Headmaster’s address

What a wonderful setting this quad is! And how delighted I am to be able to greet you all, and I mean all, in this beautiful space as we gather in increasing numbers and open up this special school in new and exciting ways. I especially welcome Dr Mark Bussin and members of the Board, and Mr Willy Castle who is on a return visit to South Africa and who we welcome back to hand out the prizes to our matriculants who were in Grade Five during his last year as Headmaster of the Prep school. I also welcome members of the School Executive, Fr Brian Mahlanga, Mr Nick Clogg, Mrs Lara Klement, Mr Mike Boden, the College Executive, and especially the deputies Mr Dave Smith, Mrs Colleen Kennedy, Mr Brad Ireland and Mr Steph Bauer, whose support for me and all the staff during these tough two years has been exemplary. Welcome to all the College academic staff who I will speak more of later, to the parents, many of whom are attending their last formal event here as their sons matriculate, and of course the College boys, whose energy, participation and total commitment to your school make up the life and soul of this place, with an especial welcome to the St David’s Marist Inanda Class of 2021 under the leadership of Head of School, Giuliano Maraschin.

We knew 2021 was always going to be “that” year – not the dramatic (and sometimes even exciting) changes that the 2020 Covid-19 year brought, but a year of dragging out, of exhaustion from more, and even more of the same uncertainty as we moved between the online and oncampus space, most times without the joy of sport and cultural engagements to break the monotony and sense of endlessness. It was no longer new, it was just tough, and it became clearer as time passed that real learning should never be exclusively through screens and that real life interactions prompt more real-life learning than an online school can ever do.

Coupled with this Covid-fatigue was the dramatic increase, particularly during the third Covid wave, in those affected, those infected and those who died. I would like to pause for a moment to mark the Covid passing of Mr Herbert Mudzingwa, our colleague and friend in August. A much-loved figure, a gentle and thoughtful thinker, a man from whom many of us learned a variety of lessons – Herbert is greatly missed. In my final telephone call with him he was still teaching me, as he gently, and in whispers reminded me that this, too, shall pass, and we would be back with our boys on campus soon. Sadly that was not to be for Herbert, at least not physically, but I choose to believe that all who enter this quad, who walk these corridors and use these superb facilities somehow never leave. Mr Castle would remind us that “Once a Marist Boy, always a Marist Boy”, and he is right, but even when our physical presence is not here, we have contributed to the fabric of this place.

Despite the fact that we recently had to send a grade of boys back online and into quarantine after some infections, it has felt increasingly positive of late as we open up more and more options for our boys. The South African 17% of population fully vaccinated figure still has some way to catch up to the world rate of 36%, but it is growing; and with vaccinations imminent from age 12 up, the promise of an anti-Covid pill in final development, and increasingly relaxed regulations, there is indeed a real sense that perhaps this too shall pass.

While restrictions to activities continue, St David’s Marist Inanda has had far more than just a holding year, and the achievements of our boys testify to this; academically in boys like Mohamed Zidan Cassim and Nick Delport in Mathematics, in sport and cultural arenas like Manqoba Bungane’s international waterpolo selection, boys like Matthew Maccelari and others canoeing for South Africa, but I am going to stop here … not only because the achievements of the boys are listed in newsletters and already acknowledged in assemblies, but because searching for excellence continued as a goal and in achievement across every area of school life and I am proud of the boys and the staff for striving for this in spite of the odds.

What hasn’t changed during this Covid period is the complexity of life, and while Covid has perhaps reminded us to engage with kindness, with patience and a sense of care for others, and to operate with self-control and sacrifice, it has also highlighted how difficult it is for all of us, and especially for children, to operate in a world in which this device … a smartphone … is ubiquitous and required for everything we do.

Perhaps our greatest challenge right now and possibly for generations to come is around the advance of technology and how we live in our world.

Covid-19 thrust us rapidly into the good (and the bad) of technology. We are now largely reliant on it for all … our (1) educational operations, (2) socializing, and (3) communication needs. It has been effective in all three spaces, and if you look at your phone and the Apps you have loaded, as I did this week, you will notice how one device has replaced our interaction with on average about 20 physical devices. They’re all in your phone – on mine alone I could list fax, copier, scanner, telephone, tape measure, watch, bank ATM, encyclopedias, world atlas, map book, novel, wallet and cards, CDs (and for us real

oldies, cassettes and vinyl records), magazines, tickets, programmes, instructions, television, recipe books … And I could go on. All in this one little machine. Even a regular Eskom outage can’t get us to talk face to face because we keep power banks charged so that this little device need never stop working for us.

