I don't think private schools breed confidence ...

[CheesyWellingtons]

I keep reading on here, and hearing in life, that public schools breed confidence. I don't think it is anywhere near as simple as that.

Isn't what is happening at home so much more important? Isn't it that confident people who tend to do well with their careers and can therefore afford private education also have confident children due to the confident parents? Or that those with inherited money feel confident in life due to that, and then send their children privately? Surely so much of how our children feel about themselves is due to how we as their parents feel about ourselves.

I can think of so many people at my private school who were not confident.

I do think that having small classes where teachers have time to offer opportunity and time makes a big difference. I agree with others, debating, shaking hands, talking confidently to adults etc are all v good for confidence building and take place IMHO often at private schools.

I do wonder whether there are any differences in the way we view confident males / females who have had a private education ( are the men just arrogant? Are the women also arrogant?)

I think you are either confident or you ain't. I don't think any school can make you more confident.

I simply don't buy that all writers are arrogant. Not the brilliant ones. Some maybe, but not as a given.

My DD's self confidence was destroyed by a teacher at a private school. When there are only 15 in the class, they can't hide, and it's very easy for an (inadequate) teacher to make a fool of, and ridicule a child. The other children titter and join in - if they don't, they know they will be next on the list for the teacher's sadistic streak. Five years on, and we're still picking up the pieces from this woman constantly telling my daughter she was stupid, slow etc.

We've done both state and private and have come across outstanding teachers in both, and utter dross in both. But if enough parents complain or vote with their feet, private schools seem to be better at getting rid of crap teachers.

No JK Rowling, well I just don't want to live in that world

There is such a thing as plain old arrogance though, as distinct from knowing you're competent and having some confidence, and it's not a nice trait.

yellowtip it may not be a typlical braying arrogance, but what else can one call it?

To assume that people will pay for our musings, must surely be arrogance? And to survive all the rejection and poor reviews and poor sales (which pretty every writer in the world has had to do at some point)...and still write more...

It's the same steely determination and inner absolute confidence in oneself and ones ability and ones worth that the business community shows (though their confidence is portrayed negatively). You quite simply couldn't do the job otherwise.

theoriginal is there really a difference? Somehting more than just a subjective view of the tipping point?

I recall maybe 5 years ago a House Master at Winchester quoting, on telly, that 'One thing we breed in our boys is confidence. I would agree that there are some who might even interpret that as arrogance...'

One of the worst things for someone's confidence is for them to feel they are missing out on something, that there is something they don't quite get and they will never know.

When they do those swap programmes on tv and you see children swap schools or homes. Council to huge home etc, you can see the relief and excitement on their little faces. I can do this. Many people think, if they can I can. Given the opportunity. It's just when you are closed out and you can't see it, it become bigger in the mind.

So being shut out can breed lack of confidence.

There are arrogant people from all schools whether they be state or independent. But surely a lot of is down to how we perceives someone; you may initially perceive someone as arrogant when you first meet them and then once you've got to know them you discover that they are far from being arrogant in fact may be rather reserved. I believe there's are rather famous book making exactly this point!
If I talk to my DS whose at boarding school he has sometimes said "oh I don't like so and so he's so arrogant" but a year later he's saying something different; "once you get to know him you realise he's not arrogant at all." The way children live when at boarding school means that they are often able revise to their initial impressions. Unfortunately as adults we don't always have the time in our busy lives to make an effort to go beyond the initial impression.

But MarshaBrady rightly or wrongly someone is always going to be shut out. Even if you do away with independent schools you cant stop people living in big house having expensive holidays etc. Inequality will always exists some people will always have more opportunities than others. I didn't have as many opportunities as some when I was a child but I also had more than others. My Ds's have more opportunities than I had but lots have more and many many of course have less it doesn't mean that I or they are better or worse people than those who do have more or less.
We will never create a utopian society it is not possible for all to be equal.
Even in a utopian society we would find that "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"

I don't want to do away with anything. It's not that I want a level playing field for everyone.

But I do think the simple act of seeing what is out there is good for the confidence. People will see there isn't that much difference after all. The children in this programme were so nervous about going to a big private school but change and adapted in about a week. So easily.

The difference is bigger in our minds than it actually is. So yes to state and private, maybe it's only a matter of more role models talking about their success in state. Maybe they do this anyway I don't know. But let people see it, give them the information.

I believe a child's family life has much more to do with their confidence than their school life. They will model your behaviour regarding how to talk to people and how to behave in social situations. My children's social skills are in no way lacking compared to their privately educated cousins.

Our dcs are at a state school, they are encouraged to speak out in class and they have many school based extracurricular activities which encourage confidence to develop. Some people on here don't seem to realise that some state schools have debating, drama, chess, orchestras, choirs, sport, pools, fantastic science facilities, foreign trips, yachting, skiing...

