Blog by Children’s Author Anna Kenna
Stop shutting down young voices
When I was a student journalist our class visited parliament and had a brief audience with then prime minister Robert Muldoon. After his political spiel, we had an opportunity to ask questions. I asked him something that clearly annoyed him and then further challenged his snarky answer. My tutor looked embarrassed at this young upstart picking a fight with the PM but she didn’t say anything. We were trainee journalists after all and questioning politicians was to become core business.
I thought about this recently when I heard that rangatahi at Freyberg Highschool in Palmerston North had performed a protest haka during the visit of Act leader, David Seymour, with one pupil spitting on the ground in front of him. To be honest, I thought bloody good show! Freyberg is my old school and I was glad to know kids with backbone study there. I was less impressed with the response of the principal, who condemned the action of the students and threatened disciplinary action. For a start, what did he expect inviting such a polarising political figure to the school? Particularly one who is challenging Te Tiriti o Waitangi and every other policy that seeks to redress inequity in our country. In fact, the principal’s comments that the action was ‘totally unacceptable and contrary to the values and the high standards we hold ourselves to’ sounded old school and smacked of that old Victorian adage, children should be seen and not heard.
If anyone has the right to challenge and question our politicians, it is our young people. It is they who will have to live with the god-awful mess they have been left with – crumbling infrastructure, polluted waterways, traffic congestion, unaffordable housing and dying country towns. They have a bigger stake than most parliamentarians, who were able to live good lives in an era when their education was paid for, houses were cheap and jobs were plentiful. The policies Seymour is championing will potentially affect the futures of young Maori more than any other sector of our society. They have every right to protest and should be supported rather than shamed and shutdown.
Why do we find it so hard to deal the justifiable anger of young people and to take them seriously? Climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg experienced a huge backlash when she addressed world leaders at a United Nations Climate Action summit. Hardly able to breath, her voice breaking, Thunberg said ‘How dare you, you have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.’ In the wake of the comments, many chose to focus on the teen’s loss of composure and to ignore her impassioned and urgent message. Greta was labelled ‘a spoilt brat’, ‘mentally unstable’, a me, me, me millennial’. Donald Trump tweeted ‘Greta must work on her anger management problem, then go to a good old-fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!
David Seymour’s reported comments after the Freyberg incident that some students got ‘over-excited’, is equally patronizing and dismissive. It must have taken courage and a real sense of grievance for the rangatahi at Freyberg to take the action they did but again, it is the behaviour rather than the message, that was focused on. We can’t, on the one hand, complain that kids don’t engage in politics or turn out to vote in general elections and then find fault when they do attempt to have a say.
In commenting on what happened at Freyberg High School, tikanga and haka expert Paora Sharples said spitting in haka did not break tikanga. "The spitting is quite common in haka. Done many times at a national level, once again expression of just showing your distaste towards a particular kaupapa.’
You would think that Seymour, given his oft mentioned Maori heritage, would have known that.
So long Louie
We lost Louie by degrees. First it was the cloudy film that took his sight, then the deafness. More recently, he’d lost his navigation system.
We took him to the vet, cocooned in the soft fabric bed that, in better days, he’d flung around the room, as part of a weird after-dinner ritual. He’d grab it between his teeth, give it a good shake, and often flip it on top of himself, proceeding to blunder around the lounge like a crazy turtle. It’d been a while since he’d given his bed what we called ‘ a good seeing to’. Even longer since he’d sprung unaided onto our bed or battled through the waves, focused on a stick bobbing in the tide.
We lost Louie by degrees. First it was the cloudy film that took his sight, then the deafness. More recently, he’d lost his navigation system which meant we’d often find him trapped in corners, behind doors and, once, wedged between bikes in the garage. We’d taken to placing him on a ridged rubber mat when he ate, to stop his legs from sliding out from under him in an undignified belly flop.
