A Message from the Rector

By Richard Hall | Posted: Friday October 18, 2024

To err is human, to apologise is divine. (I know I have changed the cliche.)

The opportunity to celebrate the success of our young men is not one that I take lightly, and in celebrating our young men at our first school assembly of the term last Monday, I inadvertently omitted one.

I feel terrible for letting that young man down. He lost an opportunity to be recognised in front of the whole school.

So as soon as I was aware that I had made the error, and at the first opportunity I got him in and I apologised to him face to face. I also contacted one of his parents by telephone as they do not live in Dunedin, and did the same. I was, and am still sincere in accepting it was my responsibility to not make that kind of mistake, and I was very grateful when he accepted my apology.

So today, when a different OBHS boy apologised to me, for something he had done, I was struck by not only how well he did it, but also the role that a face to face apology has in 2024.

It used to be that a written apology carried weight, and perhaps in some situations, it still does, but in this mass email and texting world I am beginning to change my opinion. I think our first option should be to apologise to others face to face. We need to front up in person rather than through a keyboard. We must listen, as I did, to their response and to be sincere in the desire to reestablish the damaged connection - as I am.

Written responses can be dashed off and we all know the difficulty, especially with email in finding the correct words to convey the correct tone. Sometimes in an email sincerity is not conveyed.  

In 2024, to be sincere, then face to face is best.

As a man it can be a blow to your sense of 'manliness' to apologise. That admitting you are wrong is weak. Often men are from a young age encouraged to harden up and to not show weakness. Sometimes that is the correct response, but it was not in this case. The correct form of hardening up was to see this boy in person.

After all, I think the point of being a role model is to role model, and while I am Rector here I will try to role model how I think a man behaves in a range of situations, and when a man gets something wrong, I do not believe it was a weakness to front in person.

Have a great weekend.