Theme: COMMITMENT
This week’s theme is the Core Value of COMMITMENT and especially COMMITMENT to a SET OF VALUES
To commit is “to pledge yourself to a certain purpose or line of conduct”. So before we talk about commitment, we have to be quite sure on what we are committed to.
What precisely, then, is this purpose or line of conduct that we as Maritzburg College people are committed to?
All successful human groupings – whether they are family units, or sports teams, or rich businesses, or schools, like this great one – are anchored not on rules and laws, but on shared values.
What are our “shared values” here at College, that we are committed to?
Here at College, we have the Core Values to guide us all, as well as what are referred to as our Core Traditions, which are also included in the College Pledge.
We talk about them a lot, the headmaster has for years sermonised about them at assemblies such as this one, they have been covered in mentor sessions for years, and they are displayed and celebrated along the Calder Drive and are listed in your term calendars.
We are very “committed” to them.
(And I’d like to reassure you boys that there is nothing of a marketing gimmick, as I know that some boys have accused the staff about, when it comes to that College Pledge and the words it contains.)
We as your teachers, and with the support of your parents, want you boys to live by these definite, clear and honourable codes of behaviour – we want you to be “committed” to them.
By taking your pledge, we fully expected you in the past and expect you today to truly mean what you have pledged, to live out the words of that pledge; in other words, to “talk the talk and walk the walk”.
Because that is what a man of honour and integrity does – when he makes a pledge or is “committed” to something, he keeps his word and his word is his bond.
But my observation of this great school over the last while is that some of you have lost your way.
You can rattle off your Core Values, but sometimes, when difficult times befall you, some of you chose to ignore them.
“Courage” is shown on the rugby field against DHS – but it is not always shown in an incident involving 2nd formers. No-one speaks up. No one defends the juniors.
“Self-discipline” is shown in getting up early to go to a morning gym session – but it is not shown, also with self-control, restraint and good judgment.
The prefects for years have taken a pledge to “uphold and add lustre to the high reputation of Maritzburg College”, yet they at times over the last few years have chosen to park that line and they have chosen to act in a certain way simply because “it was done to us” or “It’s how prefects last year acted”.
There are too many of you, gentlemen, who have in the last while shown that you are committed to certain shared values – but some of those values that you have chosen are not the shared values that the custodians of this school have chosen and set for you.
Those custodians are made up of some old teachers, who are happy to give up their whole careers for Maritzburg College; of a number of loyal and clear-thinking Old Boys; of parents; and of past Head Prefects and of other schoolboy leaders. They are fully committed to this school – over many years.
It is not for a small group of you, maybe in a dormitory late at night, in a rugby team during boot polishing, or even amongst a group of prefects on a hot tea-break in the 2nd Form Quad, to decide what those shared values are.
They have been decided already. They are set. I know that you have the best interests of the school at heart, but you do not have the right to make them up, because “it happened to me” or “I saw it done last year”.
The College Code is at all times an honourable and noble one, and can never allow physical harm to other College boys or demeaning conduct that offends the dignity of other College boys.
We are a proud and honourable school, we stand tall, we are proud of our school’s heritage and what it stands for, we are vigorous and competitive, we are also honest and we own up, and we will mercilessly grind our opponents into the dust of Goldstone’s. We will compete honourably and courageously, but we must also be kind and empathetic – especially to our own people from our own College tribe.
We must treat each other with dignity and respect – whether you are a lowly 2nd Former, or a grizzled greybeard in Elliott’s, or the acting headmaster.
You all must always also be committed to this College brotherhood, and that means you have a real responsibility to each other: you must truly live out all these noble “words” that we get you to learn off by heart; you must not just pay them lip service.
I am reiterating it again today, as I have been really disappointed in the last few months at the regular failures of some boys to live by the honourable College Code that has been established for you.
Follow the College Code – in fact, make a lifelong commitment to it. It is a noble, well-paved path that has already been plotted out for you; it is not a path for you and a few friends to thrash out in a wild and unruly jungle.
Always be committed to doing the right thing.
Be committed to showing moral courage – not just physical courage on the sports-field.
Commit yourself to being an upstanding College boy and citizen – not one who chooses to live out the Core Values on some days but not on others.
That is the standard that your old school has set for you.
If you fail to live by this Code, then do not be surprised at the steps that College may well have to take against you.
This is an important conversation, which we will have to look at again and again. It goes to the very heart of our school. Your values and our values [staff] and my values must all be aligned and the same.
We cannot allow pockets of you young men – and you are all, every one of you, still teenagers – to feel that you can do your own thing.
We will talk about this again.
Pro Aris et Focis
Matthew Marwick
Senior Deputy Headmaster