'State schools are creating amoral children'

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...because state schools are under so much pressure to improve results that there's no time to teach them right from wrong.

So says Chairman of the Independent Schools Association

Bit speechless really. It's giving me the absolute RAGE.

Mart no one has said the playing field is level but not knowing how to eat asparagus or not knowing arcane public school lexicons" is the cause of the such huge disparities between different groups. Money is the cause, and asparagus eating and arcane public school jargon are associated but not necessarily intrinsically linked to wealth in the 21st century.

Oh martorana calm down.

No one has said there's a level playing field. In fact if you actually read my post you'd see I said categorically that the class system and elitism is alive and well.

However, the idea that table manners and use of public school speak, make much of a difference these days is just plain wrong.

Coincidentally, I went to a talk last night and the head of a public school was discussing what young people needed to do to succeed and it very much centred around being part of the global community.

It does go back to my point, happy, that 6 years of training can very much go down the tubes overnight when the rich and powerful aren't interested in the skill any more. Whole communities, trades and crafts have been decimated in that way over the centuries. Just imagine taking 6 years to train for something, and it's no longer wanted or needed in 5 years' time, or cheaper people have been shipped in in the meantime, so you can't make a decent living out of it any longer... people want instant gratification these days, and the ability to move on if they don't like it as much as their employer wants the ability to sack them if they don't like them. You can have job insecurity and 6-year training schemes. Who would train to be a doctor if after all that time, you were told machines could be doctors these days, because nobody felt the need for the finer craftsmanship of a real person any more?

Martorana - I think you are being unfair. Nobody has said the class system doesn't exist or that people don't need help breaking through class barriers, just that learning how to eat asparagus has nothing to do with it.

Sorry, I mean you CAN'T have job insecurity and 6-year training schemes. The two are mutually incompatible.

I think our state school spends a lot of time on personal development, I've been really impressed. Far more than the independent school I went to - they really were obsessed with results. So much so we didn't learn subjects in an enjoyable, exploring type of way - we repeated rote fashion ad finitum so that we could pass the exams.

The sorts of things that are often markers are where you've been, what sort of WE you've had, who you know, the sports you play, your engagement in the arts, the books you've read. Travel and sport probably come top.

Frankly, I think there's a bit of rank hypocrisy going on in the establishment. We are regularly told we have to be flexible these days - the job market's changing all the time, technology is taking the old jobs, you have to be a jack of all trades to keep up with it, be able to go with the flow, move on to something else when your old career ceases to exist. Oh, and you also have to specialise, doing a 6-year apprenticeship.

As I suspected Martorana, I think some of your views are quite out of date. The world changes a lot in say 30 years.

Quite Herc. I know someone who lost some of his luggage. And the thing that he was really going on about? The fact that his book was gone! He was really quite upset about the book!

Tha asparagus eating was a throw away remark. But feel free to treat it as if I think it's the most important thing I said.

And if anyone can look, for example at the current Cabinet and at Cameron's inner circle and still think that the invisible barriers have been broken down, I suspect they need to look again.

And the divisive nature of our education system continues to maintain those barriers.

Rabbit obviously my DH can only speak for his area, in his world there is job security, many have worked their since man and boy the recently retired member of staff had been there since he was 14 years old, for this area of work the future is very Rosie. As one client said to him the other day the Poles are bloody good but they can't do what you do!
My DH has also been in the industry for just under 30 years we've moved around but he's always found work. But you do have to be in the right market they work at the very top end where money is literally no object only, slightly further down: the very wealthy it's not looking so good.
My DH would love to find bright creative enthusiastic individuals to train and he would assure them that there is as much job security in his world as any other you care to mention.

But Mart David Cameron et al were at school some 30 years ago do you really think in 30 years time the cabinet will be full of Old Etonians? I somehow doubt it times are changing.

There was job security in the dockyards.

