Adults are wrong to criticise ‘woke’ children, says Benenden head

‘The fact that social class and related inequalities disappeared almost completely from political and public debate is a travesty. I am foreigner but it is pretty obvious for anyone with two working brain cells that the private system of education is one of the most potent, systemic factors that work to reproduce systemic inequalities.’

This.
The focus on a particular set of oppressions has a useful function for people like her as a distraction from the worsening economic inequalities schools like this feed into.
While I don’t blame anyone for paying for the best possible education for their kids, I do take speeches like hers with a massive pinch of salt remembering her own stake in encouraging ‘wokeness’ rather than a somewhat less fashionable view of inequalities.
Young people’s passion for justice is wonderful but particularly in schools like that the young people tend not to have the wide social experiences that would enable them to direct that passion effectively.

I mean, if you've never gone hungry and you've never been poor you can end up having quite skewed priorities. You can lose yourself in a dream of abstract principles unrelated to NHS waiting lists, electricity bills, and zero hours contracts.

I don't think I realised this fully until in higher ed. Where people had genuinely never experienced the slightest glimmer of worry or doubt or hardship about their financial security, often for several generations. I wonder if it's a barrier that is even possible to cross, really. Poverty takes years and years to bake into you, as does privilege.

We should be doing far more to try and look hard at actual privilege, and forget about some of the confected hierarchies that don't really have the impact we are given to believe.

Why would they?

Why would they what?

You cannot pretend to be woke whilst getting private school education.

Or is that allowed?

Fariha I think part of it is being unaware of the hard truths of life, and part of it is guilt and trying to compensate for privilege.

I think the whole 'children are born with innate wisdom and insight, they know best, let them teach us' ideal has been destruction tested in education in the past few years, and in the real world we're starting to see the downsides. Rather like the 'let them discover reading by surrounding them with wonderful books and they'll absorb it naturally without us spoiling their innate perceptions by teaching them to read' fad, which also had its day. There are significant issues in this population with mental health, resilience, tolerance of uncomfortable emotions or disagreement, there are noted issues in a sizeable group with things like entitlement and work ethic tied up with resilience when it comes to employability - these are not good things. They do represent failure to prepare young people for adulthood.

When you are teaching children who are paying £40,000 a year you are living in a working world rather different to that with its feet on the ground. And it's concerning that its still the case that privately educated people dominate a really startling proportion of top jobs and influential positions, and in having initiated some of the more serious issues for women, for safeguarding, cancel culture, lecturing the Deptford Women's project homeless and substance dependent on pronouns etc etc. The private school industry really needs to take some responsibility for what they have had a strong hand in producing, and its impact on women as a society where the massive majority are not nearly so privileged and their voices not nearly so carefully nurtured and listened to.

I really dont get why post people fall so hard for this shit? Its a total mystery to me.

(you personally didn't start the thread I know)

Posh kids being woke. Oh my days.

Them being in a £40k a year school is as anti-woke as it is possible to be.

If they were really woke they would give up their privileged education and pop off to the local comp.

Honestly. These people.

She's a head of a very good school (and no my kids don't go there!). I'd listen to what she has to say tbh - none of it sounded at all controversial to me.

Because she's head of an expensive private school we should listen to our betters? No, sorry. I listen to people based on whether what they say makes sense or not, not according to their wealth or status.

But these ideas aren't originating with the kids, they are being taught them. So what she is actually saying is 'you shouldn't disagree with me when I indoctrinate children in my care with a harmful ideology'.

Also equating teen girls being aware of social injustice with having the right haircut seems the antithesis of feminism to me.

I will agree that people shouldn't mock other people for their beliefs and we should all try to be respectful and compassionate.

It would be unforgivable for the older generation to close its mind to new ideas, to retreat to ‘the good old days’ and dismiss the energetic changes of this generation as something to be referred to in derogatory tones and sighs.

Strawman.

Also 'new ideas' are not necessarily good ideas just by virtue of being new. In fact many of them, on examination, are tired, old ideas being given a glitter'n rainbows makeover.

Homophobia is definitely old fashioned and out of date, yet we are told by the head of Stonewall that it's prejudiced to discuss homosexuality and that instead we should base our ideas on 'gender'. 'Gender' is of course just another word for 'stereotypes'. Changing the word doesn't make the concept any more revolutionary or clever.

What seems to be lacking in this article is the point that she is a teacher who is (hopefully) also teaching her pupils how to respectfully discuss, debate and raise issues while also acknowledging that older people with more life experience often ... wait for it .... know more.

pupils should not walk out of class for climate protests because “standing in a street with a banner” was unlikely to make a difference.

eh? She's also arguing against peaceful protest? So basically everyone should just shut up and conform, and never discuss anything that is problematic, is that the point? Confusing. Is it her or the article?

Yes, it's mean. Mentioning the hockey team and the hair makes it mean.

Why? Do you not think this pressure exists?

It’s not mean! The poster is talking about the huge amount of pressure on girls, particularly at that type of high achieving school. It would be meaner to pretend they didn’t have those pressures.

Of course I mean, people on here being against racism, not being against people protesting about racism!

Yes, it's mean. Mentioning the hockey team and the hair makes it mean.

Ah, so its OK to pat your child on the head (metaphorically!) if they tell you TWAW but if they stand up for their ethics and leave school to go on a climate protest, thats not at all OK.
Also, what the hell is "woke" and what are "snowflakes"? Sometimes Its just a lazy way of putting people down for protesting about racism for example, something I should think just about everyone on here would agree with.
And I dislike adults who think they are "down with the kids", something very cringey about it.

Can I also just point out the rhetorical trap in that article?

A grown up woman (older than me) has said "don't criticise woke children" etc etc. First this automatically implies that those who disagree with her views are just being horrible about "woke snowflakes" etc. Its a strawman. Then, if you disagree with what she then says it is a very natural knee jerk reaction to say "actually I WILL call them snowflakes if I want" - reverse psychology. Which then confirms the strawman she set up in the first place and makes everyone that disagrees with her look like old reactionaries.

Its a technique used a lot actually. And it lets people in their 30s/40s justify their cringey position of being "down with the kids" while making younger people more fixed in their opinions.