tell me about a 'privileged' education

[Frostycake]

If you attended a grammar or private school or if you teach in one (or taught in one), tell me what I may have missed by having a comprehensive education in the 1980s.

I sometimes see glimpses of the education I could have had if circumstances had been different for my parents (the recent TV series on Harrow, meeting and working with people who went to Oxford, Cambridge, Malvern College etc.) and I often wonder what it is I missed out on apart from the obvious opportunities and overflowing confidence and maturity this type of education seems to instill in pupils.

Come and talk to me about the detail as I'm bursting with curiosity.

"These people are not cleverer or more talented than anyone else- they just drew the double privilege straw.

Surely that's not quite true. I agree they aren't the only clever people, or even the most clever people. But surely, they had some intellectual gifts, or they wouldn't have gained places for selective secondary schools and then Oxbridge."

Slight hyperbole on my part, I agree! But the key point is the double privilege. Born into successful families, which sets them on the track to more privilege. Entry into a selective school and Oxbridge is usually (not always) about far more than simple intellectual gifts.

"There seems to be the perfect storm of apathy, delusion and flawed thinking which provides the optimum environment for the posh boys to carry on monopolising things."

This. Times lots and lots.

Boris Johnson is a very interesting case study here. He presents himself as the endearing, bumbling sort of toff, as opposed to the incisive, "carry on chaps" type. But the GBP still love him- completely missing the point that he actually has a mind like a steel trap and they are being played for fools.

Boris Johnson's role models are from Ancient Greece and Rome.

Bread and circus...

Good morning early risers ! Firstly to defend myself a bit the Wikipedia game is not a 'metric for success' and yes I imagine very flawed if used as such .

Whilst you all make valid points I think entry to selective schools and Oxbridge is highly dependent on IQ. I was at Cambridge with no privilege and knew many many similar people while I was there. On the flip side I had wealthy friends there whose less academic siblings joined the forces or worked for the family.

I do think though ( backed up by research as I understand it) that higher IQ = higher salary = more ability to confer privilege in terms of schools or whatever on children who then do the same. And so it goes on. IQ is largely genetic so said kids have a leg up already.

Where I've seen privilege confer the most benefit is these ' middle range' kids who end up with jobs and lifestyles way way better than those in the middle of my school cohort.

P.S going to try and post a graph, go easy on me...

Does this work?!

My experience of a (Scottish) comprehensive school is much like worksallhours. I did really well at my very old fashioned primary school - top of the class usually. At secondary I sank without trace. I was bullied (physically and mentally) from the get -go. Discipline was horrendous. Some of the pupils were very troubled and really violent and disruptive. Doing your homework, answering a question in class, getting good test results were all things that could get you 'battered'. Carrying a case with a musical instrument in it was enough to trigger a 'good hiding'.

Because I was quiet, I was ignored by teachers and I stopped putting anything more than basic effort in, because no teacher noticed if I did well and it just earned me more bullying. Due to the teacher strikes of the 80s, learning was disrupted and there were no extra-curriculars unless the parents did them. I mean no sports teams, no sports day, not really any clubs. There was an orchestra but I wasn't musical.

Some of my classmates had the inner confidence and determination to do well despite all this. Perhaps if I'd had support at home I'd have done better, but my mother dismissed me as not very clever and was very negative about anything I achieved.

Encouragement to go to
Uni was non existent - my careers interview went like this 'I see you work after school in an office. Do you want to go and work in an office?' Me 'no I want to go to uni'. I did scrape enough points together to get to an ex-poly and got a 2:1. I did English lit and like worksall I started at such an incredible disadvantage! How do you begin to study James Joyce's Ulysses when you have never heard of Ulysses? (Other than the rather good 80s cartoon). How do you read and present a paper on The Wasteland when a) you've never 'presented' anything in your life and b) every single reference in the poem is meaningless to you? Hard work. But oh my god I know I could have soared much higher at a good school.

Rositathe. It also goes the other way, there where children like myself who had 'undiagnosed' SEN that received absolutely zero help or understanding. There were bright kids with SEN that left school with woeful educations, in most circumstances with limited or no qualifications , who with help and assistance were more than capable of university . The majority of these children are fearful of education now in their late 30 s 40s this despite being exceptionally bright. It took a huge leap for me at 41 to start an OU degree last October. I am finally in the next few weeks going to get the Hardware/ Software from (DSA) that should make a huge difference to me.

Imagine if this kind of equipment or even a bit of knowledge, was available in the 1980s how many kids with Dyspraxia/Dyslexia and Autism would have gone on to high achieving Universities.

