How the other half lives, what and when you learned

[tomorrowalready]

Reflecting from another thread made me realise it was not until my 20s I found out some people expected to have a private bathroom. I went to university then and shared with another mature student who had been married, divorced and said she found having to share a bathroom with unrelated people unpleasant. I had always taken it for granted as had live in jobs and rented bedsits before. She was a lovely person and also the first person I knew who had a glass of wine every evening and she introduced me to many new things - cooking with garlic, sherry, owning and using a car for shopping for example.

So what did you take for granted that surprised other people you met?

Grammar schools are free public school education for the mc
Grammar schools never addressed social mobility for the wc, they’ve always been skewed to the mc. Yes a minority of wc kids broke through and out but they were the minority. It’s a popular myth that’s gained traction, that grammar schools promote mobility for the wc. Sadly not

@EspressoDoubleShot

Grammar schools are free public school education for the mc Grammar schools never addressed social mobility for the wc, they’ve always been skewed to the mc. Yes a minority of wc kids broke through and out but they were the minority. It’s a popular myth that’s gained traction, that grammar schools promote mobility for the wc. Sadly not

Now children from areas of high deprivation really don’t stand a chance at all. At least grammar schools gave at least a few a fighting chance. Rather than abolishing them they should have improved secondary moderns. Poor bright children are in a much worse position now than when there were grammars everywhere and far fewer people went to university but it was fully funded

@EspressoDoubleShot

Grammar schools are free public school education for the mc Grammar schools never addressed social mobility for the wc, they’ve always been skewed to the mc. Yes a minority of wc kids broke through and out but they were the minority. It’s a popular myth that’s gained traction, that grammar schools promote mobility for the wc. Sadly not

Nowadays they are massively mc skewed because there are so few

And back in the day they also massively favoured the mc
A tiny minority of schools kids got to grammar schools in a system skewed against them

@EspressoDoubleShot

And back in the day they also massively favoured the mc A tiny minority of schools kids got to grammar schools in a system skewed against them

And the system we have now does that even more efficiently

Tutors, social coding,sense of entitlement all give the mc a leverage into grammar school. It’s a systematic unfair system

@EspressoDoubleShot

Tutors, social coding,sense of entitlement all give the mc a leverage into grammar school. It’s a systematic unfair system

Certainly extensive tutoring for grammar schools was not a feature of the1950s and 60s. And no one ever passed an academic exam based on a sense of entitlement! Nowadays it’s more the case but historically it was an exam everyone took so didn’t rely on parents being clued up and entering their children for the exam wtc

@BlackLambAndGreyFalcon

Possibly outing, but I didn't realise until my mid-20s that most people have Yorkshire pudding as a side with their Sunday Roasts rather than served on its own as a starter as it was in my house!

not outing at all! That was how it was served in every house that I knew, growing up in Yorkshire. With onion gravy.

I too was in my 20's, living away at Uni, before I ever saw it served WITH a main meal.

@EspressoDoubleShot

Tutors, social coding,sense of entitlement all give the mc a leverage into grammar school. It’s a systematic unfair system

And no system can be completely ‘fair’, some parents are poor parents, some people have worse physical health, some people are more intelligent some are less intelligent, some are lazy some are motivated! There is no way an educational system can flatten those differed out.

Ok, back in the day 1950 and 1969s grammar schools were still skewed to,and for the mc
A minority we pupils got in yes. It wasn’t the norm.At all
The 11+ content and emphasis favoured mc pupils, overall grammar school didn’t improve social mobility . IQ test and selection favoured the mc
Yes I know a minority of wc kids made it to grammar school but overall class is and was a stifling and oppressive force against we

@PattyPan

I had a middle class but rather provincial upbringing. When I started university (in 2013!) my new friends from London were surprised I had never seen a mango before, and didn’t know what hummus and falafel were. I also remember going to a friend’s house after school and they were ordering a Chinese takeaway and asked me what I wanted. I cringe now that I said duck pancakes, it was the only Chinese food I knew as we never had takeaways, but would have probably been the most expensive thing on the menu!

TBH I am struggling to believe this. I live in rural South Yorkshire. Our local supermarkets certainly all sold mangoes, hummus and falafel 8 years ago. You must surely have seen them in a supermarket? Or your family ate an extremely conservative and unadventurous diet.

Just on the diet thing. When you’re piss poor you can’t afford to try new things and have them wasted. So you stick to what you know. I didn’t take notice of new foods because I clouding afford to try them and have them not eaten.

