'State schools are creating amoral children'

Rabbit the way arts ed is going I fear it will become the preserve of the monied. Which is scandalous.

We are slowly changing back to a minute and hugely powerful elite, and a great mass of underlings. As happygardening has already pointed out, democracy is a bit of an illusion - whatever I vote for where I live, I know what I'll end up with. You either go with the slow, inevitable flow, or you revolt and create the unpredictable, you can't slowly go against the flow.

It is so simple nowadays- just Google 'the correct way to eat asparagus' before going out, if you think it might be served! No one need remain in ignorance.

I just love MN! It keeps me coming back when you can start with state schools creating amoral children and then home in on tne correct way to eat asparagus! You don't get it anywhere else.
Things change but it takes time. Much better to have the inevitability of slow change than rush it through and get rebellion.

martorana you're making yourself look bloody daft now.

No one has said there are no barriers. No one. You're quarelling in an empty box, as my Nan used to say.

What posters are saying is that the barriers are very different to the ones you always describe.

There's a whole new discourse, a whole new set of values. Still not fair, though, to those on the outside.

It is very annoying that only great wealth can pay for great man-made beauty, and thus the wealthy have control over it all, including the men.

There was job security in the dockyards.

Sounds like there's job security in your dh's field for so long as the super rich fancy living in places like London and contributing to astronomical house price inflation. It does of course create work for a tiny, specialist niche market, but is also like going back to a time when the elite decided which composers or artists to sponsor and command to entertain their court, what opulent palaces to build and where, etc, etc. The creative and talented thus had to smarm up to those with the wealth and power, hope not to fall out with them and have their lives destroyed, and all so that they could have smaller garrets to live in. They also had to hope not to have their eyes gouged out if they produced something too beautiful, as a means of ensuring they could never do anything nicer for anyone else. All bringing back memories of huge inequalities and injustices.

But Mart David Cameron et al were at school some 30 years ago do you really think in 30 years time the cabinet will be full of Old Etonians? I somehow doubt it times are changing.

Rabbit obviously my DH can only speak for his area, in his world there is job security, many have worked their since man and boy the recently retired member of staff had been there since he was 14 years old, for this area of work the future is very Rosie. As one client said to him the other day the Poles are bloody good but they can't do what you do!
My DH has also been in the industry for just under 30 years we've moved around but he's always found work. But you do have to be in the right market they work at the very top end where money is literally no object only, slightly further down: the very wealthy it's not looking so good.
My DH would love to find bright creative enthusiastic individuals to train and he would assure them that there is as much job security in his world as any other you care to mention.

Tha asparagus eating was a throw away remark. But feel free to treat it as if I think it's the most important thing I said.

And if anyone can look, for example at the current Cabinet and at Cameron's inner circle and still think that the invisible barriers have been broken down, I suspect they need to look again.

And the divisive nature of our education system continues to maintain those barriers.

As I suspected Martorana, I think some of your views are quite out of date. The world changes a lot in say 30 years.

Quite Herc. I know someone who lost some of his luggage. And the thing that he was really going on about? The fact that his book was gone! He was really quite upset about the book!

Frankly, I think there's a bit of rank hypocrisy going on in the establishment. We are regularly told we have to be flexible these days - the job market's changing all the time, technology is taking the old jobs, you have to be a jack of all trades to keep up with it, be able to go with the flow, move on to something else when your old career ceases to exist. Oh, and you also have to specialise, doing a 6-year apprenticeship.

The sorts of things that are often markers are where you've been, what sort of WE you've had, who you know, the sports you play, your engagement in the arts, the books you've read. Travel and sport probably come top.

I think our state school spends a lot of time on personal development, I've been really impressed. Far more than the independent school I went to - they really were obsessed with results. So much so we didn't learn subjects in an enjoyable, exploring type of way - we repeated rote fashion ad finitum so that we could pass the exams.

Sorry, I mean you CAN'T have job insecurity and 6-year training schemes. The two are mutually incompatible.

It does go back to my point, happy, that 6 years of training can very much go down the tubes overnight when the rich and powerful aren't interested in the skill any more. Whole communities, trades and crafts have been decimated in that way over the centuries. Just imagine taking 6 years to train for something, and it's no longer wanted or needed in 5 years' time, or cheaper people have been shipped in in the meantime, so you can't make a decent living out of it any longer... people want instant gratification these days, and the ability to move on if they don't like it as much as their employer wants the ability to sack them if they don't like them. You can have job insecurity and 6-year training schemes. Who would train to be a doctor if after all that time, you were told machines could be doctors these days, because nobody felt the need for the finer craftsmanship of a real person any more?

Martorana - I think you are being unfair. Nobody has said the class system doesn't exist or that people don't need help breaking through class barriers, just that learning how to eat asparagus has nothing to do with it.

Oh martorana calm down.