Dinocroc

I totally agree with 'priviledged' education mostly benefitting 'average' DCs.

The very bright at my private school would have done very well at any decent state school.

But there are so many not so bright ones who are now fairly well off. Some married professional men. Some now work for the family business.

I think if they hadn't been so polished and had other people pushing them into scraping into Uni they would probably be low paid workers with few prospects.

I went to a comprehensive that was seen locally as very rough. It had the highest number of children on free school meals in the country.
All children went sailing and canoeing as part of PE. We were taken to galleries and museums. The school had its own cottage that every child visited, you only paid for your food. We had a writer in residence who organised for poets and writers to visit. We had optional evening classes for free like latin. We did have big class sizes though.

Tell us more caryam it all sounds very progressive... I'm intrigued.

. Some now work for the family business.
Jackie - would they not have worked for the family business whatever school they went to?

Dapplegrey my point is that those who have large family businesses which can afford to employ their DCs are more privileged than average to start off with.

Jackie - point taken.

Sarf - It was very progressive. It was led by an inspirational Head who basically devoted himself to the school. He was also determined that every child learned to swim. We all had swimming lessons, and the school swimming pool could be used free of charge by any pupil from 3.30-4.30pm. It wasn't perfect, but the teachers largely really were trying to give children in very disadvantaged area, as many opportunities as they could.
Sadly when the Head died sadly, the school changed.

It sounds amazing - I wish all schools could be like that - sadly they all seem to be exam passing factories now, which i think is a shame. I love the idea of the Slow Education movement sloweducation.co.uk/

Rosita, I read and read and read all through my teenage years. The only reason I knew Ulysses was because I read. Those were books from the library and there was no charge for that and I took myself there on my own most of the time so I don't think we can always blame schools because some teenagers choose not to educate themselves.

If teenagers were generally inclined to educate themselves we wouldn't need to bother with school!

Everyone knows their are children that will do well wherever they go. What schools need to do is motivate and push the majority that will not.

To have read Ulysses as a teenager I would have needed a parent, teacher or - possibly - librarian to point me in the right direction.

If teenagers were generally inclined to educate themselves we wouldn't need to bother with school!

Even if they were Bonsoir, they would still need help and guidance from adults who weren't their parents,

Despite the fact I was a stubborn little bastard, determined to find a way of learning that suited me (if not anyone else) and a voracious reader I doubt I would have got very far unassisted.

Even the most studious and conscientious teenager (and thanks to the cocktail of hormones there aren't many of those) needs to prodded and pushed in the right direction, or even in a direction they might not ever have considered.

Luckily for me there were two or three. Hopefully for my DS there will be many more than that.

Everyone knows their are children that will do well wherever they go

And then they can still screw things up caryam, once they have left the protective coverage of mainstream education - you need a lot of help to stand alone, let alone stand out.

What help do people get when they leave education then to stand alone?

That was my big problem. I still wasn't ready to thrive on my own. I never really found my niche at doing anything except surviving and working the system. Not enough confidence, not enough self-esteem.

In many respects, even though I'm a parent myself now, that's still what I'm doing.

I'm determined, one way or another, that doesn't happen to my child.

I read and read too, Jilly. I loved the library (am now a librarian). No need to patronise me. I still wasn't aware of Greek myths/the classics. They were never mentioned in any English class of mine, and certainly my parents didn't have a copy. Even if I had picked them up and read them independently, I wouldn't have any knowledge of the context. Yes, reading them is on me, but I'd have to have heard of them first!

smokepole I dread to think how SEN kids got on at my school. There is a girl I still think about now who could barely read and was treated like shit by the teachers, bullied, and was always in tears. She must have had dyslexia looking back, but was branded an idiot and ridiculed instead of helped. I hope she is ok now.

Rosita, I get that point and we were certainly told about Greek myths in primary school. However I do remember reading some novels by Mary Renault I found in the public library which were set in Greek times when I was about 15 and no one sent me to those and of course they aren't in original Greek or anything but that was an example of reading giving me some knowledge. Today it's the internet. My children know a about generla knowledge from web searches although I accept that plenty of homes cannot afford a computer.

I also had a radio and always tuned it to radio 4 and you can pick up a lot of stuff from there as a teenager. However I am not suggesting parents and schools have no influence and as I said above I was different from most people in my school and albeit a very small school from which most girls did not go to university it was a fee paying school.

I certainly think paying school fees is worth it - best money I've ever spent and I am now in my 27th consecutive year of paying them as the oldest is 30 and the youngest 2 coming up to GCSEs. In fact the era of school fees will be over in just over 2 years for me although I will pay for their university costs and fees if I am able.