In spite of his physical failings and doolally moments, Louie still enjoyed short sniffaries, loved his food, and showed more than a passing interest in any unwitting hedgehog that embarked on a nocturnal shuffle across our property.
Finally, even the whiff of a hedgehog failed to excite him, he began sleeping in the afternoons, snoring like a lord and was becoming wobbly on his pins. We knew our days with Louie were coming to an end. At 17, as far as we know, he’d outlived all his siblings. I put it down to his discovery, at an early age, it was best to conserve your energy. He was apparently the runt of the litter. The the breeder told us that, when he was a newborn, she’d have to clear a space for him and plug him into his mother because he wouldn’t compete with his more boisterous litter mates for his place at the milk bar. Unlike his ball-fixated brother Jack, who often visited, Louie couldn’t see the point of endlessly playing fetch. You could see the thought process as he watched a tennis ball skim across the grass away from the two of them. ‘Yeah, nah. Can’t be bothered. It’s all yours mate!’.
What he lacked in physical motivation, Louie made up for with his chilled disposition and smarts. He never failed to let us know, with a sharp bark, when it was dinner time and he learned to activate the electric windows in the car by putting his paw on the button. With some training from one of our daughter’s, he could play dead, dramatically falling to the floor in response to pretend gunshot. He could salute, dance and ‘speak’ on demand. This repertoire, and his devastating good looks, won him a short stint in the film industry. Like all stars, he was discovered by a talent scout at the local shopping mall. Returning to my car from a brief shopping trip, I saw a woman putting something under my windscreen. I thought she was a busybody, admonishing me for leaving my dog in the car. Turned out she was an animal trainer, drawn to the cuteness in the car. So began Louie’s short career in the spotlight. There were several photo shoots, including a scene on the beach wearing a rubber swim ring, and a flight to Auckland to star in a television commercial for a Chinese gas utility. I still have the photos of Louie performing for the cameras in a city park.
As he got older, Louie’s chilled younger self evolved into a dignified old gentleman, who greeted other dogs with impeccable manners and joy. Now, however, his ability to react to anything was beyond him. His old legs couldn’t hold him, he taken to his bed and his chest seemed to be rising and falling way too rapidly. We syringed water into his mouth, as the Wellington temperatures climbed and placed a fan near his bed. We hoped to let nature take its course but, as his breathing became more laboured, we contacted the vet.
It was an impossibly hot evening as we lifted his bed into the car and headed to the clinic. Our lovely vet Erin, who over the years had treated bouts of pancreatitis, skin rashes and hemorrhagic diarrhea (which is as alarming as it sounds) moved the stethoscope across Louie’s chest, her eyes fixed on the clock. She said his heart rate was 180 and indicated that would be uncomfortable for him. The decision was made.
As we said our final goodbyes and watched him slip away, I reflected on the life of this little dog and all the joy he had brought us. I can’t remember a day when he didn’t make us smile and we miss him terribly.I’m not really a believer in rainbow bridges or dog heaven but if there is such a place where old dogs go, I know Louie will be mooching outside, biding his time until somebody comes to collect him. Who knows he might even find the magic button and open the gates himself.
©Anna Kenna 2023
Kids take a stand on the climate crisis
Whilst gritty Greta Thunberg is the most recognised young face of the youth climate change protests, globally more young people are calling for action from people in power. This Guardian article features just some of the kids across the world standing up to be counted and demanding better for their futures.
Young people have had enough of being patronised and patted on their heads for their noble efforts by grownups who won’t be around to see the worst impacts of their legacy. We need to support our children to make sure their voices are amplified beyond the school strikes and solitary vigils outside temples of power.
The kids are telling us they have had enough and we need to respond with action, not platitudes.
Teaching kids the value of good journalism.
There was a nasty tummy bug raging though the school. Our teacher addressed the dwindling class. “It’s very important,” he said, “to wash your hands after going to the toilet. This is the only way we can stop this spreading.”
