Learning Fast

They are not problem kids, they are faced with real problems. They are coming out of school into a society which isn’t prepared or able to move over for them.

– Director/producer Gaylene Preston, The Evening Post, 2 October 1981

I wanted to show how destructive the line of politcal thinking about 'dole bludgers' was; I wanted to show the complexity of family situations and to persuade people to think more kindly about those who were struggling and how devastating unemployment is for communities, whānau and the kids themselves.

– Director/producer Gaylene Preston, in her 2022 autobiography Gaylene's Take - Her Life in New Zealand Film, page 204

I did not want to film tragedy, but I did want to sound a warning to the captive audience at home in their La-Z-Boys, if I could. Middle New Zealand, wake up!

– Director/producer Gaylene Preston, in her 2022 autobiography Gaylene's Take - Her Life in New Zealand Film, page 205

When I came back from the UK, I felt that our kids, our teenagers, were extremely invisible. I came back to new Zealand and felt like everybody was asleep; that there was this big wave of unemployment about to hit. and nobody was prepared for it, least of all the kids who were going to be the ones that wore it, which was exactly what happened. Learning Fast was a way of revealing that process.

– Director/producer Gaylene Preston in an interview with website Senses of Cinema, October 2010

Oh, I dunno, I might be a rockstar… or join Jethro Tull or something.

– A Mākoura College student discusses his plans for the future

That sounds corny! 'Going into the world…' . . . It just sounds so naïve — I'm going to 'go into the big, wide world, all the evil people are going to employ me and make me scrub their floors and wash all the dishes….

– Māori College student Jane defies her mothers words of wisdom about her future

When it comes to real life… I don't know if people should be judged by their exam results.

– A Mākoura College student questions the schooling system

I'm just afraid of how long I’m gonna have to stay out at the freezing works. 'Cause that place bores me to death.

– A student employed at the meatworks over the summer questions his future

I mean, I don't wanna go back to school, but I'd like to go back to school just for the laughs, ya know?

– Lonely ex-student Jane questions her choice to leave school

... one of Gaylene's finest films . . . Her candid portraits of people talking to the camera, without any voice-over or opinions from experts make this one of the most successful documentaries on the subject of teenage unemployment.

– Deborah Shepard in her 2000 book Reframing Women: A History of New Zealand Film, page 78