Can you turn this device off? Even physically I discovered recently that I didn’t know what to push to turn it off … Let alone breaking the habit of constant online time … can we do it? Gentlemen, could you switch off your phone on a Friday afternoon and only switch it back on on a Monday? I doubt it. And please don’t classify me as a Luddite slow to embrace technology or keen to destroy the enormous advances made that keep us connected. Can you imagine these Covid years without this connection (educationally, socially and in communication terms)? Our world class IT backbone here at St David’s connects us without a hitch, and has served us incredibly well at this time. However, at what cost is what I ask? As individuals, families, communities and schools, we need to keep questioning how to balance the distinct advantages that technology gives us, with the more traditional way of doing things.

Life is indeed complex, and in busy times we often describe how hectic life can be, juggling so many different issues, each with a life of their own, and trying to know exactly when to touch them and re-launch them, perhaps to a higher trajectory than before. I’ve always wanted to juggle – maybe that can be my next professional career – but sadly I have never managed to get beyond two or three balls at a time. Have you ever watched a juggler, a really professional four- to seven-ball juggler who knows his or her stuff? Gents, do we have a juggler in the school? I’ll keep a slot in the next assembly for a four-ball-plus juggler who can keep his performance going for at least 30 seconds – let’s see if all eight of our new houses can send through a finalist for that competition – the challenge is on for assembly on 5 November.

For me, the scariest moments in juggling is actually starting the performance. Once you have built up your momentum and got the rhythm going it’s easy, as long as you can keep your concentration going … and likewise, ending the performance is equally daunting as you try to land all the items you are juggling at exactly the same time. It is those moments of transition that are most difficult, but also most important to being an excellent juggler.

Perhaps each of our school years is a similar such performance, where we start out tentatively in January in a new space, a new grade perhaps trying new activities, new coaches, new subjects, get into the swing of things through the middle terms, and then wind down, to hopefully land all the balls successfully with a report that says we have passed and can move on to the next grade. A school like St David’s is so well-placed to offer the real learning that online schools, or specialist schools, or even home-schooling or self-study can’t. The reason for this is simple. Here, in this space and with the support of these remarkable teachers, our boys are indeed taught to be jugglers … to start slowly, to build momentum, to get into the rhythm of learning, perhaps to achieve with style and flair, and certainly to do so with joy and a good dose of smiles and laughs, as we feed off the positive vibes of our mates, learn from observing each other, challenging each other to greater achievement, and ultimately land all three balls safely and securely before we rest a moment and then pick up four balls to move to the next level.

A good juggler needs many things for success and St David’s offers these for you:

• You need to have material things to juggle, and boys in this school you have opportunities beyond measure and across many areas – you just need to step up and start, to get involved • You need to understand the basics – how heavy are the objects, how high or low and the speed at which they must be thrown? – your tutors are available to help you plan your studies, your calendar and days, so that you eventually do it for yourself and have time for everything without wobbling and dropping anything • You need to build a movement and style that suits you – you are unique and talented and need to be you, and authentic to yourself, to have a good performance, to achieve. St David’s is not about one style of doing things, but about each of you finding what suits you • You need to find a critical difference in your act – if all jugglers looked the same that would be boring – find your unique selling point and grow that gentlemen • You need to decide whether your performance will be simple or complex – three or five balls juggling – and, gentlemen, you will find in life both simple and complex activities – keep a balance of both • You need to grow your performance and juggling complexity regularly – don’t be boring, and never stop your performance at a lower level. Keep moving on after a brief moment of reflection to something more complex and challenging • You need to accept coaching from those around you, who have a different perspective watching your juggling from a different angle – listen to them, whether your parents, teachers or your peers, because well-meaning advice goes a long way to achieving excellence • You need to have supporters around you, cheering, smiling, encouraging, otherwise why are you doing something? The online space has been great to get

things done, but we need to have the energy from those wanting us to do well. This is a significant St David’s difference in that you boys really want your mates to do well. With the imminent return of spectators to sport and cultural activities (we believe the Education gazette allowing this may come out in the next couple of days) let’s all revel in the support we give our boys

And finally, gentlemen, to be a great juggler, you need to be able to answer the question “Why?” What is your reason for doing something, what do you want to achieve, for without a motivating force, little will ever be achieved

So why, you might ask, have I spent time considering how to juggle on a formal occasion such as this?

