Principal's Message

PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Year 9 Student Reflection:

As you may or may not be aware of, St Bede’s College recently held their annual Junior Performing Arts Night.  This night involved various musical and drama pieces from Year 7-9 students, as I was backstage most of the night, I don’t really know how things went, but from what I heard from family, friends, teachers and fellow students, it was amazing, brilliant and spectacular.

I’m not here to tell you about the entire night.  Instead I am writing about my group’s piece (Year 9 Drama, under Ms Loreta Murphy).  Our piece was titled “Be a Man”.  Quite a fitting title for what it was about.  It was the second last performance of the night, it has quite an impact on the audience, which was our group’s intention.  Our piece was about trying to become “a man” in today’s society.  What stereotypes are labelled on to young teenage males as they try to figure out how to become men.

We explored the stereotypes of peer pressure, being really sporty and bullying.  In the peer pressure scene we had two people acting as graffiti “artists”.  Another person was an “outcast” and was pressured into graffitiing himself, but his new “mates” legged it on him.  We were trying to explain that peer pressure plays a big part in young people’s lives and how it changes our decision because we want to fit in with others.  In the sporty scene we had two different Dad’s prepping their sons for a footy match.  While one Dad was very supportive of his son and wanted him to enjoy the game, the other was aggressive and set really high expectations for his son.  Our group wanted to explain that you don’t need to win at everything and you shouldn’t set your standards to unrealistic heights.

In the bullying scene our group outlined some of the reasons why people bully others.  We touched on the bullies having personal issues, school issues and not wanting to be bullied themselves.  They do these bad things to make themselves feel good.  We made it so the victims stood up for themselves and posted the question to the audience, “Are these the real men in this situation?”  They were standing up for themselves and in a way, their beliefs.  Isn’t that what society deems as men.  People who stand up for themselves, for others and for their beliefs.  It was a question that couldn’t be answered straight away, but one that you have to think over.

Then I summarised it all and pointed out that you don’t have to fit into one of those categories (peer pressure, sports or bullying) to be a man. To be a man you just have to believe in yourself and what you do.  That you just need to have faith in what you are doing and being happy with who you are, who you’re with and what you’re doing.  It doesn’t really matter that much how others think about you.  It is more about what you think about yourself.  What others think about you is your reputation, which is important, but not as important as what you think about yourself.  That is your character and that’s what truly matters.

So, with the help of our amazing teacher Ms Murphy, Year 9 Drama put a new idea of what it is like being a young male in today’s society, with the pressures that we face and how we strive to surpass them.  To try and become “men”, even though everybody has their own interpretation of what it is to be a man, which is what makes it so hard to become “a man”.  So teens do the wrong thing and fall into the wrong crowd.  I believe that we did a good job showing that and that the audience got as much out of it as we did.  If not even more.

 Kyran Hymers – Year 9.2