No one has said there's a level playing field. In fact if you actually read my post you'd see I said categorically that the class system and elitism is alive and well.

However, the idea that table manners and use of public school speak, make much of a difference these days is just plain wrong.

Coincidentally, I went to a talk last night and the head of a public school was discussing what young people needed to do to succeed and it very much centred around being part of the global community.

Mart no one has said the playing field is level but not knowing how to eat asparagus or not knowing arcane public school lexicons" is the cause of the such huge disparities between different groups. Money is the cause, and asparagus eating and arcane public school jargon are associated but not necessarily intrinsically linked to wealth in the 21st century.

I don't think it's so much the asparagus know-how (and add to that, Jerusalem artichoke) but being the "right" sort of person does still count in certain areas. And some people do still do the bad smell face at grammar school products, but are fine with comprehensively-educated people. I suppose grammar = trying and attempting to rise above one's station in a Hyacinth Bucket type of way.

In terms of state schools creating "amoral" children, well, I would say the exact opposite occurs. Ok, perhaps you could argue that some private schools have more time/money/facilities to produce Renaissance men/women but in terms of decency, I think it's the state school pupils who win the day. Just looking at the prep school kids who attend the school next to my house and I see some arrogant little twerps. I don't think humility and regard for others is on that school's syllabus.

My DH's company still find their trade is very much in demand by the wealthy and powerful. Attemps at making cheaply abroad have not as yet been successful. A handful of companies do what they do.
To answer a point up thread my DH finds that people don't want to train for 5 + years to get truly proficient.
He recently attempted to fill a vacancy created by someone retiring (an exceedingly skilful manual job) as always many have applied waving certificates of competency, 6 staff later and the job remains vacant, one straight from college only lasted it a week "I didn't realise the job was so hard" another worked along side the chap retiring having admitted he didn't know how to do a key aspect of the job after a few weeks he said it wasn't for him as it was too complicated, another after a month returned to his original company because he couldn't cope with the standard required and so on.
So the vacancy remains unfilled despite being advertised on numerous occasions. They even tried to recruit a trainee, once your competent (5yrs of training) £35k would not be an unreasonable salary and one applied but asked if he could learn it in two years "like his friends were doing at college", when told no he went away "I don't want to spend that much if my life learning to be an X"
My DH will tell you that highly skilled tradesmen are very much in demand in London, good money can be earned but vacancies remain empty.

I wish I hadn't mentioned the bloody apparatus now- it was only a throw away remark.

But it has been seized on so nobody has to address any of the other points I have made. Hey ho.

So. The playing field is level. Everyone, regardless of background has an equal chance of becoming a "mover and shaker". The class system is dead. Nobody is ever judged by language or accent or background. And, qua HG's sailing example, the privileged at always ready with a friendly helping hand to pull the disadvantaged into their circle. Have I got that right? Phew- what a relief.

Not knowing how to eat asparagus will exclude you from a certain group of people!!!!! I read it all now. I don't know what circles you move in Mart but I don't know anyone who gives a rats arse if you don't know how to eat asparagus.
It's so easy to make assumptions about other people who we feel we have little in common with, to assume that they are nasty, narrow minded, elitist, common, arrogant, uneducated, crude or what ever. Maybe I'm just lucky but I found over the years that most people from whatever background are pretty decent if and it's a big if you treat them in a decent civilised way. I recently went away everyone there could sail (round the world type sailers) I was the only one who didn't know how to sail I admitted it nobody cared in fact they were delighted to show me hoping to add another convert to their numbers (unlikely).
I do to know how old you are Mart but I think it's about time you started burying you misconceptions of people and just accept them for what they are maybe, then they won't exclude you for not know how to eat asparagus.

I went to Chatham Dockyard (the museum, that is...) the other day. It was rather sad, in a way, looking at the examination papers the young people had to take in order to prove they had the requisite mathematical and logical skills to gain apprenticeships there. All that incredible training, pride, intelligence and skill, no longer required. A craftsman is very much at the mercy of the corporate and political world and the desires of the wealthy and powerful. One day, your incredible skill is needed, the next, it's cheaper to do it elsewhere, or use machines. Years of training and pride down the drain.

Of course the class system is alive and well and the elite still have a value system that they employ to spot one another, but I think the views of martorana as to what things these might be are absurdly outdates and UK-centric (which in itself marks them out as ancient history).

Knowing how to eat asparagus will matter not one jot to your chance of getting a position in a bank, a fund, a large corp, an international law firm, a media outlet, a publishing house, a leading university etc

Nor will knowing the lexicon of a few public schools.

The world is an entirely changed place and such signifiers are seen as sweet but unimportant in the scheme of things.

We're all the same when we eat asparagus. Just don't go to the toilet/lavatory/WC/convenience/ladies' room/powder room to urinate/do a piss/wee/number 1/tinkle/"powder your nose" at the same time as anyone else, afterwards, that's all I'm saying...