Our world is not going to get any simpler – our phones (or whatever devices replace them in time) are not going to disappear. My daughter told me last week that she had bought some digital art. I thought it was a simple question to ask what that was, but I was given a lesson in the digital world being created in blockchain, a world where things are immutable, where they cannot be deleted, and you cannot be anonymous, where people are designing whole cities, where you can buy digital billboards and even digital limousines, in the hope, she tells me, that one day somebody will want to ride in a digital vehicle when all our living and all our connections are done digitally. If you didn’t understand that, please don’t worry, I wrote it and I don’t understand it.

Social media is but a first step into a futuristic digitisation that will continue to change things forever. Covid-19 has expedited our engagement with this world from an education point of view, and in so doing has added challenges beyond our understanding. Anxiety and mental health challenges, along with the exhaustion and draining lifestyles we live are going to be key factors in how we

live our lives in future tech that we will find difficult to understand.

So is this 21st challenge, when our education offering, our socialising and our communication needs are all built into this little device, going to trip us up, or going to energise us? Is a school such as St David’s Marist Inanda sufficiently equipped to prepare our young men for a world we cannot imagine right now, developing at a speed which is beyond our understanding and in ways which are increasingly based in the future rather than in the values of the past? How should we respond?

It is that juggling analogy that gives me hope and convinces me that we are not only in the right space already, but continually moving into the next space too, rooted as we are in timeless human values necessary even for a life lived increasingly virtually.

In fact, it is because of our values, and the timeless rocks of our manifesto that we will not only survive as a school, but thrive into the future.

We are committed to new technology, to teaching coding, to building the skills for our boys to operate in a digital world, but at the same time.

We are committed to teaching human interaction, to modelling human engagement in a way that is critical for the human race to survive. You can’t do that online.

We are committed to teaching critical thinking and crossover engagements in the academic space, and in fact have a project currently underway with the Grade 9 boys doing just this. You couldn’t do that online.

We are committed to teaching balance and developing health in our boys, whether physical health through sport and exercise, mental health through training and talking on issues that affect us all, and social health through

opportunities to engage physically with people. You can’t do that online.

We are committed to teaching across a broad range of activities and subjects, to help our boys understand that we are all different, and to help them find themselves and activities that they can be passionate about.

We are committed to helping our boys understand the importance of the world they live in, and how no amount of technology is going to save our earth and keep us alive, even in the digital world, without a healthy planet.

But above all, we are committed to connections that support our boys to know who they are and to grow our boys to be men of faith, men of character and men of kindness, even more than being men of academic, sporting or cultural prowess.

We said in the midst of the chaos of 2020 that we wanted to focus carefully on what a school should be and rather than just restarting after Covid, wanted to re-set and re-imagine what we could be. We are busy creating a significant number of items and projects in all the spaces across the school, tweaking timetables to give our boys greater access to science practicals, to ensuring a balance between sport and cultural activities, to thinking collaboratively, to engage across subject areas, to experience environmental work, to build opportunities in coding, to be creative in different ways like the drama film being produced, and many other exciting activities.

As we do this we keep reminding ourselves of our diversity, of the importance of creating not only a place where all are welcome – people of different backgrounds, races, economic capacity, diverse interests – but where we can thrive together by using that diversity to achieve what Marcellin Champagnat would have wanted, for all children to be able to experience the right preparation for a life of significance, and a life lived for the benefit of others. This is another St David’s difference … our boys and all of us who step into this family, are on the same team, a team that sees possibility.

I invite each one of us present here tonight to step up, to be part of our deliberate reimagining of what it takes to keep this a place where our boys can learn and thrive, to pick up some of the scariest concepts in our areas, and to start juggling with them, not to be scared, but to work to establishing new rhythms that answer the question of why, that establish our reason so firmly, that as the world keeps throwing in new balls to the juggling sequence, that our performance is exciting, is challenging, is inclusive and is able to say… wow! St David’s Marist Inanda is stepping up and stepping on.

As a Marist school we are part of a bigger team, a worldwide Marist team, and I have been involved in the preparations for the launch at the end of October of the Marist Global Network of Schools, which has been inspired by the difficulties of Covid-19 and has such incredibly exciting plans for interaction between our schools across the world. The realisation, postCovid-19 is that interaction is so much more important than knowledge, collaboration is going to be key, and that this needs to be done in human terms and face to face interaction.

Our own way of knowing each other will be adjusted, starting tomorrow, as we launch four new houses in the College, designed to give a reimagined focus to our commitment here at St David’s to build an individualised journey for each of our boys, that there can never be a “one size fits all” approach to education, and that boys need to be known and loved in this space. By halving the size of our houses, and introducing different ways of interacting in those houses, we are indeed reimagining our pastoral care system and reminding both our teachers as tutors, and our boys that we don’t learn in a vacuum and that it is in knowing who we are and growing who we are, in getting to know people personally that we succeed most. Another St David’s difference is that we don’t teach Mathematics, Geography or Science, or any other academic subject … our teachers teach boys. And here is the other St David’s difference in that juggling act: it is about getting to know people, and building habits of personal engagement, care and kindness into what we do that we make a difference.

