Order of Grunts and Gesticulations Ancient Brotherhood. Questionable Purpose.
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A Grumblegram from the Order of Grunts and Gesticulations
A boy can spend years being told to settle down without anyone explaining what he is supposed to settle into.
He learns the catalogue of offences. Too loud. Too restless. Too rough. Too distracted. He becomes acquainted with the behaviour policy, the deputy principal and the particular chair outside the office.
What he may never encounter is a convincing picture of the man he could become.
The Order considers this an omission of some consequence.
Australia is examining educational attainment again. On 1 April 2026, a parliamentary committee adopted an inquiry following a referral from Education Minister Jason Clare. Its brief includes differences between boys and girls in achievement, attendance, retention and pathways into further education and work.[1]
There is reason to take the disciplinary side seriously. QUT researchers followed almost 72,000 NSW public-school students from Year 3 to Year 12, using records from 2012 to 2021. Nineteen per cent experienced at least one suspension or expulsion. Boys were about twice as likely as girls to experience one exclusion, and around ten times as likely to experience sixteen or more.[2]
Those figures do not explain every incident. They do demand a better question than whether the paperwork was completed correctly.
What happens to the boy after he leaves the office?
A school has obligations to the teacher and to every other child in the room. Nobody should have to endure threats, bullying or a class repeatedly wrecked by one pupil. Consequences belong in education.
But a consequence should lead somewhere. If a boy returns from suspension with the same difficulties, the same reputation and the same expectation of failure, the school has interrupted the problem. It has yet to teach him how to solve it.
Sending him away again may keep the room quieter. His future remains somebody’s responsibility.
The Order would like that somebody identified.
We should begin by giving boys standards they can understand and opportunities to meet them.
Turn up when you said you would. Finish the job. Tell the truth when you have made a mistake. Treat the smaller boy decently. Put the tools away so the next person can find them. Learn to accept correction without turning it into a personal war.
These are ordinary demands. They become meaningful when adults practise them and when a young person has work that actually matters.
Consider the difference between being told to show responsibility and being trusted to prepare the equipment for a fishing trip. Somebody needs the rods checked. Somebody needs to count the lifejackets. Somebody needs to make sure the youngest child has a usable rig.
There is an observable result. If you do the job properly, other people have a better day.
That is an education in responsibility with fewer laminated materials.
Practical work also gives academic skills somewhere to go. Reading helps you understand an instruction, compare materials or follow a safety procedure. Arithmetic helps you measure timber, calculate quantities and work out whether a price is sensible. Writing helps you explain a fault clearly enough for another person to fix it.
A boy who struggles with a page still needs help with the page. Handing him a shovel will not teach him to read. But showing him what reading allows him to do gives the effort a purpose.
He should have access to books and a bench, ideas and equipment, demanding lessons and useful tasks.
He should also meet men whose competence survives inspection.
A decent mentor can be a father, grandfather, teacher, coach, neighbour or tradesman. The relevant qualification is a willingness to take a young person seriously and hold him to a standard.
Such a man can say, “That was a poor effort. Have another go,” without making the boy feel that his entire existence is a poor effort.
He can demonstrate how to disagree, how to lose, how to apologise and how to keep working when enthusiasm has departed.
An adult who arrives reliably every week offers a lesson no motivational speech can replace.
Women belong in this account too. Mothers, grandmothers and female teachers can give boys demanding, generous and lasting guidance. Making room for male mentorship does not require finding fault with them. It requires more adults willing to do the work.
Nor does every boy need the same itinerary.
Some will find their footing in a workshop. Others in music, science, sport, drawing, cooking or caring for animals. A quiet boy deserves a route to adulthood as surely as the restless one.
The common requirement is an undertaking that asks something of him, with somebody present who notices whether he follows through.
Physical challenge can be part of that undertaking. A well-run sporting club offers rules, exertion, opposition and correction. A boy can discover that frustration does not entitle him to foul another player, and that strength carries responsibilities towards the person on its receiving end.
Adults must teach those limits. Calling every collision character-building is as lazy as treating every vigorous game as a disciplinary emergency.
There is also a mistake in making masculinity itself sound like an accusation.
Boys should be accountable for what they do. They should be able to hear criticism, recognise cruelty and change their conduct. They also deserve a positive account of manhood: reliability, courage, restraint, skill and care for people who depend on them.
That account needs examples. A man who keeps his temper during a difficult repair. A father who honours a promise. A coach who stops the talented player bullying a weaker one. A neighbour who helps without arranging an audience.
These are forms of strength a boy can learn to practise.
For the Order, the response begins close to home. Invite a young person into a useful task. Explain it properly. Expect effort. Correct the mistake. Give him another chance to get it right.
Schools need the time, staff and support to do their part. Families, clubs and experienced adults have a part as well. We cannot leave the entire business of growing up to an institution and then express astonishment at the result.
Every boy needs reasons to believe that his effort can earn trust, that his abilities can serve other people, and that adulthood contains duties worth accepting.
Give him something worth becoming.
Then turn up to help him become it.
The Order enters this in the minutes. Members are requested to follow it with an actual undertaking.
Sources
[1] Parliament of Australia, Inquiry into the factors driving educational attainment, adopted 1 April 2026; Terms of Reference.https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Education/Educationalattainment
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Education/Educationalattainment/Terms_of_Reference [2] Kristin Laurens, Lauren Piltz and Linda Graham, QUT, “We tracked 72,000 NSW public school students over a decade and found 19% had been suspended or expelled”, 21 October 2025. Historical cohort; findings should not be presented as 2026 suspension rates.
https://www.qut.edu.au/news/realfocus/we-tracked-72000-nsw-public-school-students-over-a-decade-and-found-19-had-been-suspended-or-expelled
Editorial starting point: Michael de Percy, “Boys are no longer educated, they are emasculated”, The Spectator Australia, 7 October 2026.
