Johannesburg - It seems too tempting of the gods to decide, without really knowing how the boy will turn out in life, to call one’s son Tiger. To make a mockery of such presumption, I could quite easily believe that fate would dish up some twig-like, weedy child-offering who is afraid of his own shadow and has more of a penchant for pastel polka dots than bold and alarming stripes.
On the other hand, Tiger Woods’s parents may have chosen well for their son.
Perhaps they wanted to evoke the fierce, or simply to recognise it. The American journalist Ambrose Bierce claimed that “in each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale”.
Presumably it is the choice of the individual as to what is let out of its cage at any stage.
The tiger is a powerful symbol in our culture. “It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious,” as the author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau informs us.
And there are hundreds of other quotes dealing with the wildness, viciousness or savagery of tigers – or, in a more positive vein, the tiger’s drive, determination and unwavering focus.
The Asian Tigers – Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan – are so called because of their exceptional economic growth, their relentless focus on success and their determination to model paths to prosperity for other developing nations.
We respond with mixed, even ambiguous, feelings to the symbolic power of the tiger.
But then, contradiction and ambiguity are part of many talks and articles on the theme of our very own teenage millennials, who are living in a world of more profound paradox than has ever been the case. It is, however, a world fabricated to a large extent by its adults – particularly in South Africa, which, I am led to believe by some economists, has the most polarised wealth distribution of any country on the planet.
A common conversation in our school has to do with distraught parents who, having berated their hulking son for not working with enough focus on academics, end up banning him from all sport or entertainment for the foreseeable future.
It is not a happy outcome. And many parenting experts write and speak about ways to sanitise aggression right out of teenagers, as though even to feel anger is so reprehensible that one can only speak about it in whispers – if at all.
South Africa may be a country that makes this paradox painfully evident. Possibly because we live in such a violent country, some parents try to protect their children from “normal” danger. One can hear, for example, of brutal home invasions – often murderous – just to steal trinkets, and then an hour later be fielding concerns from parents who are worried about their testosterone-bathed son playing rugby because it is such a nasty, aggressive and violent game.
In the civilised part of our overly polarised world, there is little place or willingness to acknowledge anger and aggression – even our own.
Not long ago, our Grade 10s went to the cinema to watch Life Of Pi, based on the 2002 Man Booker prize-winning novel by Yann Martel and transformed by Ang Lee into a superb film, on which our pupils were to write a review.
More than 10 million copies of the book have been sold – not, I believe, because the narrative is particularly compelling, but because the novel speaks to a fundamental human drive: aggression.
Although the novel has something of a documentary tone, it is also a powerful and archetypical allegory of another reality, in which a young boy needs to live with himself and survive after watching his own mother being killed and eaten – and he himself has killed and eaten one of his shipmates. The narrator of the novel chooses an allegorical representation of his experience and, somewhat bizarrely, finds himself literally at sea with a fully grown Bengal tiger called Richard Parker.
In the case of Pi, naked aggression is the only characteristic that keeps him alive. Even for those of us who do not have to raise the covering sail on our Bengal tiger within, our (albeit sublimated) aggression is what allows for competition and striving and aspiration of any sort – in fact, for survival. To deny or vilify a fundamental energy is dangerous and unhealthy and, I believe, reduces the drive for success. Of course, the secret to managing this energy has to do with balance and appropriateness.
In such cases, the tiger is, quite possibly, kept chained up, but it is a debatable question as to where the perfectly natural aggression eventually goes. We need to help our children transform their natural aggressive drives into healthy competition and ambition and aspiration.
Aggression will not go away just because it is not always pleasant to notice or acknowledge it – and, should it escape uncontrolled, the damage may very well be devastating. Even in a civilised society, we need outlets for our aggression.
Competition, which may be academic or of the sports-field variety, gives us one such outlet. It is certainly preferable to other, less healthy forms of aggression, such as bullying, self-destructive behaviour, use of drugs or alcohol, or fighting.
There is a time to let out the tiger, and it is healthy to do so – although we do need to be aware that there is also a time for the nightingale. (I would prefer, if possible, to keep the ass inconspicuously stabled, although its bray is all too often heard – occasionally at staff meetings. And the more discreet and unobtrusive the pigpen, the happier I am.)
There are times we need the tiger to roar. As the Pi character came to realise, he needed his anthropomorphised shipmate Parker for his survival.
As extreme as Pi’s example is, there are similar needs for each one of us. In his famous poem The Tyger, William Blake asks: “Did He who made the Lamb make Thee?” The answer is a resounding yes. - Pretoria News
* This is an extract from Notes from a Headmaster’s Desk by Marc Falconer and published by Macmillan at a recommended retail price of R184
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marc Falconer is the first non-Jewish headmaster at King David High School Linksfield (Joburg) since its establishment in 1955.
From his position as both headmaster and parent, he provides behind-the-scenes anecdotes and insights into the true state of the nation’s schools and teachers as well as into the mysterious workings of teenage minds, interpreting situations that he encounters on a daily basis.
He has been involved in private schooling for the greater portion of his life, having previously taught at Thomas More in Kloof (KwaZulu-Natal) and at a host of independent schools in the UK and New Zealand.
When he returned to South Africa, he taught in the English Department and then headed the A-Level College at St Stithians.
He was appointed headmaster of King David High School in January 2005.