I would like to particularly commend the staff of St David’s, who again in 2021 have been stoic and creative, in the midst of great difficulties, and have remembered that these boys are why we are here and gone the extra five miles this year to ensure their educational journey continued. Please join me in warmly applauding the staff of St David’s on a job incredibly well done.

Tomorrow, we launch an eight-house structure and the Grade 8 to Grade11 boys will have the chance to pioneer this new system, to roll with the kinks and clear the likely hurdles, but ultimately to emerge in a system where our boys are known even better across their entire College journey and supported as they grow through all the distinct developmental stages of the teenage years.

Our eight houses will include the existing four houses:

Benedict House (B) – Green

House Director: Mr Clive Venter

One of the names of our founder, Marcellin Champagnat. There is a link to many Marist schools, most of whom have a Benedict House. This honours the ideals of our founder.

College House (C) – Red

House Director: Dr Tiffany Higgo

Said to be the “College House” that high school boys were allocated to in the early days of the school.

Osmond House (O) – Blue

House Director: Mr Uyanda Maqina

Believed to be named for the Marist Brother Provincial at the time St David’s started. Br Osmond was a significant force in establishing the new school at Inanda, guiding it from being a small kindergarten to a full school to matric.

The Bishops House (T) – Yellow

House Director: Mr Mathew Schneider

This house was introduced as the school grew. It is believed to be named in honour of the bishops of Johannesburg who played a pivotal role in establishing the new school in the northern part of Johannesburg.

In choosing new house names, we looked at names that position us in our African context, that reflect our values and Marist ethos and are inspirational for our boys, whether in a religious or Marist context, or in inspiring our boys to be Marist gentlemen, scholars and sportsmen.

Daswa House (D) – Orange

House Director: Mr Clinton Page

Benedict Daswa was born in 1946 in Thohoyandou. A teacher and principal, an exemplary husband and father, and a community builder in his Catholic parish, Benedict is a martyr who was killed for his faith in 1990. With his proclamation as Blessed, he is well on his way to being South Africa’s first saint and a real example for all. (Religious and Ethos inspiration)

Selima House (S) – Black

House Director: Mrs Demi Timms

Phineas Selima began working for the Marist Brothers as a young man in 1958 (gardening and washing dishes). In 1963 he was tasked with admin responsibilities in the bursar’s office and the print room. For over 50 years he never once took a sick day and remembered everyone’s name, both staff and pupils. His engagements with people embodied everything it means to be Marist, loving his work and adapting to new technologies. His quiet presence and warm heart was always welcoming, and he was a man of rich faith. He retired in 2010. (Gentleman, Marist and Ethos inspiration)

Plaatje House (P) – Purple

House Director: Mrs Rita (Bianca) Chendip

A true scholar, Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje was an intellectual, teacher, court interpreter, newspaper editor, politician, linguist, translator, writer and novelist. One of the most gifted South Africans of his time, he translated Shakespearean plays into Tswana, and his novel, Mhudi, is an enduring legacy for the world. (African, Excellence, Scholarship inspiration)

Jude House (J) – Grey

House Director: Mr Gareth Brown

Br Jude Pieterse is an icon in the Marist world, whose pivotal work as a leading educationalist in a difficult period in South Africa is recognised by our school, the congregation, and in the wider educational and secular world. He not only contributed to the fabric of non-racial education, but his insight and foresight in establishing structures for the future have ensured the sustainability of our schools and therefore the Marist mission in Southern Africa. (Marist, Gentleman, Scholarship inspiration)

Tomorrow, boys, you will become pioneers of this new beginning, and I look forward to how you build your houses, to see which house will juggle this new path with the greatest style, strength and focus, and who will create in their houses a place where we remember both our Marist roots and build towards a new sense of belonging, a place where we remember always that it must be the people who count.

The PTA have launched a new rose in honour of our school’s 80th birthday this year, and it has appropriately been called Marist Gold. It is a timely reminder of the excellence that we strive for, in our achievements nad in our interactions. It is a timely reminder of the gold that we already have as a Marist family, and it is a timely reminder to both preserve our world and to grow it so that all can feel the power of a Marist education.

Thank you to each of you for your commitment to this special school in your unique and special way. We are all the richer for it. Stronger together.

Thank you.

Mike Thiel

Executive Headmaster