the next few were all on the same theme or about the real bus farce.
The bus conspiracy actually suits him though. Makes him appear a cunning strategist rather than a numpty who didnt think through some obvious questions.
Think so? I think it makes him look like someone who doesn't know the difference between the public transport infrastructure in a major city and a toy bus. But then I don't get a vote in this election or read the Daily mail so what I think doesn't matter
I don't really see Bussy McBusFace having much of a strategy about anything.
Don’t private schools do different A levels (which their staff just happen to write the questions for) to state schools? <span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">All above board, of course</span>
Lol no. they use standard exam board and their exams. The school I went to certainly picked carefully the exam boards they chose (I think more to get exams that fitted the closest with their teaching rather than what were considered to be the easier exams). No clue if this has changed since or if state schools do the same.
Don’t send her to boarding school. If you genuinely can’t stand her and don’t want her around, put her up for adoption
Wow, just wow. You clearly had a bad experience Bruce but plenty of others enjoyed boarding, me for one. I have a great relationship with my parents and felt loved as a kid but after the initial trepidation and a bit of homesickness I generally enjoyed boarding. Sure the rules sucked on occasion but my parents would have imposed rules/discipline to and I'd have probably resented them more for it then just resenting 'the school'. If you're bullied then boarding school must be a nightmare as you don't have an escape but very little bullying went on at the school I was at. Having a big group of mates around after school was usually a bonus and from the 5th form you got your own room anyhow.
I'm not trying to sell boarding school as the greatest thing on earth, I had a fair few bad times there but on the whole I enjoyed it and certainly don't regret the experience, nor do I think it damaged me or think it showed my parents didn't love me.
Were boarding schools different 30 years ago?
Because current experiences with boarding schools won't match some like Boris Johnson s experience
That video Kelvin linked to just shows what a thick **** Johnson is.
Labour's no confidence vote is the only way out of this.
I'm sure many people do enjoy boarding school. If you have the kind of personality that lends itself to fitting in then I'm sure you would get on fine. Most people aren't like that though. In a normal upbringing there is constant negotiation within the family, pushing boundaries, give and take, learning to compromise. That's not something that you can learn in boarding school. You adapt to the system or you have a bad time.
If you feel you have to send your kids to boarding school because of your lifestyle then change your lifestyle. In my case I went because we were living in the Middle East. The solution shouldn't have been for me to leave but for all of us to go back home. We actually moved back for my last year of school and straight away I found a great group of friends but most importantly I had the space to find my own way. The pressure to have my 'school face' on 24/7 was lifted and I was a much better person for it.
Long term though the damage was done. Twenty years later I'm only just starting to straighten things out.
And I only spent three years in a boarding school. I have no idea what kind of state I'd be in if I'd spent most of my upbringing in that environment.
Long term though the damage was done. Twenty years later I’m only just starting to straighten things out.
But you don't know what damage would have been done if you went to a comprehensive school, you may have also come away with a lot of issues (just different ones)
Dear god, I read some of the educational debate - the one where TJ characteristically states everything he believes as 'widely accepted', 'proven fact' etc, instead of just owning his opinion based on some evidence. But...
You get taught to pass exams – not to have life skills like critical thinking, asnalytical thing and most importantly to be self motivated
This is true of every school not just the independent sector.
There seem to be two difference issues in play:
1. Boarding schools screw up kids because they place them in a weird, alien environment with little family support - note: you don't have to go to a boarding school to benefit from childhood emotional trauma, it's quite possible to experience this without spending tens of thousands of pounds.
2. Our education system and much of our society - not necessarily public schools specifically - focuses on a particular narrow type of academic learning and uses it as an entry bar to all sorts of things, notably jobs / professions, while emotional intelligence, common sense etc are under-rated, so we end up with a political and commercial world dominated by people trained in book learning and, in the case of the products of most university systems, oppositional arguing where you take a fixed position and debate its essential correctness against all comers in a quite inflexible way - hello Tory party, hello Jeremy Corbyn. Hello Parliament with its baying question times absurdity and face-to-face benches.
Ironically this is sort of what TJ is doing with the whole public schools indisputably screw up everyone who goes to them thing. A more nuanced take is probably that they screw up some pupils, others have a better home support network or a psyche that's more resilient or whatever. There are probably also differences in kids who board from, say, the age of 13 and those sent away when they're much younger. Bear in mind that they also spend a chunk of time at home.
