Hard News: Undie Wankers
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really most of them are first time offenders and they ought to be treated as other first time offenders - no special perks either way ....
The problem isn't "they never learn" ... because they're probably bright smart people, when they sober up .... it's that they don;t teach the next generation (in this case a generation is a year or two) what not to do ....
A lot of life's lessons are learned by screwing up and suffering the consequences ... especially as a teenager - they have to make mistakes and bang up against the world a bit to figure out where the rough bits are - the trick is to let them do this without getting arrested (or shot, or pregnant or with a habit, ....)
As a parent of teenagers I know it's hard - they wont listen to you (they actually mostly do, it just takes a shock or two sometimes for that message to stick).
We moved back to NZ (Dunedin even) because we felt it IS a safer place to be a teenager and screw up a little - no one's going to shoot you in a street brawl, you can run away etc etc. We wanted somewhere we could feel comfortable giving them more independence - and mostly we're very happy we did.
Probably the one thing we didn't count on was the lower drinking age (my son has been legal most of his 7th form year) and I think it does factor into this a lot - the only let kids under 20 buy booze to consume in pubs idea would go a long way to quell this sort of issue and give the kids a set of 'training wheels' to get them started - it would also make alcohol a lot less available thigh school kids
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As I understand it those first two fines were for people who weren't actually at Castle St - they'd just breached the liquor ban ..... they probably pleaded out to get the whole thing out of the way - kids who want to get diversion etc are going to take a different tack, hire lawyers etc etc which will take months and months
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__but referring to these students as white, rich and privileged__
Er, because that's what a large majority of them are ?
[and]
I went back to university a few years ago and the harsh reality is that most are from good, solid, middle-class backgrounds and either went to private schools or upper-decile state schools.
Unless something's changed in the last seven years, it's still generally true that access to university is strongly correlated to socioeconomic status/background. Lower socioeconomic status individuals, particularly kids, don't go on to university since they don't complete school. When they do engage in post-compulsory education and training, they generally enrol at a polytechnic (doing sub-degree qualifications) or in industry training. This is true in Australia and most OECD countries also.
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Your data might be a bit selective, st ephen. The third person mentioned in the odt article is a 19 year old female student who apparently went to Wellington Girls College, which is a decile 10 school.
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Oh sure, I agree with that. I came late to this topic and after reading through 100-odd post in one sitting I was amazed at the assumptions made about these students. Possibly our host set the tone by referring to "daddy's membership at the Northern Club".
I was intentionally being provocative. But I have met people like that and they annoy me. A lot.
Unlike a few of us here, I'm not desperate to see these idiots strung up, and I think they should catch the breaks before the court as any other young person. It was just the "on noes! our careers will be harmed!" from some of them that made think: perhaps you should have thought of that first, you jerks.
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The idiot who jumped in the fire was a student at Telford (a polytech for farm-hands).
"Damn...
(said through gritted teeth as clenched fist bangs the table)
Those poor white folks for having kids that can just blend in with those rich white folks kids, ruin their reputations and get off Scot-F'nFree"Sure, Mike Mechanic may not lose his job for drunken charge of a riot, but Andrew Accountant with a view to parnership with Taylor McLachlan probably will
tee hee
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Our neighbour's son (18 year old Maori, who lives with him mum not his Dad, our neighbour) recently spent 6 months in jail on a drugs charge (possession) which was dropped. You can bet if his daddy was a rich white man he wouldn't have waited a trial date, and eventual dropping of all charges, in prison. So what are the chances of the boy becoming a mongrel mob member now, do you think.
And yet I really don't think the problem is with how the privileged white kids are being treated. Equality doesn't require injustice for all.
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On a tangent. Our neighbour's son (18 year old Maori, who lives with him mum not his Dad, our neighbour) recently spent 6 months in jail on a drugs charge (possession) which was dropped. You can bet if his daddy was a rich white man he wouldn't have waited a trial date, and eventual dropping of all charges, in prison. So what are the chances of the boy becoming a mongrel mob member now, do you think.
Six months on remand on a simple possession charge that was later dropped? That's so utterly appalling as to be newsworthy. And you're right, it wouldn't have happened to a kid whose parents had resources. Or a student who threw a brick at the cops.
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The idiot who jumped in the fire was a student at Telford (a polytech for farm-hands).
I should point out that it doesn't just teach people to be farm hands. I'm sure there's a fair few rich white farmer's children going to Telford, but the ones with serious farm running aspirations are probably at Lincoln.
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I'm with Kyle. For starters, I just don't think there are enough rich privileged families in NZ. I wager the majority of otago students come from middle class families where the parents are topping up their kids' expenses because it has to be done. That's what my parents did for me. Granted, it didn't occur to me at the time that an education was something I was lucky to afford, but I also wasn't hooning around with my parents' credit card, or flipping the bird or the bottle at authority figures.
