Adults are wrong to criticise ‘woke’ children, says Benenden head

[Igneococcus]

Has she been stonewalled?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2c743ce4-4ae7-11ec-9bc6-5abf98655bc4?shareToken=126806d1cce5d3397e820e042ca98924

But these ideas aren't originating with the kids, they are being taught them. So what she is actually saying is 'you shouldn't disagree with me when I indoctrinate children in my care with a harmful ideology'.

She's a head of a very good school (and no my kids don't go there!). I'd listen to what she has to say tbh - none of it sounded at all controversial to me.

Because she's head of an expensive private school we should listen to our betters? No, sorry. I listen to people based on whether what they say makes sense or not, not according to their wealth or status.

@merrymouse

She chairs the girls schools association committee on inclusion

Splutter £40k annual fees.

The fact that social class and related inequalities disappeared almost completely from political and public debate is a travesty. I am foreigner but it is pretty obvious for anyone with two working brain cells that the private system of education is one of the most potent, systemic factors that work to reproduce systemic inequalities. An inclusion committee in a school where half of the students have live in servants is just ridiculous.

Posh kids being woke. Oh my days.

Them being in a £40k a year school is as anti-woke as it is possible to be.

If they were really woke they would give up their privileged education and pop off to the local comp.

Honestly. These people.

@ArabellaScott

She's a head of a very good school (and no my kids don't go there!). I'd listen to what she has to say tbh - none of it sounded at all controversial to me.

Because she's head of an expensive private school we should listen to our betters? No, sorry. I listen to people based on whether what they say makes sense or not, not according to their wealth or status.

You don't have to listen to her at all! I think you'll find state secondary schools also respect teens opinions. But you cared enough about what she said to start a thread on it. The Times are OBSESSED with "wokedom" and the comments are always so depressing and nasty. Glad I cancelled my subscription.

(you personally didn't start the thread I know)

I really dont get why post people fall so hard for this shit? Its a total mystery to me.

@Shedmistress

Posh kids being woke. Oh my days.

Them being in a £40k a year school is as anti-woke as it is possible to be.

If they were really woke they would give up their privileged education and pop off to the local comp.

Honestly. These people.

Completely this.

I think the whole 'children are born with innate wisdom and insight, they know best, let them teach us' ideal has been destruction tested in education in the past few years, and in the real world we're starting to see the downsides. Rather like the 'let them discover reading by surrounding them with wonderful books and they'll absorb it naturally without us spoiling their innate perceptions by teaching them to read' fad, which also had its day. There are significant issues in this population with mental health, resilience, tolerance of uncomfortable emotions or disagreement, there are noted issues in a sizeable group with things like entitlement and work ethic tied up with resilience when it comes to employability - these are not good things. They do represent failure to prepare young people for adulthood.

When you are teaching children who are paying £40,000 a year you are living in a working world rather different to that with its feet on the ground. And it's concerning that its still the case that privately educated people dominate a really startling proportion of top jobs and influential positions, and in having initiated some of the more serious issues for women, for safeguarding, cancel culture, lecturing the Deptford Women's project homeless and substance dependent on pronouns etc etc. The private school industry really needs to take some responsibility for what they have had a strong hand in producing, and its impact on women as a society where the massive majority are not nearly so privileged and their voices not nearly so carefully nurtured and listened to.

Fariha I think part of it is being unaware of the hard truths of life, and part of it is guilt and trying to compensate for privilege.

@Shedmistress

Posh kids being woke. Oh my days.

Them being in a £40k a year school is as anti-woke as it is possible to be.

If they were really woke they would give up their privileged education and pop off to the local comp.

Honestly. These people.

Why would they? Our state secondary is fully Stonewall rainbow laces unisex loos. At least at a single sex school they don't have to put boys first all. The. Time

@ArabellaScott

Fariha I think part of it is being unaware of the hard truths of life, and part of it is guilt and trying to compensate for privilege.

So no state school kids are "woke"

Or is that allowed?

Why would they?

Why would they what?

You cannot pretend to be woke whilst getting private school education.

I mean, if you've never gone hungry and you've never been poor you can end up having quite skewed priorities. You can lose yourself in a dream of abstract principles unrelated to NHS waiting lists, electricity bills, and zero hours contracts.

I don't think I realised this fully until in higher ed. Where people had genuinely never experienced the slightest glimmer of worry or doubt or hardship about their financial security, often for several generations. I wonder if it's a barrier that is even possible to cross, really. Poverty takes years and years to bake into you, as does privilege.