My take, fwiw, is that the point about our society valuing narrowing academic achievement and selecting leaders on the basis of that in all sorts of fields is arguably more important and damaging to our country as a whole than individuals being emotional damaged by boarding schools, though there's obviously a cross-over - waves at Boris. We've ended up with a leadership that's good at marshalling facts to support arguments above anything else, like emotional empathy, people skills etc.
Oh, and yeah, I get the irony that I've just typed out all this in a classic pseudo-intellectual way.
But anyway, the question I'd ask, is how knowing all this helps us cope with Boris Johnson and his ilk. Understanding something isn't the same as sorting it out - more of academic thought bias there - and short of going back in time and kidnapping Johnson from Eton, I don't see what we can do about it in the short term. That one goes to TJ 😉
But you don’t know what damage would have been done if you went to a comprehensive school, you may have also come away with a lot of issues (just different ones)
Sure. But it's undeniable that boarding school is a deeply unnatural environment for a child to grow up in. Living with your parents, going to school, and coming home each day is not.
If you've got shitty parents then you might end up with problems. But if the parents are that shitty then the solution should be to take the child into care, not send them to boarding school.
The Irony being that taking them into care costs about ten times as much as sending them to Eton
Leo Robson has an excellent article on Johnson in the latest New Statesman. It's a bit long to post on here.
And they say Boris Johnson has a clever way of misleading the actual discussion. Got nothing on STW.
The Irony being that taking them into care costs about ten times as much as sending them to Eton
Is that true? It's true of prisons, I've no idea if it's true of care:
https://fullfact.org/crime/prison-or-eton-which-costs-more/
But it’s undeniable that boarding school is a deeply unnatural environment for a child to grow up in. Living with your parents, going to school, and coming home each day is not.
Is that true? We have no idea how people lived in pre-history but I'm sure plenty of prehistoric cultures nurtured kids as a tribe rather than as a family group.
In the Uk currently kids stay at home forever, often into their 30s but a couple of hundred hears ago kids would go off to work as apprentices at a very young age.
The 'unnatural argument' is pretty weak anyway. Going to School is pretty un-natural. It's pretty un-natural to get up at 6am, drive at 80mph to a place of work and sit in front of a screen all day having Skype/slack meetings with people in different time zones. We still do it. We don't all live hunting and foraging for berries and nuts and die of old age at 24!
Having primary care givers is natural. Being raised in a system (where you follow rules designed to control a large group of children rather than learning to compromise within the family group) is not.
Yes, we do many things that are not natural all the time. However, having a primary care giver to look after you as you grow is something that is so deeply ingrained it's up there with eating and sleeping as far a natural behavior goes.
Unless you're saying that 11 year olds are effectively adults.
Having primary care givers is natural. ... having a primary care giver to look after you as you grow is something that is so deeply ingrained it’s up there with eating and sleeping as far a natural behavior goes.
Up until 24 months I'd certainly agree with you. After that I don't know. But it does raise the question, kids typically start nursery at 12 months when (I think) it's beyond debate that a primary care giver is essential.
Maybe boarding school is a tiny issue compared to kids who are apart from their mothers for 10 hours a day from 12 months onwards...
Unless you’re saying that 11 year olds are effectively adults.
Eton starts at 13. It wasn't that long ago that 13 year olds were Naval officers commanding men and single handedly assaulting enemy ships. (Bonus marks for anyone who can identify who I'm talking about there...)
...and yeah, I think many/most kids shouldn't be living at home by (say) 14. I left home when I went to Uni and that was *way* too late IMHO.
If they were to leave home and become independent (ie, have their own space and be able to decide for themselves what to do and when to do it) then I might agree with you.
However, that's not what boarding school is. You take the child out of an environment where they can negotiate to change the rules and have others adapt to their needs, and put them into an environment where they have no influence on the rules and the rules are specifically designed to keep control of hundreds of children rather than to help them develop.
And they say Boris Johnson has a clever way of misleading the actual discussion. Got nothing on STW.
Do stay on topic...
"...And I only spent three years in a boarding school. I have no idea what kind of state I’d be in if I’d spent most of my upbringing in that environment..."
You do understand that your experiences are exactly that right? Yours?
I started at boarding school when I was 7 years old and left at 16. At 42 I've thus far managed to be a productive member of society, spent 12 years in the military)which truth be told has done far more to affect my MH than boarding school did) and I continue to provide what I see as a positive benefit to society as a Ctitical Care Nurse.
