Other than firing up the Rolls-Royce forward of a cameo on grandparents’ day, most of them haven’t darkened a classroom door for the final half dozen a long time, however that hasn’t stopped them grabbing a (monogrammed) bullhorn and standing a publish.
It’s a curious headspace they now occupy, as they eager for the hallowed days of yesteryear, when, verily, I inform you, pubescent boys have been free to roam the sandstone surrounds, voices breaking with impunity, as they contemplated their nascent manhood with a way of monastic reverence.
This time of studious introspection has instilled in them a lifelong dedication to defending the sacred hallways of their beloved “New” with a zeal bordering on the spiritual. (It must be famous that, previous to launching a blood feud towards the proponents of the co-ed motion, fulfilling their official duties included rolling into reunions on occasion, boring their great-grandsons with tales of rugby exploits of yesteryear, and skimming copies of the varsity’s shiny annual in case they’d been name-checked.)
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Now they sit weeping, pinking shears on the prepared, as they forlornly instruct their authorized groups to make origami out of their Newington bequests. There’s a sure wealthy irony to all this carry-on: their myopic refusal to even entertain the prospect of a co-ed surroundings – or to contemplate the impact of their hysterics on the present scholar physique – would are likely to counsel a hard relationship between being schooled in a single-sex surroundings and a failure to correctly look at a distinct viewpoint.
It’s additionally drowning out the voices of these with precise pores and skin within the sport: the dad and mom who purchased the advertising schtick about Newington workers being specialists in educating boys, and on that foundation, signed on to 13 years of single-sex schooling when their youngsters have been in kindergarten in 2017.
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That cohort will obtain its first injection of feminine college students in 2028, when the identical boys, with completely no precedent for doing so, will share Yr 11 school rooms with teenage women. (Exterior, in the meantime, the jackhammers shall be pounding away as work to increase the services continues, creating suboptimal HSC research situations, however nonetheless harmonising properly with the planes flying overhead.)
The previous boys’ community will little doubt retort that their continued involvement within the wider Newington ecosystem lends a richness to the varsity’s tradition that solely time and expertise brings. And admittedly, I couldn’t agree extra. The Newington fundraising barbecue meets in Stanmore most Saturday mornings. Volunteers are all the time welcome. BYO again catalogue of rugby-related reminiscences, and be happy to inflate the rating line.
Michelle Cazzulino is a Sydney author and a present dad or mum at Newington School.