Life lessons for the girls of Epsom

It started when a group of 18-yearold seniors at Epsom Girls Grammar School mounted a protest, saying they were prisoners in a school run by Trump, Putin and the Bolsheviks . . .

It occurred to us that it was not enough to have their parents paying for the million-dollar homes in Auckland’s Double Grammar Zone; it was not enough to rely upon their heroically longsuffering teachers; that it was up to the Sunday Star-Times to school a generation.

And how better than with a quiz?

1 You say you are prisoners at a school run by Trump, Putin and the Bolsheviks. So what are you?

a) The moderate socialist Mensheviks, forced into exile by the triumphant Bolsheviks after the 1917 Russian Revolution;

b) Punk girl band Pussy Riot, jailed for criticising hardline Russian President Vladimir Putin;

c) Crooked Hillary Clinton, who’d ‘‘be in jail’’ if her US presidential adversary got his way;

d) Fundamentally confused about the political dichotomy that has defined the past century?

2 Identify the human rights abuses that led to you becoming political prisoners.

a) Being rebuked for protesting by failing to turn up to prizegiving singing rehearsal;

b) ‘‘The limited ice cream choices at the tuck shop’’;

c) Being forced to go home at 10am on the last day of term rather than sitting through a two-hour leavers’ assembly.

3 Which of the following is purpose-designed for childish pranks? a) Glad Wrap™; b) Whipped cream; c) Shaving cream; d) Spoiled 18-year-old rich girls.

4 Showing calculations, the $825 price of an Epsom Girls leavers’ ring is enough to:

a) Buy 367 15-metre rolls of Glad Wrap™ – sufficient to wrap the 100-year-old towers of Auckland Grammar School;

b) Pawn for a ticket to the opening of New Zealand’s first Tiffany & Co jewellery store at Britomart next week;

c) Pay for Car-Fe Executive Carwash founder and managing director Matthew Ridge to valet daddy’s Mercedes-Benz, after you smeared whipped cream and shaving cream over the leather upholstery in lieu of Prank Day;

d) Buy a family home in Kawerau, Taumarunui or Mataura.

5 The poem known colloquially as All the world’s a stage is from a play by: a) William Shakespeare; b) Francis Bacon; c) Christopher Marlowe; d) After all the arguments, who knows any more? Just know this: There will be nobody on that stage on the last day of term, thanks to the Gandhi-inspired protest against Putin and the Bolsheviks.

Of course, it’s easy to be quizzical about the petulance of teenagers. But what the Seven Ages of Man from All the world’s a stage reminds us is, that for years, adults have dismissed young people as quickly as they have conveniently forgotten their own youth.

There have always been selfcentred teens; there have always been judgmental adults.

What has changed, perhaps, is that we now have longer to learn from our mistakes. As we report today, more Kiwis are living to 100. And no longer is it Shakespeare’s Seventh Age: ‘‘Second childishness and mere oblivion.’’

We are healthier for longer, and with that comes wisdom and perspective. Today, we report an interview with Madeline Anderson, who turned 109 this year. She’s not so quick to dismiss young people: ‘‘I think they are amazing. They have initiative and they have self confidence and nothing is beyond them really.’’