There's a lot more to modern schooling than the three Rs. One Hamilton school is teaching boys the three Ts: tie tying, tyre changing and steak cooking.
When Chris May, a teacher at St Columba's Catholic School in Hamilton, read our story this month about how young people are less likely to be able to change a tyre than their elders, he got in touch. The boys in his class wouldn't have a problem, he said. Indeed, student Joseph Tauheluhelu, 13, was taught how to change a tyre two weeks before he was called into action.
"My friend Seth and I were walking home and we saw this old lady with a flat tyre so we went to go and help." A student from another school joined in and they changed the wheel. The woman was so grateful she told the principal and the boys received awards.
"It will probably help me through life," said Joseph, of Nga Tama Toa. "One of the things I learned was not to be 'the' man but to be 'a' man. Not showing off, be yourself, work as a team and be humble."
The half-year programme for Year 8 students included what May called the "lost art of a proper, decent handshake".