Sounds like there's job security in your dh's field for so long as the super rich fancy living in places like London and contributing to astronomical house price inflation. It does of course create work for a tiny, specialist niche market, but is also like going back to a time when the elite decided which composers or artists to sponsor and command to entertain their court, what opulent palaces to build and where, etc, etc. The creative and talented thus had to smarm up to those with the wealth and power, hope not to fall out with them and have their lives destroyed, and all so that they could have smaller garrets to live in. They also had to hope not to have their eyes gouged out if they produced something too beautiful, as a means of ensuring they could never do anything nicer for anyone else. All bringing back memories of huge inequalities and injustices.

It is very annoying that only great wealth can pay for great man-made beauty, and thus the wealthy have control over it all, including the men.

martorana you're making yourself look bloody daft now.

No one has said there are no barriers. No one. You're quarelling in an empty box, as my Nan used to say.

What posters are saying is that the barriers are very different to the ones you always describe.

There's a whole new discourse, a whole new set of values. Still not fair, though, to those on the outside.

I just love MN! It keeps me coming back when you can start with state schools creating amoral children and then home in on tne correct way to eat asparagus! You don't get it anywhere else.
Things change but it takes time. Much better to have the inevitability of slow change than rush it through and get rebellion.

It is so simple nowadays- just Google 'the correct way to eat asparagus' before going out, if you think it might be served! No one need remain in ignorance.

We are slowly changing back to a minute and hugely powerful elite, and a great mass of underlings. As happygardening has already pointed out, democracy is a bit of an illusion - whatever I vote for where I live, I know what I'll end up with. You either go with the slow, inevitable flow, or you revolt and create the unpredictable, you can't slowly go against the flow.

Rabbit the way arts ed is going I fear it will become the preserve of the monied. Which is scandalous.

From the internet:

"Table manners for eating asparagus.

When asparagus stalks are firm and aren't sauced, it's fine to pick them up with your fingers, one stalk at a time. (Asparagus is traditionally a finger food, and the English and many other nationalities still see it as such.)

Think twice, however, about using your fingers for unsauced, firm spears if your fellow diners use a knife and fork or if you're a guest at a formal meal. When in doubt, use utensils."

(I'm posh and I didn't know it).

rabbit I agree with you.

The middle ground has been quiety swept away. The MC are in no better position to join the elite than the working class. Not really.

At the talk I attended last night, I was struck that the things being suggested as a way for young people to find success may be more meritocrous than the old system of table manners and old school tie, as they are things that require great effort on the young person's part...but they were all blindingly expensive!

So whilst they weren't handed on a plate, they still excluded those without hard cash in some instances.

I did know the correct way to eat asparagus because it was in a book I read when young (as an example of a faux pas an unclassy person made). Similarly the issue of pre and post lactarians in the area of tea drinking (I'm a vegan and have never drunk tea yet still I know).

Word is absolutely right about the elites pulling up the drawbridge. We are now a nation of debt laden serfs. Even if we have no current debt the likelihood of future debt related to poxy pensions and funding of elderly care means that without significant capital a person, even one with a current high salary, is essentially fucked.

The right way to eat asparagus is irrelevant in our global world since nationalities are n't going to adhere to those rules . The class system is more about spending power than anything else.

Word, what were the things suggested as a way for young people to find success?

Oh gawd pippi there was allsorts. He did go on a bit, bless him.

But the things that stuck out to me as bloody expensive included.

• learning MFLs to a higher level than GCSE, including out of school if a student does not wihs to sit an MFL A level.

• doing the IB (which I think hardly any state schools do, so essentially he was saying 'go private')

• do the pre-u, which again means 'go private'.

• attend extended residentials in foreign countries (for culture as well as language).

• Consider university abroad, especially for post undergraduate studies.

• whatever your degree, mark yourself out as a person of the arts (which as Herc says, is fast becoming the province of the rich).

• look for international internships and programs (can you imagine how much that would cost )...