Trinity spat such a private school problem

THE Trinity Grammar furore over the sacking of their vice-principal has been big news in the private school world, but completely baffling to public school kids, writes Katie Bice.

THE Trinity Grammar furore over the sacking of their vice-principal has given all of us who went to public school a fascinating insight into the private system.

It has been impossible to miss the high emotion as students chanted in support of their teacher, fighting to have him reinstated. There was a strike and senior students wore casual clothes to school in protest.

About 1500 parents packed a hall, expressing their lack of confidence in the school council and threatening legal action.

It all seems a distraction from the job of educating these young men.

And rules so strict that it required a teacher to cut a student’s hair is baffling to a public school graduate.

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While the uniform policy in the public system does require you to look the part, it doesn’t involve blazers, ties or straw hats.

And when it comes to hair — from what I can recall — as long as we didn’t have a mohawk, wild colours or swear words shaved into the side, you were fine.

Students called for the Deputy to be reinstated. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

While the intentions might be admirable, such a rebellion by Trinity students could only have occurred in the private system.

The sense of entitlement that paying $30,000 a year for an education seems to give parents and their children is bewildering to most of us.

Certainly the parents are the ones forking out — so their desire to have an input into the goings on at the school is probably understandable. But it’s hard to imagine a public school encountering the kind of passionate uproar the Trinity students have caused — unless maybe the year 10 formal or muck-up day was cancelled.

Watching the Trinity teens jumping on each others’ backs and chanting was like seeing a dog which had been chained up all its life set free for the first time.

Yet despite public school kids’ undoubted ability to rebel, loudly and obnoxiously, in class, you can’t help but feel that, on some level, they know their place. And that it’s not to get involved in the administration of the school.

Maybe its because they’ve got bigger problems or don’t care as much. Or maybe they haven’t been told again and again how much their opinion counts or that they are destined for greatness.

I hope Brownie gets his job back; he seems well-loved and his departure appears to have been on tenuous grounds. But if not I’m sure there’s a public school which would eagerly accept him, scissors and all.

Katie Bice is the Sunday Herald Sun deputy editor

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