Shackleton: Endurance We Conquer talk by Michael Smith Saturday 17th October 1.30pm
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A A day-school for girls and a boarding school for boys (even with, by the late '90s, a tiny cadre of girls) are very different places. Though there are some similarities. I think all schools, for instance, have similar "rules", much as they all nail up notices about "potential" and "achievement" and keeping to the left on the stairs. The private schools go a little further, banging on about "serving the public", as they have since they were set up (either to supply the colonies with District Commissioners, Brigadiers and Missionaries, or the provinces with railway engineers), so they've got the language and rituals down nicely. Which, i suppose, is what visitors and day-pupils expect, and are expected, to see. A boarding school, outside the cloistered hours of lesson-times, once the day-pupils and teaching staff have been sent packing, the gates and chapel safely locked and the brochures put away, becomes a much less ambassadorial place. That's largely because they're filled with several hundred bored, tired, self-supervised adolescents condemned to spend the night together in the flickering, dripping bowels of its ancient buildings, most of which were designed only to impress from the outside, the comfort of their occupants being secondary to the glory of whatever piratical benefactor had, in a last-ditch attempt to sway the judgement of their god, chucked a little of their ill-gotten at the alleged improvement of the better class of urchin. Those adolescents may, to the curious eyes of the outer world, seem privileged but, in that moment, they cannot access any outer world (at least pre-1996 or thereabouts). Their whole existence, for months at a time, takes place in uniformity behind those gates where money, should they have any to hand, cannot purchase better food or warmer clothing. In that peculiar world, there is no difference between the seventh son of a murderous sheikh, the darling child of a ball-bearing magnate, the umpteenth Viscount Smethwick, or the offspring of some hapless Foreign Office drone who's got themselves posted to Minsk. They are egalitarian, in that sense, but that's as far as it goes. In any place where rank and priviilege mean nothing, other measures will evolve, which is why even the best-intentioned of committees will, from time to time, spawn its cliques and launch heated disputes over archaic matters that, in any other context, would have long been forgotten. The same is true of the boarding school which, over the dismal centuries, has developed a certain culture all its own, with a language indended to pass all understanding and attitiudes and practices to match. This is unsurprising as every new intake will, being young and disoriented, eagerly mimic their seniors, and so also learn those words and attitudes and practices which, miserably or otherwise, will more accurately reflect the weight of history than the Guardian's style-guide and, to contemporary eyes and ears, seem outlandish, beastly and deplorably wicked. Which, of course, it all is. But however much we might regret it, and urge headteachers to get up on Sundays and preach about how we should all be tolerant, not kill anyone unnecessarily, and take pity on the oiks, it won't make the blindest bit of difference. William Golding may, according to psychologists, have overstated his case but I doubt that many 20th Century boarders would agree with them. Instead, they might look to Shakespeare, who cheerfully exploits differences of sex and race and belief and ability to arm his bullies, murderers, fraudsters and tyrants and remains celebrated to this day, Admittedly, this is mostly opinion, borne only of my own regrettable experience and, because I had that experience and heard those words (though, being naive and small-townish, i didn't understand them till much later) and saw and suffered a heap of brutishness*, that might make my opinion both unfair and biased. If so, then I can only say it's the least that those institutions deserve. Sure, the schools themselves don't willingly foster that culture, which is wholly contrary to everything in the brochures, but there's not much they can do about it without posting staff permanently in corridors and dormitories and washrooms, which would, I'd suggest, create a whole other set of problems, not least financial. So, like any other business, they take care of the money and keep aloof from the rest. That, to my mind, is the problem. They've turned something into a business that really shouldn't be a business. Education is one thing, raising a child is another, and limited-liability corporations, however charitable, tend not to make the best parents. And so, in retrospect, I'm inclined not to blame the students either (though, for years after, I eagerly read the my Old School magazine, my heart doing a little dance at every black-edged announcement of a yachting tragedy, avalanche or coup). They get chucked into this swamp where they have to learn to fend for themselves and so many, naturally, will behave like predators in an attempt to fit in. Not all, certainly. Some will keep their heads down and hope not to be noticed while others, if they have a particular talent, might find that it protects them. But that leaves more than enough to keep the toxic culture alive, and it is no surprise at all that when they emerge they appear damaged to the outside world. For that's exactly what they are. They might, and sometimes do, improve once returned to the normal stream of life if given time and support, and that's good. But the damage lasts, all the same, and isn't a reason to vote for them. * Not, if it helps to disappoint any lawyers, at Dulwich, though there's nothing in the allegations that I didn't instantly recognise, -
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