If I had stayed at the South London junior school I moved from I'd have likely ended up at the local comprehensive school (Kingsdale) which, at the time, was llittle more than a finishing school for criminals.
Ctitical Care Nurse
Care nursing for women with specific bra size? Awesome
However, you do realise that your experiences are exactly that? Yours?
I didn't go to public school but still ended up not being a criminal
Maybe this back and forth is worthy of its own separate thread?. I only came here for the Bishop...I mean Boris bashing and that seems to be lacking over the last 3 or 4 pages
You do understand that your experiences are exactly that right? Yours?
If you have genuinely never had any of the symptoms that describe boarding school syndrome then fair play, your character is obviously a good fit for the environment. For most people it isn't.
I too am a fully functioning member of society. I excel at appearing calm under pressure and projecting confidence and competence no matter how out of my depth I am (over the years I have gradually learned it's OK to admit when I don't know something, though).
The downside to this is that I have had real problems with depression and maintaining relationships. While I am improving there's still a long way to go.
Maybe this back and forth is worthy of its own separate thread?
I wouldn't waste your breath. They'll all hug and agree that TJ was right in a few pages time.
Not sure if this will work, but this just made me LOL
https://twitter.com/mikegalsworthy/status/1144507374721523712
Came here to slag off BJ - stayed for the big boarding school fight.
I went to Boarding School and hated every minute of it. I was bullied incessantly and if I ever dared retaliate I always seemed to be the one punished. I struggle in social situations, needing specific things in common to relate to anyone else. I suffer from bouts of depression and now have a violent temper I struggle to keep in check.
Perhaps I should run for Parliament...
Boris must have dead cats coming out of his arse to have a spare one to throw in this thread.
If you have genuinely never had any of the symptoms that describe boarding school syndrome then fair play, your character is obviously a good fit for the environment. For most people it isn’t
But of the symptoms I've seen listed I bet many who didn't go through boarding school have also experienced. Just because someone can tick one or two of the boxes doesn't mean they have a syndrome and were badly damaged by their schooling experience.
That Twitter video link is hilarious. Watched it a few times now, the timing is excellent.
If I had stayed at the South London junior school I moved from I’d have likely ended up at the local comprehensive school (Kingsdale) which, at the time, was llittle more than a finishing school for criminals
If I had stayed at the South London junior school I moved from I’d have likely ended up at the local comprehensive school (Kingsdale) which, at the time, was llittle more than a finishing school for criminals
Now I'm wondering if you went to the same South London junior school that I went to...?!
In final year we all went for a school open day thing at Kingsdale and everything saw agreed entirely with your description.
"Now I’m wondering if you went to the same South London junior school that I went to…?!"
Kingswood Primary School.
But of the symptoms I’ve seen listed I bet many who didn’t go through boarding school have also experienced.
Thats right - military veterans and ex-convicts share the same psycological profile so its not just the privileged few. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thats right – military veterans and ex-convicts share the same psycological profile so its not just the privileged few. 🙂
I guess it applies to anyone who has had to live in a confined, structured environment.
So that would include seafarers and offshore workers.
I read somewhere that seafarers and ex-boarding school pupils, adapt easily to being in prison.
I know when I am working on a vessel or barge I have a slightly different mindset to when I am at home. I suppose it's 30 years of "conditioning" myself to that environment. I know that it's not for everyone but I enjoy my work and think the financial awards and free time I have when home, make it worthwhile.
I guess that it has "changed" me, but don't believe it's done any significant "damage".
Back on tack. Johnson under fire for illegal use of data for mailshots - pretty clear he has breached GDPR.
Still talking nonsense about renegotiation. Pandering to Forster over everything
At least now we know why Osborne has decided to start supporting Johnson.
Seems he is bored of being a newspaper editor and wants to be in charge of the IMF.
Always good to read Stewart Lee's take on BoJoit
Not trusted with intelligence information?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48874147
Has Theresa justy done him over? If so this will prove to be her legacy.
They spinning that it was because May was a control freak, and not that the Johnson was a complete ****ing liability, so time will tell.
They spinning that it was because May was a control freak,
Well if the last year has proved one thing it's proved that fact.
Boris was kept away from Russia stuff… not because he was considered some kind of spy, just incompetent… and things were getting properly hot at the time, so additional risks were to be avoided.