The problem is that provision is so patchy, we benefit as there is no grammar system and no decent private schools locally, so everyone sends their dcs to the comp, regardless of income, educational background or whatever. For example there are many families here where both parents have PhD level education, and are earning £150+ between them, and also many who are on average wages and benefits.

The academic results will never match a private school, because of the non selective intake. Our head said he was equally proud of the profoundly autistic child who has just mastered writing his own name, as he was of the student who had just got into Oxford, having discussed philosophy in Mandarin at her interview.

Firstly its not the fault off the independent sector that there are not enough "role models talking about their success in state." Secondly many do now have very strong links with local state schools my DS's one certainly does plus a strong community link with a deprived area in London. I recently listened to Anthony Seddon (Head at Wellington and not my favourite person) describing how he bought 3-4 children from a deprived area to his school for one day, to my mind this was a completely pointless exercise. Its just giving children a glimpse of what others have and seems to me to be emphasising the fact that they can never have it.

Asinine, you are right. A good comprehensive with supportive parents (supportive to the school and of their children) will develop young people to their full potential. They will be confident young adults.
My DS went to Eton. He is sharing a flat at university with one other public school boy and two boys who went to comprehensives (one in Devon, one in Wigan). We took them all out to celebrate my son's birthday. I would challenge anyone to guess which of the boys went to which type of school. We might have felt that we had wasted a whole lot of money on a private education - we didn't because schools like the one you describe simply don't exist in our area.

What I've noticed is that at my DC's private schools is that the DC seem very confident as whole group. Sure there are the odd timid ones but on the whole they are all confident and articulate.

At my local state schools this is not the case. Yes there are confident DC (tend to be the bright ones, and the wealtheir ones whose parents can buy into extra curricular stuff etc) and these will be the ones who go to debating club, sail for their school and go on to Oxbridge.

Thre may be a debate here of course as to whether it's adanatage, however one is schooled, that brings confidence...but...

What we need to address of course, is why those other DC are not confident. Why do large swathes of young people feel they are not good enough?

Exactly, Grovel.

I went to state school whereas my brothers went private. We all came out with straight As and read medicine. People tended to presume I was at private school, I certainly don't think I suffered at all from my comprehensive experience.

It is a scandal that provision can vary so widely. There are many excellent comps which prove that the system can work if done well.

Word, that's probably a much more important and interesting question.

Sadly, there are still many people who are brought up to think that 'swanning off' to university is an unrealistic and debt-inducing thing to do when you could be getting a 'proper' job. Or in families where school and authorities in general are seen as the enemy. In some schools, saying 'excuse me' instead of barging past would be seen as something tease worthy.

I think some people here don't have enough experience of state schools and are considering private shcools the norm.

I do think they breed confidence, and don't think that is necessarily a bad thing but can cuase some class tensions. I am a middle class and state educated and pretty confident, but the level of confidence (sometimes admittedly boardering on arrogence) exhibited by the privatly educated in my line of work (the media) has occasionally taken my breath away. A lot of that is 'backed up' with, I can't possibly be wrong as I am very intelligent as my teachers told me so, kind of reasoning.

At school I was asked to not answer all the questions so that someone else could have a go. it didn't repress my confidence at all, but I wasn't encouraged to feel that I was 'right', even when I was.

I think a lot of privalty educated people don't think it breeds confidence in order to justify their 'just world theory' i.e. I feel this was because I am right and I have worked hard to feel right. I was not advanteged by my schooling. Everyone else does not feel this way because they have not.

Where did I say it was the fault of the private sector.

I use private.

But take what's good and try and apply it to state.

It is a scandal that provision in the state sector varies so much and again not the fault of those in independent education. I'm lucky we have a top performing state on my doorstep, with vacancies, which DS1 attends but I'm very aware that many don't. So many on MN seem to be hung up about independent ed. it will never go away, there will always be people like me who will always choose to pay regardless of what is available. But those who seem to feel so strongly and who are often, on paper at least, very articulate would be better to channel their energies into the inequalities that exists in state education.

I was privately educated as are my children. I went to school in another country.

The difference here is greater. I am pro private but I am also for improving state schools by learning from private.

MarshaBrady I'm not saying you said necessarily said it was the fault of the independent sector but so many on MN make similar comments; better preparation for Oxbridge, better behaviour in indie ed etc as I've just said the fault lies with the individual school the local education authority and in this current economic downturn that too is going to have a significant impact on what children receive in state ed.

We may be in agreement hg. I see the difference is so much greater here and it's a shame.

The government needs to appreciate that it is not even necessarily more expensive to run state schools well than it is to run them badly. Dealing with bad behaviour, vandalism, truanting and so on is very expensive. Developing and enforcing a culture in school of respect, rewards for hard work, delayed gratification and manners may be very different to some children's experience at home, but would actually be cheaper in the long run, rather than accepting or expecting a level of disruption and employing lots of extra staff to deal with it.