Mediation a better way to sort out school discipline

Deborah Hart.
Deborah Hart.
The St Bede's College airport incident could have been handled very differently, writes Deborah Hart.

The news the High Court last week allowed a bit of breathing space for the parties involved in a messy educational dispute to sort out their differences could be the only hopeful sign in a highly publicised case that has caught the attention of professional mediators along with everybody else.

The brief time-out is the latest turn in the saga that has dogged St Bede's College after it tried to bar two teenagers from a national sporting tournament.

They don't call it rowing for nothing.

As we know, Jordan Kennedy (17) and Jack Bell (16) were reinstated into the school's Maadi Cup rowing team after their principal axed them from the regatta after they succumbed to teenage temptation and took a joyride on the conveyor belt - through the flaps and all - at Auckland Airport.

The rector said his pupils broke the rules after they were given formal warnings by police and the Aviation Security Service.

The boys' fathers disagreed, and their view has found muscular support: Shane Kennedy and Antony Bell won a High Court interim injunction earlier this week allowing their sons to compete in the regatta.

Irrespective of how that decision ultimately plays out, it ought to give serious pause to educators as they weigh up the fiasco this has become against the reality of conflict resolution as it is usually taught and promoted in our schools.

Yes, the boys may have ridden the ride, but St Bede's really hasn't walked the walk.

If the respected Christchurch school expects, as it and other similar institutions increasingly do, for pupils to work out issues together through peer mediation schemes and the like - and if they say that schools, parents and children form the real triangle for attending to these matters, then this was surely a case where it would pay to lead by example.

And the need to set such an example has been plain for schools at least since late last year when, in another highly publicised case, a Feilding mother had had to fight to keep her son from being stood down over his fashionable new haircut - only months after the High Court found a similar move by a Hastings college unlawful.

In the current case, the school set the time frame as urgent.

But was it really?

What other options did they have?

We don't really know, but we do know that, like any school, St Bede's has power at its disposal.

But it doesn't enjoy unfettered discretion to do as it pleases.

That is what the courts have said - and recent history tells us that there was always a better path to go down.

Here's how it is supposed to work: when issues arise, the process is not for one party, the school, to drop in from above and issue a punishment instantly.

It is for the schools, parents and children to come together and work out the way forward, with a neutral third party (mediator), if necessary.

Sure, it sounds cumbersome.

But mediation works.

What's more, like disputes arising over property and marital separations, it has so many proven bonuses, including buy-in from all those affected, less cost, less adverse publicity for schools, families and, especially, the children.

Let's remember the boys affected are barely out of childhood.

Teachers must know how hard it would be for them to be thrust into the headlines.

Schools would also be showing the right path for the students to follow when differences arise.

There still need to be codes of conduct and schools will sometimes as a last resort have to issue punishments.

But doing that as a first step might not be the best, not for anyone at any school, and certainly not for a school named after a man who made his ancient reputation by taking time out to think before reaching important conclusions.

St Bede the Venerable was by historical accounts a considered man who listened to all points of view, including those of pagans, before putting forward his scholarly ideas and solutions, back in the ninth century.

His namesake school in Christchurch could take a leaf from the scholar's meditative book.

• Deborah Hart is the executive director of the Arbitrators' and Mediators' Institute of New Zealand.

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