I thought about this for a moment then put up my hand. “But sir, how can we wash our hands? There’s no soap in the bathrooms.”
The teacher beamed at my clear indignation and encouraged me to write a Letter to the Editor of the school newspaper. I was eight-years-old.
The Awapuni Chronicle wasn’t a flash affair with its black crayon masthead and handwritten stories pasted onto its rippled pages. But my letter was published; I was listened to and very soon we had soap. It was my first lesson in the power of the press and possibly why I later became a journalist.
It’s a career that has served me well and cemented my belief in the power of words to highlight injustice, expose dark deeds and amplify the voices of the weak and disaffected. In my lifetime I’ve seen good journalism topple governments, expose war crimes, unmask institutional child abuse, crusade for social justice and overturn wrongful convictions. The pre-eminent watchdogs of their day - Peter Arnett, David Frost, and Alistair Cooke - were great role models who inspired a generation of young journalists.
But also in my lifetime I have seen journalism, as a distinct craft, morph into an entirely different beast, ‘The Media’. This omnipresent, multi-headed chameleon has traded any sense of the ‘greater good’ for a ratings-driven deluge delivered to an increasingly less discerning public.
My interest is with young people. How is all this landing with them? How can they distinguish true journalism, the objective, diligent pursuit of truth that informs and exposes, from the alphabet soup that flows daily through their multiple devices? Is it important that they do?
British-Iranian journalist Christiane Amanpour says “I strongly believe that journalism is one of the most noble professions, because without an informed world, and without an informed society, we are weak, we are weak.”
There are credible news organisations still championing and modelling good journalism. And role models, women like Amanpour amongst them, who should inspire young people, like the giants of their time, inspired me. It’s just that they are harder to spot in the media snowstorm.
As Lorraine Branham, Dean of the S.I Newhouse School of Public communications at Syracuse University recently wrote in the Huffington Post, “the terms journalism and ‘the media’ have become interchangeable and that’s part of the problem, because media includes everyone- the pollsters, the pundits, the spin doctors. They are not journalists but they help create the avalanche of information in which true journalism often gets lost.”
In the US, applications to journalism schools hit an all time high in 1974 after the Watergate affair. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s role in exposing one of the biggest political scandals in modern history elevated the standing of journalism and clearly spawned a crop of idealistic young reporters.
Today, references to ‘the media’ are often negative and contemptuous and we hover near the bottom in league tables of trusted professions. Then there’s the Trump card, an influential politician who calls journalists ‘dishonest’ and ‘bad’ people, manufactures his own fake news and uses social media to insult, bait and discredit others.
To the veterans among us this is barely worth a shrug of the shoulders. We know attacking the press is the hallmark of someone with the most to lose from scrutiny. As John Pilger put it “Secretive power loathes journalists who do their job: who push back screens, peer behind façades, lift rocks. Opprobrium from on high is their badge of honour.” But is this daily devaluing of journalism doing real damage?
As a children’s author, I get to meet a lot of young people and they give me hope. Many are intensely concerned about global events and are actively engaged in their communities and schools in projects that place a value on altruism. But how many of them see journalism as a future career and is the profession doing enough to attract them?
As a journalism educator, Lorraine Branham is calling for journalism schools to differentiate the true craft of journalism from ‘the media’, revitalise the role of the watchdog journalist and teach students to pursue the truth, wherever it takes them. I believe we should be embedding these notions much earlier, at around nine or ten when many kids begin to develop a social conscience and interest in the world around them. It’s great, at least in the UK, to see First News, a weekly newspaper aimed at 7 to 14-year-olds that aims to get kids talking about the news in an easy-to-understand and non-threatening way.
As journalism threatens to be subsumed by the media fog, maybe it’s time for the profession to recalibrate and re-establish its founding principles. To educate a generation, that may be unaware, about the constitutional role of a free press and its importance to democracy.
Originally published on Female First, 14 November 2017.