The generalisations over who's able to afford a tertiary qualification hold, but just because a bunch of students caused a riot, it doesn't automatically follow that they did it because they're rich snotty brats with a chip on their shoulder. Probably they're snotty brats. Possibly they're rich. Speaking from a little experience, likely it's the newly-left-home teen dream to be involved in something of a subversive event - especially one that's been hyped up by the police and the media - without any forethought of how ugly it may very well get. Absolutely the instigators should be punished according to their crimes. But wow... the judgement in this thread is weirdly equal & opposite to the us&them mentality in the herald your views column - a sort of liberal self-loathing, or survivors' guilt or something. Although perhaps it's a sweeping generalisation to presume that the kind of liberal intellectuals that make up PA's membership are more likely to be financially secure graduates...
& regarding all the talk about how they *must* be well-off because of the cost of tertiary study: in an economic climate where a tertiary qualification is pretty much mandatory for any decent-paying career outside the trades, that situation makes me kind of stabby.
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But I have met people like that and they annoy me. A lot.
Oh for sure. I went to university with a mixed crowd and we certainly had our share of students with an exaggerated sense of entitlement. Annoying indeed.
I just didn't see what these particular gits had said or done to be put into that category.
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NBH,
Well if anybody's interested in the actual data, here's an MoE analysis from 2007 of the transition to different forms of tertiary education:
http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/tertiary_education/15997
Discussion of ethnicity is on pp13-15 of the full report, and discussion of school decile is on pp18-20 (though note that this is all focused on transition directly from school). -
Well if anybody's interested in the actual data, here's an MoE analysis from 2007 of the transition to different forms of tertiary education:
Thanks! Interesting.
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NBH,
No problem - the Ministry actually has a really good portal for data, information, and research on all aspects of the education sector called Education Counts: http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/
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Sorry for the diversion - it all reminds me of this (culled from an old paper hiding on my USB drive). Only slight relevance but a nice touch of grisliness...
[Through the 13th century in Europe] such independence was reinforced by the immunity that many university students and masters had from both secular and religious authorities. The mobility of universities also allowed them to pressure local authorities through the tactic of cessatio or strikes; thousands of students and staff would simply cease teaching and move to another town.
The University of Paris is perhaps the best example of this extraordinary power and the ways in which it could be brought to bear. University students at Paris were protected both from secular punishment by their clerical status and from local ecclesiastical punishment by a special order of the papacy. After students clashed with the Provost of Paris in 1229, the university declared a six-year ban on teaching and studies in the city, and several thousand students and masters left Paris. The cessatio was lifted two years later after the Pope interceded with the King of France on the university's behalf and the masters’ demands were met.
On another occasion, the Provost hanged two students in 1304, only to be forced by a cessatio to take the decaying corpses down two months later, "kiss them fairly on the mouth, and bury them with his own hands in hallowed ground."
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Nice Sam, expel them? hell no hang 'em.
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Yes and just imagine the cries of agony if Otago's students and lecturers packed up and moved elsewhere ....
Dunedin does well by it's University (and vice versa) - in many cases it's a matter of "you don't know how lucky you are mate ...."
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@andin
tee hee
Please tell me your name is Andrew and that you're an Acountant, drunk in parnership with Taylor McLachlan. :-D
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Almost three-quarters of students who left decile 9 and 10 secondary schools in 2004 transitioned into tertiary education, compared with 52 percent of school leavers who left decile 1 and 2 secondary schools.
Yup, still a strong socioeconomic effect.
B'sides, isn't everyone who goes to Otago a JAFA? And isn't everyone who goes to Canterbury from the first four fleets?
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which first four fleets?
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which first four fleets?
All Cantabrians bear the convict stain. It's knowledge, Bro.
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Courageous kids
I wonder if that news will appear in the Marsden old girls' newsletter?
Now, now, Hilary. No need to defame my alma mater. :)
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Of those fleets .... you know there are some Tangata Whenua who did the whole fleet thing too .... way earlier .... and without the convict stain
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My money (50 cents down) says we'll have the same conversations in 10 or 20 years time. Maybe they'll even reprint "ritual song of defiance" so people can get some perspective?
I'll see your 50 and raise you 50, on the guess that it's only going to get worse. NZ is a dull place for kids, and Dunedin is especially dull. It's also cold which seems to make sinking piss and fighting feel like a good idea. Particularly when there's nothing worth fighting for, because several generations of parents had all the fun sorting out the actually worthy causes.
Sure, not everyone can afford a university education, but referring to these students as white, rich and privileged only seems to vent anger against a strawman stereotype.
I've been thinking exactly that through most of this thread. Glad to see a wave of OTOH on the 4th page. A predominance of that stereotype doesn't make anything that happened better or worse.
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I wasnt going to bite, Paul Campbell, but the last fleet to actually *leave *the (Banks) Peninsula (almost certainly from Koukourarata in the 14th century) were the people who settled on Rekohu and are now known as Moriori....
(3 vessels = a fleet for me...)
And the only convicts to actually be shipped here from Australia were those under 'sentence of death to be eaten by the cannibals of New Zealand." Not many, by tribal accounts...
Actually, the whole "First Four Ships" is old-boy propaganda, based on the Wakefield settlement: there were many other Brit imports around
long before they arrived.
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