EXTRACT
In ‘We Want Learn Good’, the book’s chapter on education, I try to raise awareness about a serious public health crisis facing a small section of Australia’s youth that we simply do not talk about enough.
PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING!!!
Tragically, Australia’s educational apartheid is the leading cause of a debilitating condition known as Private School Brain. (This is distinct from – but often a precursor to – Landlord Brain.) PSB is caused when children experience prolonged exposure to sandstone and boater hats, and it can turn even the sweetest little angel into the biggest of pricks.
The sickness hit the headlines in dramatic fashion in September 2020, when The Sydney Morning Herald published a leaked document detailing a series of muck-up day challenges that had been concocted by some Year 12 lads at Sydney’s Shore School – an all-boys Anglican boarding school on Sydney Harbour that’s been educating the children of the elite since the late 1880s. (Total fees for Years 7 through 12 = around $200k.) The challenges made up a scavenger hunt called the ‘Triwizard SHOREnament’, which required participants to scull 30 beers in 15 minutes, before setting out to earn points by completing tasks such as ‘rip a cone on the Harbour Bridge’, ‘scull 6 Cruisers in 6 minutes’ and ‘shit on a train’ (Ha! Imagine being on a train!!!). Other challenges ranged from the relatively harmless (‘steal a street sign’, ‘get a mullet haircut’) to the downright disturbing (‘smoke your mate’s pubes’, ‘catch a pigeon and proceed to rip it’s [sic] head off’, ‘spit on homeless man’).
One of the tasks was simply ‘get a gay man’s number’.
(‘Haha, gay people are WEIRD!’ laughed the 18-year-old private school boy, as he wore a
(‘Haha, gay people are WEIRD!’ laughed the 18-year-old private school boy, as he wore a
boater and continued to smoke his friend’s pubic hair.)
Exclusive, high-falutin’ Shore purports to be an institution which offers a ‘world-class education’, fosters an understanding of Christian values, and educates its boys to be ‘ethical, responsible and caring young people by modelling and teaching good character’. Yet, despite all its resources, the school was somehow unable to protect its students from the devastating effects of PSB, which prevented these future CEOs and Liberal Party presidents from getting their heads around the rather basic idea that poor people are human beings, and you probably shouldn’t celebrate your graduation by ‘[shoving] an egg up ur arse then shit[ting] it out while making chicken noises’.
Don’t risk your child catching PSB. Talk to your GP about sending them to a state school today.