When I first starting working at Aorere College, I was surprised to see the long list of names on Mr Peach’s truancy list. At my high school the word truancy wasn’t used because it didn’t exist. I grew up in an affluent neighbourhood and went to a private girls school. When deciding on the topic for my first documentary, I chose South Auckland because although I lived relatively close to this area growing up, I had managed to spend hardly any time there. I suspected many other New Zealanders also had very little insight into the realities of life in this part of our country; other than the provocative headlines they read in newspapers about crime, gangs and other social issues in the area.
I quit working in the film industry and went out to South Auckland. I couldn’t chose a specific topic until I’d spent time in the place getting to know the people and the issues. After interviewing several women my age (30) about their lives as research, I realised all of the decisions that led them to their current predicaments had been made when they were 13 and 14 years of age. I took a job at a local high school Aorere College as the arts co-ordinator. The area of Mangere where I worked was very depressed. Although most of the parents had jobs, they tended to work long hours in low paid employment. This meant many of the kids were neglected by their parents; not by choice, but by necessity. The parents tended to have large families, and the older kids often looked after the younger ones. There were problems with condoned truancy, where parents preferred a child to stay home to look after the young ones rather than attending school. There were major health issues, language barriers, gangs, high rates of crime, all the issues associated with a low socio-economic area.
I was shocked to realise how many of these issues filtered into the school on a day to day basis, and how under resourced it was to deal with all of the students’ needs. There was a shoe cupboard for kids who didn’t have or couldn’t afford appropriate shoes. There was always a huge queue for kids who were late to school. There were no lockers and most kids didn’t have pens let alone books. The problems were endless and seemed exhausting. Staff looked worn out and worn down. The teachers stayed in the staff room long after the bell for class commencement when I knew they were supposed to be teaching. I could tell they didn’t want to go to class which broke my heart for the kids and their education. I felt the students were missing out on the education they deserved. The kids’ self esteem was shockingly low and their sense of disempowerment about their lives was appalling at such a young age.They genuinely believed people from outside the area looked down on them, and I had to agree with them, I knew a lot of people did.
It was in this environment that I first spotted Assistant Principal Gary Peach marching around the school with a mega phone yelling at the kids to get into class. I immediately realised I’d found someone who was trying to make a difference. I knew in this bleak environment there was an extraordinary story that needed to be told.
Mr Peach grew up in South Auckland and had worked in the area his whole life so he knew the kids, their culture and their day-to-day realities. He had an authoritative, disciplinarian style, but the kids responded to him and really liked him. I could see that his unstoppable approach was the only way to let the kids know he wasn’t going to give up on them, even if they had given up on themselves.
Ultimately I think the story in this film is a universal one. The issues the NZ kids in the documentary had to surmount are undoubtedly the same ones experienced by kids from low socio-economic backgrounds worldwide. The film provides an insight into how easily children’s lives can drift off track at an early age when they’re not supported by the family, society and schools around them. But it also shows how much of a difference a single individual who genuinely cares for the kids can make, and in this sense I think it also provides hope.