*couldn’t

@EspressoDoubleShot

Ok, back in the day 1950 and 1969s grammar schools were still skewed to,and for the mc A minority we pupils got in yes. It wasn’t the norm.At all The 11+ content and emphasis favoured mc pupils, overall grammar school didn’t improve social mobility . IQ test and selection favoured the mc Yes I know a minority of wc kids made it to grammar school but overall class is and was a stifling and oppressive force against we

No one is saying it was the norm. It gave some kids a fighting chance, the current system certainly doesn’t do that. But I suspect your politics won’t allow you to concede any benefits at all to a system that differentiates in any way between children.

@EspressoDoubleShot

Grammar schools are free public school education for the mc Grammar schools never addressed social mobility for the wc, they’ve always been skewed to the mc. Yes a minority of wc kids broke through and out but they were the minority. It’s a popular myth that’s gained traction, that grammar schools promote mobility for the wc. Sadly not

That’s a popular myth. Those of us who benefited from them in the 1950s and 60s know better. A lot of bright children from low income homes achieved success in grammar schools.

@Iwastheparanoidex

Just on the diet thing. When you’re piss poor you can’t afford to try new things and have them wasted. So you stick to what you know. I didn’t take notice of new foods because I clouding afford to try them and have them not eaten.

That PP says she is ‘middle class’ though, so does seem a bit odd. I grew up rurally. When I went to uni in 2005 I certainly knew what mangoes, hummus and falafel were. Even our rural supermarkets sold things like that.

Not all grammar schools are state funded - some opted out of the state system after 1975 - so the scholarship mentioned upthread might have been to one of those.
I attended a (Catholic) grammar school in the 1960s and taught in various schools as an adult. By far the best were well run comprehensives with good (but not oppressive) discipline, the expectation that all pupils could achieve if given encouragement and support, a strong community ethos and an atmosphere of mutual respect.

Yes but @Ifitquacks what I mean is I wouldn’t have taken them under my notice. I genuinely couldn’t have told you if the supermarkets sold them then because I only bought safe stuff I knew would get eaten.

That’s a popular myth. Those of us who benefited from them in the 1950s and 60s know better. A lot of bright children from low income homes achieved success in grammar schools.

That simply isn't true of grammar schools now. What happened in the 1950s and 1960s bears no resemblance to what happens these days @Blossomtoes.

@EspressoDoubleShot is correct. Most low income families can't afford the tutoring that the wealthier families, who employ tutors to hothouse their DC to pass the 11+, can. As a result the grammar schools in grammar school areas are filled predominantly with pupils from wealthier families.

@Iwastheparanoidex

Yes but *@Ifitquacks* what I mean is I wouldn’t have taken them under my notice. I genuinely couldn’t have told you if the supermarkets sold them then because I only bought safe stuff I knew would get eaten.

I didn’t get the impression that that poster was ‘poor’ though. She just said she hadn’t encountered those things as she lived provincially.

@borntobequiet

Not all grammar schools are state funded - some opted out of the state system after 1975 - so the scholarship mentioned upthread might have been to one of those. I attended a (Catholic) grammar school in the 1960s and taught in various schools as an adult. By far the best were well run comprehensives with good (but not oppressive) discipline, the expectation that all pupils could achieve if given encouragement and support, a strong community ethos and an atmosphere of mutual respect.

In which case it would be a private school in common parlance rather than a grammar school. The vast majority of people in the U.K. understand grammar schools to be non fee paying state maintained schools with selection based on academic ability

@RampantIvy

That’s a popular myth. Those of us who benefited from them in the 1950s and 60s know better. A lot of bright children from low income homes achieved success in grammar schools.

That simply isn't true of grammar schools now. What happened in the 1950s and 1960s bears no resemblance to what happens these days @Blossomtoes.

@EspressoDoubleShot is correct. Most low income families can't afford the tutoring that the wealthier families, who employ tutors to hothouse their DC to pass the 11+, can. As a result the grammar schools in grammar school areas are filled predominantly with pupils from wealthier families.

And this has been acknowledged lots of times so not sure what your point is.

The family lived in a wealthy enclave of religious families - primarily doctors and lawyers - outside of London. It seemed to be the norm for them.
For wealthy families with lots of children, living in close proximity the economic viability of otherwise extinct practices is probably very different.

Sorry @blameless, so you are confirming that this woman and her social circle definitely employed another woman who had recently given birth to breastfeed her child?

A uni friend of mine showed me a photo of one of her houses (yes, one of them!) It was enormous, with so many windows, I almost asked, ‘Which flat is yours?’ Fortunately, the penny dropped before I opened my mouth.

we moved to a large house when I was in secondary school. When I invited my new friends to my house they couldn't believe I had my own bedroom and had dinner around a table.I never had to ask my mum if thy could stay to eat, she just served them some food. When I went to my new friends I had to sit in another room while they ate, not enough food to feed me.