So Eton, everything I expected and more

[JoanBias]

My DS is at a private school, so I have experience of private schooling, but my word Eton was like another world.

Not just the school, but the people there.

There was one prep school being shown around, all in tweed jackets, and to a boy the spitting image of Draco Malfoy (well there was one Chinese boy, but otherwise....).

One of the mothers doing the tour was not quite right in some respect, I'm not sure how but something wasn't wired up correctly or something. She was immacuately dressed, 6-inch heels (pretty daft considering the confirmation letter warns about having a long walk), but she was just bizarre. The admissions tutor said 'we have a waiting list of 80 boys and typically 35% of these will make it through', and she asked afterwards 'so 80% of the boys from the waiting list make it through?', and it was then explained again, but you could kind of hear the cogs going round and she clearly didn't get it. She had asked several other similar questions; e.g., it was explained that some Houses are catering and others go to a central cafeteria, so she then asked 'so they all eat in the cafeteria'? She pointed at the Fives Court and asked me 'what do they play here?' I said 'Fives' 'Is it squash?', she said. 'No, Eton Fives.' 'So is it squash?' It seemed as if this woman had had the benefit of the 'Finishing School for the Terminally Dim', because she was otherwise every inch the presentable upper middle-class wife.

Another family had a son who looked the prototypical pre-Etonian, and sure enough Daddy spent the tour braying on about his House when he had been there.

The facilities were extremely impressive, although they didn't bother to show us any of the academic parts, and basically the impression was 'if your son is incredibly pushy and self-motivated, send him here and we will teach him to be entitled'. They said 'every year we reject about a third of the highest performers on the test', essentially because they aren't pushy enough. (The House Mistresses seemed quite nice though.)

Fantastic training for future managing directors and whatever, but not for us.....

Well worth it to sign up for a tour, very illuminating. They take about 100 a day from what I can see, so obligation at all....

Also it is to say the least simplistic to define "Singlish" as purely a self mocking term. It is an officially and academically recognised linguistic form, and at the centre of a major debate within Singaporean society. The Singapore government and Singapore Chinese elites have for decades waged a campaign to stop it's use, officially because they claim it dilutes Singapore's reputation as a world class economy. Unofficially it is a manifestation of the snobbery that exists within the diaspora since the pidgin that sprung up in other Chinese diaspora communities such as Hong Kong has largely died out, as well as the mixed feelings that stem from having been colonised. Other Singapore Chinese regard Singlish as something they should be proud of and preserve because it is part of their heritage and a very economical way to communicate in a multi cultural community. Incidentally amongst the conventions of the Chinese language it employs, such as the lack of tenses it probably doesn't have an R sounds.

I really don't see that the existence of Singlish in any way justifies making use of a derogatory stereotype of Chinese people, nor does the fact it was employed by a Chinese boy. Does it not occur to Paternas that he might be the first to use it to distance himself from all the associated derogatory assumptions about Chinese people? Wasn't that the point being made by the parent of a Korean Chinese boy in the link I posted? Whilst Paternas quite clearly doesn't understand the issue it is disappointing to say the least if the teachers at Eton didn't take the opportunity to point that it was a derogatory stereotype and potentially offensive to Chinese people.

re peteneras post: I thought nothing was EVER boring at Eton because the boys are so stretched in every single direction? .

makes me glad mine come home from their secondary modern every night and manage to entertain themselves without making prank calls.

mathanxiety have you ever worked on a building site? They tease him and he teases them. Secondly these are not people struggling to keep their jobs, going along with anything to earn a meagre wage, these are top end craftsman charging £500+ a day, most are self employed so not in a subordinate position, all are equal because all have are experts in their individual trades, all can walk out of one building site if they don't like it and into another and banter is part of the job. As my DH although on first meeting would seem an unlikely craftsman he engenders enormous respect becasue he can actually talk about the job and then role up his sleeves and do it as well he is frequently invited down the pub with them at the end of a day and also frequently recommended by them for the next job so it doesn't strike me that these are cow towing anxious workman doffing their cap at a racist arrogant boss. The company my husband works for depends on these recommendation they are exceedingly successful and have never had to advertise tand are at the top of their game.
"I don?t suppose your imagination could stretch far enough to consider one or even both of the mischievous boys are Chinese"
If boy both are Chinese it is what it initially appeared teenagers enjoying a bit of a prank ok it was a stupid thing to do an. But aren't our children allowed to do this? Do they have to be serious all their young lives?

Im trying hard not to rise to ridiculous inflammatory remarks but not to mention dodgy child protection wise but I don't think as a general principle social services have thousands of children in independent schools on the child protection register.

