought truancy was just one more symptom of societal problems that some children are afflicted by.
Isn’t also a case of the Principal blaming the kids for her failure – or more accurately the system’s failure.
The kids who truant already feel hopeless so loading that speech on to them is guaranteed to send their motivation to subterranean levels
It’s well proven that the home environment is a huge factor in the success of a child’s education – simply making them stay in school won’t change the fact that they get no encouragement at home, or help with school work, or maybe even a kind word. Nor will it change the fact that every test and exam result they get tells them over and over again they are a failure.
Even if she was 100% right it shows remarkably poor judgement to make a speech like that. The fact that she is confusing correlation with causation makes it worse. The fact that the school system bears significant responsibility for consigning these kids to the scrap heap is so far beyond her horizon there is almost no point bringing it up.
Given the size of Fraser High School I imagine there are many teenagers there who are dealing with suicidal thoughts, I can only hope that none of them are tipped over the edge by this additional blow to their sense of hope – and good on the kids who protested, there are real leaders in there and hopefully their actions have bought any potential suicides back from the brink.
AARON
This is a well researched area both here and overseas. You’re absolutely right in that she attempting to address a symptom rather than a cause. The symptom being wagging and the cause being piss-poor parenting.
The fact that some parents have protested over her speech tells us a lot about their parenting skills. They need to take a hard look at themselves rather than attack the messenger.
Having listened to her speech (recorded on a Fraser student’s cellphone) I would refute the suggestion that Crawford confused correlation with causation.
She was at pains to point out that the statistics revealed a strong relationship (correlation) between truancy and other negative social indices. Her whole address was about evading those negative experiences by availing themselves of the educational opportunities on offer.
Blaming society, even blaming the students’ parents, won’t help the young people seated in Fraser High School’s assembly hall. In the short term, it is their own responses which count.
Interestingly, a surprising number of Fraser students interviewed by RNZ strongly endorsed their Principal’s remarks.
Idk. I believe teachers/principle need to set expectations with parents and adults at the start of the year. He or she needs to lay out what they want from the class, go over a few things and expectations around parent involvement and support and be aware of emotions. Emotion is the enemy when attempting to talk to teens. What they say and do is not necessarily a reflection on the school. You may not like the way teens behave or how they’re thinking – but keeping emotions out of it, even if their conduct impacts on you. Their behaviour and language is probably a result of another adult in their lives.
Appreciated, Chris. A sound, erudite analysis of an extremely worrying trend among the young.
“Trend” being the operative word.
Education; Indeed it once was a way out of the trap of poverty. In the days when Chris and I were young and it was free. Some were even paid a wage to learn.
Now it is the trap. Teacher, nurse, midwife for just three examples… low pay, impossible work demands and huge debt that financially cripples the recipients, for life in some cases.
Then all the courses that are advertised and encouraged by marketing directors in public institutions that appear to lead nowhere except into debt because there is no decent job at end of it all.
Maybe these students are onto something that society would rather pretend wasn’t happening. Maybe they think they’re being lied to.
‘Education … once was a way out of the trap of poverty … Now it is the trap’
Good point well made!
Good on Virginia Crawford for putting the student straight and telling them the truth.
The government should stick by her, what she said might be offensive to some but maybe her words were not just to the truant kids but to the parents of truant kids… do they want that life for their kids???
Once kids get turned off school, it is very difficult to get them back… speaking hard words while they are 13-17 might be better than them leaving school with no qualifications and all that lost potential..
also there needs to be ways to help the truant kids stop being truant… the hard part with actions to support kids not going off the rails, before the railway tracks disappear.
Indeed scary that a high school academic leader can’t understand the difference between correlation and causation, suggest she uses her next professional development to take Statistics 101 at any university. Its a bit like describing her as the Principle.
Norman Smith: “Indeed scary that a high school academic leader can’t understand the difference between correlation and causation….”
Did you listen to her speech? I did. Sounds to me as if she understands the difference perfectly well.
It’s a funny old thing… life.
Did John Wayne really say? ” Life is though. But it’s thougher if you’re stupid.”
Virginia Crawford’s dead right on all counts. And she should be awarded for not letting cowardice to get in the way of her forthright bravery. Unlike the weedy, gutless wonders whom we pay to represent us in our government.
Cautious, hanky wringing, light-steppers at best. Dodgy, deviant, traitors and Machiavellian confederates to their riche pals all gathered around the poverty stricken, single-parent, addict pole dancer of an evening.
And what a life, really, for kids dropping off the end of the education production line conveyor belt? At best, they’ll have huge student debts they’ll have to leave their home and hearth to pay off and during that time, they’ll build their own homes and hearths in foreign countries and we never see them or their hard won expertise again. Or they leave school early, entirely disillusioned with everything and fall away into oblivion, then the mad house, then the grave. Poor old Larry. Nick Cave. Dig ! https://youtu.be/PxWS1ufr5xI
The problem for Virginia Crawford is not herself at all, or her kids, but their idiot parents for allowing a now easily recognised problem to keep hiding under their beds. Where kids try to sleep while dreaming that some social media super star is within kissing range there are monsters lurking under that same virgin couch who will steal away with their lives.
The Banks.
They wait to consume Youth with all the zealousness of a Piranha on Meth. Kids come out of school already in bankster fangs and the bankster never lets go until death, the literal meaning of ‘mort-gage’. ‘A debt until death.’
Most kids should only be enthralled by getting an education but for the rest of ’em? Let life be a safe mystery where they can roam about doing the many things that the miscreant can do with their beautiful lives. And if it’s a creative experience? It’ll be a happy life for them and a safe life for us.
Sure, it is a though life right now but we can change that. Purge the banks out of NZ/AO and save our kids. And yourselves, of course.
Or not. Of course not. I’m not fucking stupid. Of course you won’t purge the bankster.
You’ll let your kids, not to mention your greater whanau and neighbours to be predated by the foreign banksters because you can’t see a way to protect you, your whanau and your kids from them. That’s one of the reasons scum rat fuck roger douglas and his mates sold off your stuff and things. No safety net left. You either swim or die . You either be a slave to the banksters or pull up a card board box beneath the anal probe that is the Auckland Casino.
You keep doing the same things while expecting different results. According to Einstein, that’s the definition of madness and the banks know that. They KNOW that, about you. You’re as predictable as sun rise.You keep doing the same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same-same.
As a fur lined antidote.
Fat Freddy’s Drop. Rain.
https://youtu.be/vx90hw-HHmg
Go you @ CT x
What many of the children I heard were complaining about was the implication that if you truant you are more likely to get raped. Yet again blaming the victim for “getting raped” as if it is a choice! It was a very bad path for her to go down and I am not surprised at the push back – how dare she!!!!
I suspect being POOR is the factor most likely to result in a person ending up going.. “to prison, highly likely to commit domestic violence or be a victim of domestic violence, be illiterate, be a rape victim, be a suicide victim, be unemployed for the majority of their life, have a major health problem or problems, die at an early age, have an addiction – drugs, gambling, alcohol or smoking.”..and to be a ‘wagger’.
ITS NOT WAGGING THAT LEADS TO THESE OUTCOMES.
Chronic repeat Wagging is just another symptom of a life spiraling out of control.
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