There is a small eddy in the discourse about boarding schools, for example here and here. Just a couple of books and articles, but I think they represent a deeper shift in the hidden iceberg of English middle class opinion. Fifty years ago, sending children to live at boarding school at the age of, say, eight was a normal thing to do. Today, to many of the same people, including boarding school kids themselves, it seems weird and wrong.
Hi David, I really value your writing of this post.
I got obsessed with this topic when I lived in the UK for almost two decades and saw the class system playing out in every institution and organization I was in, as well as watching the behaviour of the political class. I had a friend who had been sent to Gordonstoun and had a horrible time there, spent a lot of adulthood trying to recover from it.
I've read Alex Renton, as well as Nick Duffell, Richard Beard (Sad Little Men), Martin Stephen (The English Public School), Robert Verkaik (Posh Boys), Musa Okwonga (one of Them), and Charles Spencer. I think Musa's book in particular is an indictment of the public school-to-Oxbridge training for positions in government given the sexism and racism he describes.
As a psychologist I consider sending a child away to boarding school as abuse, full stop. My doctoral focus was on human development and psychology, specifically cognitive development and leadership. Given major reorganisations of the brain throughout childhood and adolescence (and until the mid-twenties), it's remarkably damaging to a child's emotional and psycho-social development to be stripped from a secure and supportive environment -- or even an imperfect family that challenges them -- and thrust into one in which there is no one they can definitively turn to or count on for support and comfort. Even worse is being subject to bullies and predators without protection or recourse. If you want to produce a traumatised, hypervigilant, and emotionally damaged human being, this is a great way to go about it.
It truly breaks my heart because kids put through this have essentially been robbed of the full human experience by having to suppress important parts of themselves in order to survive. The 'product' tends to be people incapable of empathy not only for others but for themselves. They then infect others, e.g. Boris Johnson in his dealings with his wives and kids as well as in his 'leadership' roles.
Unfortunately boarding schools are thriving, from what I understand, because the elite around the world, especially the Chinese, are sending their kids to these schools. Just what we need more of -- an international elite suffering from trauma and abandonment issues and incapable of empathy.
I'm not saying this is true of all boarding school kids, as resilience and the ability to 'recruit' positive relationships plays a role in who adjusts and survives, or even learns to thrive. It seems you may fall in that category. But with all the books coming out from an older generation willing to challenge a very well-funded and well-protected boarding school power structure and call it out for its legacy and impact on individuals and society, I think there's a growing body of evidence that these schools are not positive or benign institutions and are doing inestimable damage with the people they are 'nurturing' for positions of influence and power.
Hi David, I really value your writing of this post.
I got obsessed with this topic when I lived in the UK for almost two decades and saw the class system playing out in every institution and organization I was in, as well as watching the behaviour of the political class. I had a friend who had been sent to Gordonstoun and had a horrible time there, spent a lot of adulthood trying to recover from it.
I've read Alex Renton, as well as Nick Duffell, Richard Beard (Sad Little Men), Martin Stephen (The English Public School), Robert Verkaik (Posh Boys), Musa Okwonga (one of Them), and Charles Spencer. I think Musa's book in particular is an indictment of the public school-to-Oxbridge training for positions in government given the sexism and racism he describes.
As a psychologist I consider sending a child away to boarding school as abuse, full stop. My doctoral focus was on human development and psychology, specifically cognitive development and leadership. Given major reorganisations of the brain throughout childhood and adolescence (and until the mid-twenties), it's remarkably damaging to a child's emotional and psycho-social development to be stripped from a secure and supportive environment -- or even an imperfect family that challenges them -- and thrust into one in which there is no one they can definitively turn to or count on for support and comfort. Even worse is being subject to bullies and predators without protection or recourse. If you want to produce a traumatised, hypervigilant, and emotionally damaged human being, this is a great way to go about it.
It truly breaks my heart because kids put through this have essentially been robbed of the full human experience by having to suppress important parts of themselves in order to survive. The 'product' tends to be people incapable of empathy not only for others but for themselves. They then infect others, e.g. Boris Johnson in his dealings with his wives and kids as well as in his 'leadership' roles.
Unfortunately boarding schools are thriving, from what I understand, because the elite around the world, especially the Chinese, are sending their kids to these schools. Just what we need more of -- an international elite suffering from trauma and abandonment issues and incapable of empathy.
I'm not saying this is true of all boarding school kids, as resilience and the ability to 'recruit' positive relationships plays a role in who adjusts and survives, or even learns to thrive. It seems you may fall in that category. But with all the books coming out from an older generation willing to challenge a very well-funded and well-protected boarding school power structure and call it out for its legacy and impact on individuals and society, I think there's a growing body of evidence that these schools are not positive or benign institutions and are doing inestimable damage with the people they are 'nurturing' for positions of influence and power.
And as someone who writes about music, my favorite boarding school song -- Supertramp's "Logical Song" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=low6Coqrw9Y
Enjoyed this Davey boy. See you after scrubbins for flapjacks with Blisely
“had the same level of prestige and fame that a Harvard president does now,” so, none?
Fatality!!