As a matter of interest, does something only count as racism if the person laughing is in a position of power? It's just that, as I say, I wouldn't think someone was racist if they laughed at my poor attempts to speak their language, I would just think they were an offensive git. However, if I actually had to speak that language every day because nobody around me understood my own native language, and I couldn't get a good job because people laughed at the way I spoke their language, then I would view it more seriously, particularly if the only issue with the way I spoke the language was one of accent. I do find it annoying, however, when people get angry if someone says they don't understand you - sometimes they genuinely don't understand. To claim they are being racist by failing to understand is bl**dy irritating. You have a right to admit to not understanding someone, even if that is a result of their accent, rather than pretending you do when you haven't a clue what they are talking about.

You could say, though, happygardening, that your dh and his work colleagues are all being racist together .

Yes racist classest and judgemental.

peterenas's son is not Chinese!

I dont know what his DS is but i just quoted what he said!

I can see that happy but I'm just saying that her son doesn't have that excuse, if he needs an excuse beyond youth and a staggeringly rude and prone-to-prejudice mum (at the very last she's clearly hugely prejudiced towards Eton and against anything state).

yellow its dad not mum!

No happy surely not? It shouldn't make a difference but it somehow does (call me old fashioned but this stuff is even ruder if it's a man).

I haven't read back. What did these boys say or do? In any school you will get teenage boys saying offensive things to each other. It is how they relate to their friends in some groups, not desirable but how a lot of them are made and sometimes it's all in fun and sometimes it can be very nasty. I think most children can tell the difference.

?peterenas's son is not Chinese!?

Yellow, you seem to know me pretty well the same way you were convinced I?d used another identity in another thread. Have we met before? Don?t you ever learn? I?m still waiting for your apology in your mistaken assumption.

? call me old fashioned but this stuff is even ruder if it's a man?

Gheee. . .ee ... .e e, and you?re just telling us you?re a sexist too!

please peteneras could you address my point about why the boys were so bored in this most stretching, culture and sport-filled environment that they had time or inclination to make prank calls?

boschy even in the "most stretching, culture and sport-filled environment" boys do have some free time and thus an opportunity to get up to silly pranks like the one outlined.

Boys are Eton as no worse or better than boys elsewhere except to pass the exam and indeed the exams for very selective day schools they need to be very bright. I don't quite know here the thread as gone. I think many of the selective day and private schools are better at racial integration than day state schools which tend to get less of a good racial and religious mix.

Boys make prank calls all over the world and girls for that matter, let's not be sexist.

Certainly children in busy schools of all kinds have less time to get into trouble.

I don't think state schools have a monopoly on mischief making. At Rodean the girls used to hang out of the windows with no clothes on when the maintenance team were painting.

What I do think is that our attitude towards the misdemeanors of state school pupils are often more censorious. We might turn a blind eye to a bit of fooling around when the participants are privileged.

It is assumed judjing by peteneras's post that state school children are likely to be involved in "stabbings, attacks on teachers and fellow pupils, smoking, drug usage, bullying, absenteeism" whilst the Public school boys are just having a bit of fun. The acts of the former are violent & criminal and should be censored and the behaviour of the latter is natural, a right of passage and a reasonable expectation.

Re. Happy's dh - depends if the workers in question would feel ok about saying 'Mr Gardening, I feel uncomfortable when you do your 'blacks' impression, please could you not?' without worrying they'd be labelled PC Gorn Madders etc, I suppose. I personally wouldn't like it: nor would I feel it was an especially level playing field just because I, in turn, could josh my boss for being posher than me.

Re. Peteneras's ds - I still consider those boys needed a serious talk about racism, and then another one about malicious prank calling. And if it was all so innocent, why the need to amend the story so the ds in question went from funny prank caller to innocent hander-on of phone number?

What's most telling though, peteneras, is that when I disagreed with you and thought the behaviour was poor, you launched into an attack on me based in which your best insult was 'I bet you went to state school'. .

IME of very busy building sites if the "workers" don't like something they tell you to fuck off in no certain terms.

Even if you're their boss?

(may I also say, Peteneras, that my comments about that behaviour didn't make any mention of it as an 'Eton' thing, I didn't frame any of what I said within the context of Eton, I just think that was poor behaviour and I would think that wherever the boys in question went to school. Don't be so chippy!)

Even if your the boss. Building sites are now very tense places; plasterers electricians plumbers painters tilers stonemasons joiners furniture makers specialist painters and even carpet fitters all working often in the same room and to the same ridiculous deadline and all getting in each others way all desperate to get their bit finished first so that they wont pay time penalties. Humour relieves the tension and the inevitable sparks that fly. But my DH is always happier on site than in a meeting with interior designers etc.

The mind boggles.

Maybe peteneras is trying to say that boys joking about being a Chinese takeaway on the telephone at a public school are on a par with gang stabbing teenagers in inner city comprehensives?... After all, with the benefit of a superior education, you really can't excuse the stabbings that comprehensive school children get away with, but boys will be boys . Or should we take peteneras literally, and believe that stabbings have occurred at Eton?!