Dunedin’s own King’s High School has set up a class to teach Year 9 boys how to become gentlemen, based on a Texas course called The Gentlemen’s Society.
According to the Otago Daily Times, the course will teach the boys “how to act like a sophisticated man,” including dining etiquette, how to dress, and appropriate language. The newspaper’s attempts to fish for a token negative comment from a University of Otago School of Education lecturer did not succeed, with the lecturer refusing to agree that course would “alienate” some pupils.
More controversial is the school’s decision to set up its own chapter of the Bullingdon Club, an all-male Oxford University organisation known for its outrageous parties and traditional dress code. Dunedin’s restaurants have particular cause for concern, as the Bullies’ modus operandi is to dine out at a restaurant and drink heavily before wrecking the place and paying for the damage in full. As with the Bullingdon Club, Critic presumes the 13-year-old children will be relying on their wealthy land-owning parents to pick up the tab.
A senior teacher at the school, when spoken to by Critic, joked that the gentleman training class might inspire Otago Girls’ High School to implement their own “ladies’ class” to teach the girls “traditional values, like how to stay in the kitchen and cook.” On a more serious note, he argued that the boys would “genuinely benefit from the course, they’ll learn some values that will stand them in good stead later in life.”
High School Implements Tuxedo Dress Code