We should be doing far more to try and look hard at actual privilege, and forget about some of the confected hierarchies that don't really have the impact we are given to believe.

‘The fact that social class and related inequalities disappeared almost completely from political and public debate is a travesty. I am foreigner but it is pretty obvious for anyone with two working brain cells that the private system of education is one of the most potent, systemic factors that work to reproduce systemic inequalities.’

This.
The focus on a particular set of oppressions has a useful function for people like her as a distraction from the worsening economic inequalities schools like this feed into.
While I don’t blame anyone for paying for the best possible education for their kids, I do take speeches like hers with a massive pinch of salt remembering her own stake in encouraging ‘wokeness’ rather than a somewhat less fashionable view of inequalities.
Young people’s passion for justice is wonderful but particularly in schools like that the young people tend not to have the wide social experiences that would enable them to direct that passion effectively.

I go past a private school on my way to work on the bus, a popular one on the top of a hill. There are some of the students who get the bus. There was until recently a boy who got this bus, he was a strapping lad who always wore normal school uniform except for a school girls skirt, v short. I saw an interview with the head of this school recently, there was a pic of the head for the interview. The head seemed to be wearing what appeared to be more of less a grown up version of the school uniform (the boys version).
It gave me a very uncomfortable feeling.

@Kikkomam

Also equating teen girls being aware of social injustice with having the right haircut seems the antithesis of feminism to me.

No, there is pressure on girls to conform to beauty standards and put other’s needs before their own.

There is nothing new about this. Feminists have always talked about these issues.

'We should be doing far more to try and look hard at actual privilege, and forget about some of the confected hierarchies that don't really have the impact we are given to believe.'

God, this should be tatooed on to some people forheads imo.

Oh, if you want a pop at private education then I can understand the motivation behind this thread more. Perhaps ask your local state secondary what their polices are on transgender inclusion, I doubt you'll be very happy about those either.

I mean, if you've never gone hungry and you've never been poor you can end up having quite skewed priorities. You can lose yourself in a dream of abstract principles unrelated to NHS waiting lists, electricity bills, and zero hours contracts.

YY. It's very easy to make lofty pronouncements about being "inclusive" with other women's rights when you're never likely to end up in a refuge or women's prison, and have never wanted for anything.

Not for the majority of girls at my dds high achieving single sex indie, no. Plenty aren't on the hockey team and there isn't a 'right' haircut

Good for you. I went to a single sex private school and I go to the alumnae events and receive the magazines. The pressure is huge. I would guess that some parents don’t think this is too harmful as long as it achieves the right results. I remember the eating disorders and breakdowns.

@ArabellaScott

I mean, if you've never gone hungry and you've never been poor you can end up having quite skewed priorities. You can lose yourself in a dream of abstract principles unrelated to NHS waiting lists, electricity bills, and zero hours contracts.

I don't think I realised this fully until in higher ed. Where people had genuinely never experienced the slightest glimmer of worry or doubt or hardship about their financial security, often for several generations. I wonder if it's a barrier that is even possible to cross, really. Poverty takes years and years to bake into you, as does privilege.

We should be doing far more to try and look hard at actual privilege, and forget about some of the confected hierarchies that don't really have the impact we are given to believe.

Plenty of kids at state school have never gone hungry or been poor btw

Perhaps ask your local state secondary what their polices are on transgender inclusion, I doubt you'll be very happy about those either.

How is that in any way the point?

@Terfasaurus

Benenden has always been achingly progressive,

Hopefully all the other girls’ heads attending the conference will disagree with her assessment that “parents need to be helped to understand”…

Private girls’ schools have been forced to think about this issue already and decide where they stand. Even the ones who pay lip service to it, won’t admit boys and if challenged, are always able to justify reasons for keeping them out even if it’s something as banal as “we don’t think Jazz is the right fit for our school”.

There probably will be a test case at some point somewhere but on the whole single sex private schools are the safest environment for girls in the current climate, which is an outrageous state of affairs.

Quite.

In Glasgow you could go to a school in Bearsden and a school in Easterhouse, just a couple of miles away as the crow flies. You could note the difference in height of children of the same age. You may also note various other differences, such as motor skills and co ordination, confidence, energy levels. You could also note the fabric of the respective buildings, the resources, the staffing levels, and a long list of other things.

These differences are apparent already in primary school age children, and they will break your heart.