Remember the days of the old school yard?
We used to laugh a lot. Oh, don’t you
Remember the days of the old school yard?
Ah, it’s lovely to reminisce.
We had simplicity and warm toast for tea, to quote Cat Stevens.
Why, we’d play in the street until dark! Kids weren’t molly-coddled like they are these days! All of that rough-and-tumble was character building!
Girls were girls and boys were boys; mum ran the home while dad was at work.
Life was easier in those days, wasn’t it…?
Well, the answer is “no”.
This week, writing my memoir, I revisited the ghosts of schools past.
My senior years, at Frawley College on the outskirts of Brisbane, held a rosy hue: the passion of the teachers; the camaraderie of schoolmates; the myth of “the best time of our lives”.
Anything that didn’t fit the Disney version of events was obviously an aberration.
That sick feeling in the stomach when a gang of boys yelled, “Show us your tits!” was just “boys being boys”.
The shiver up the spine when one of the Brothers grabbed a student’s arse was clearly an over-reaction.
And girls being told to ignore maths because they’d find a nice man to look after them seemed a logical conclusion.
Looking back, it was clear: misogyny, child abuse and bullying were on the curriculum.
A fish rots from its head: the corruption went all the way to the top.
One of the founders – let’s call him Monsignor Frawley because, hey, that was his name – covered up systemic child sexual abuse.
As kids, we were ignorant. Sure, there were whispers in the corridor. But we didn’t really understand what was going on.
“Backs to the wall. Brother Ibar’s on the crawl!” the boys would shout.
Young, strong and good-looking, Frank Keating – who, believe it or not, later changed his name to Ibar – was a role model for the rugby boys.
He was later convicted of molesting dozens of boys, shoving his hands down their pants and fondling their genitals.
Another ‘man of God’, Brother Wilfred De Cruz, raped and mauled students in a shed near the duck pond.
The progeny of powerful families knew to stay away; the rest of us were too naïve, scared, or powerless to speak out.
Many of the victims self-medicated with drugs and alcohol: several later killed themselves.
In a way, it was a life lesson: Men hold all the power; institutional abuse crushes the vulnerable; and self-interest rules.
Not much has changed.
Sure, Cat Stevens is now Yusuf Islam.
The Royal Commission has exposed the sins of the Brothers.
And there are legal protections for children at school.
As a school friend wrote on facebook, “If anyone bullied my daughter like we were bullied at school, I would be off to a lawyer quick smart”.
Still, there are the naysayers who complain that kids have “too much power” and we should “bring back the strap” to stop this “culture of litigiousness”.
Whenever you hear someone saying such things, please remember this story.
For there was a time when children were beaten, raped, abused, belittled, degraded, and shamed every day at school.
This is NOT character building.
If I knew then what I know now, I’d tell those boys who yelled “slut” to f*ck off. Might even seek legal advice.
I’d ask my parents to call the police to investigate the paedophile priests.
And I’d tell that maths teacher two things: girls are as smart as boys, and a man is not a financial plan.
No, life wasn’t simpler back then. It was like The Hunger Games. Children were screwed by the system.
It’s time to take off the rose-coloured glasses.
Don’t you remember the days of the old schoolyard?
We used to cry a lot. Oh, don’t you
Remember the days of the old school yard?
If you are struggling with any of the topics raised in this post, please contact Lifeline, Beyond Blue or Bravehearts or phone 1800 RESPECT.
Top Comments
Hi I am 53 years old and went to St Bernadettes, Soubirus and Frawley College and had a very different experience to Tracey. I studied chem and maths b at Frawley and went on to get a Bachelor of Regional and Town Planning from UQ, a heavily male dominated field which my Geography teacher, Sr Maria Slocum, encouraged me to do. Many of my female friends and male friends from the Class of '79 went on to become physios, school principals, doctors, dentists, construction company owners etc. The wonderful old Br Leopold used to hold Friday night tutorials for Maths b and c students. I had a very bad stutter and was never teased at Frawley or made feel less of a person because of this impediment. There was only one experience of bullying (in Grade 3 from another girl). I loved my uncomplicated school days at Scarborough. I was not aware of any kids at school being sexually abused when I was at school. I am appalled at any member of a school who has inflicted such atrocities on children and I consider these people to be evil and need to stop being in denial and acknowledge the untold damage you have caused your victims throughout their lives.
Tracey, your article returns me to some dark memories of my youth. I attended St. Bernadettes until yr3 then De La Salle jnr and eventually Frawley. It's surreal to see the names of people and institutions that were part of my life in print by a well known journalist. What staggers me now is to reflect on how Brother Ibar's well known extra curricular activities were perceived as such a joke. I remember the backs to the wall chant and generally invoking Ibar as a kind of gollum in jest. Fortunately I left De La Salle junior before ever getting within reach of Brother Ibar however my cousins went through before me and Ibars legacy is still being played out in the life of my oldest cousin's friend who was molested by him repeatedly.
I still remember what I witnessed that has stayed with me, daily I saw casual violence in De La Salle junior perpetrated by the teachers, monotonous and callous application of the strap and other weapons, children picked up by the hair, hit on the buttocks with a cricket bat and a child flung by the head nearly went over the upstairs railing, just because he had a tendency to forget his glasses when changing classrooms between subjects. A particular teacher had a favourite phrase of 'you need a clip round the earhole' which came with the accompanying physical action. That teacher ruptured one of my year mate's eardrums in 1986. That teacher never met with any disciplinary action that I ever heard of. Another teacher backhanded a student in front of me so hard it spun the child around and nearly knocked him flat. What chilled me at the time was the reckless force involved and the practiced precision. Delivered with all the emotion of pouring milk into a teacup. All over a shirt that wasn't tucked in.
While I managed to avoid any sexual attention from the brothers or other staff, I was bullied incessantly almost for the entire 12 years of my school life. The brothers and some of the teachers even thought of me as something of a joke making off the cuff comments about my thin appearance and tendency toward sickliness. One shining star even thought it would be clever to rename me Luigi to
properly reflect his narrow minded perception of my ethnic origins. The
irony is that I already had a suitable wog moniker that was kindly
anglicised by the first nun I crossed paths with so he really didn't
need to go to the trouble. All of this did nothing to abate the attention of the students bullying me. The general response when my parents broached the subject with the principal is that boys will be boys and that they should feed me more so i could roll with the punches or some other stone age BS.
I attended other schools before returning to Frawley in 1991 so the violent discipline was gone thankfully. My fortunes however were not to improve because I was once again in the midst of many of the students that bullied me. It was also notable how quick to violence the male students were and how poorly the boys and girls there related to each other in the beginning. Sadly, there was no assistance for myself and the bullying continued. I witnessed some disgusting mysogenistic attitudes and behaviour displayed by some of the boys there that was over and above the other co-ed schools I attended. While other members of my family and people I have been friends with have done well and did manage to enjoy their education at these schools, the rose coloured glasses need to go down the toilet. I still lack some confidence and I still remember my first day at De La Salle like it was yesterday. By the time I left Frawley I was just a f*cked up humanoid and I went down all the usual roads, drugs, alcohol and a brush with suicide. My experiences delayed life for me somehow, my first relationship wasn't until I was 29 years old and I didn't feel any real happiness until I was 32. Some people weren't so lucky and took their own lives. One of my contemporaries committed suicide at the end of yr 12. The effects of bullying and institutional abuse of all types is well documented and understood, lets learn from it and not brush it off. It seriously needs to be put right.