Now attached to this internal structure instead of a parent, the boarding child survives, but takes into adulthood a permanent unconscious anxiety and will rarely develop what Daniel Goleman calls emotional intelligence. In adulthood he sticks to the same tactics: whenever he senses a threat of being made to look foolish, he will strike. The opposite benches loved it, of course, howling "Flashman!
Ex-boarders' partners often report that it ends up ruining home life, many years later. Bullying pervades British society, especially in politics and the media, but, like boarding, we normalise it. When, in , Jeremy Clarkson ranted that he would have striking public-sector workers shot , he was even defended by Cameron — it was apparently a bit of fun. No prizes for guessing where both men learned their styles. And no wonder that the House of Commons, with its adversarial architecture of Victorian Gothic — just like a public school chapel — runs on polarised debate and bullying.
Strategic survival has many styles: bullying is one; others include keeping your head down, becoming a charming bumbler, or keeping an incongruently unruffled smile in place, like health secretary Jeremy Hunt, former head boy at Charterhouse. In a remarkable BBC documentary called The Making of Them , whose title I borrowed for my first book, young boarders were discreetly filmed over their first few weeks at prep school.
Viewers can witness the "strategic survival personality" in the process of being built. This false independence, this display of pseudo-adult seriousness is as evident in the theatrical concern of Cameron as it was in Tony Blair. It displays the strategic duplicity learned in childhood; it is hard to get rid of, and, disastrously, deceives even its creator. The social privilege of boarding is psychologically double-edged: it both creates shame that prevents sufferers from acknowledging their problems, as well as unconscious entitlement that explains why ex-boarder leaders are brittle and defensive while still projecting confidence.
Boris is so supremely confident that he needs neither surname nor adult haircut; he trusts his buffoonery to distract the public from what Conrad Black called "a sly fox disguised as a teddy bear".
Or a coded message, announcing someone who, for 10 years, heard the King James Bible read in chapel at Eton? Those who don't recognise this language, it suggests, have no right to be here, so they should just clear off. This anachronistic entitlement cannot easily be renounced: it compensates for years without love, touch or family, for a personality under stress, for the lack of emotional, relational and sexual maturation.
In my new book, Wounded Leaders , I trace the history of British elitism and the negative attitude towards children to colonial times and what I call the "rational man project", whose Victorian boarding schools were industrial power stations churning out stoic, superior leaders for the empire.
Recent evidence from neuroscience experts shows what a poor training for leaderships this actually is. In short, you cannot make good decisions without emotional information Professor Antonio Damasio ; nor grow a flexible brain without good attachments Dr Sue Gerhardt ; nor interpret facial signals if your heart has had to close down Professor Stephen Porges ; nor see the big picture if your brain has been fed on a strict diet of rationality Dr Iain McGilchrist.
These factors underpin Will Hutton's view that "the political judgments of the Tory party have, over the centuries, been almost continuously wrong". With survival but not empathy on his school curriculum from age seven, Cameron is unlikely to make good decisions based on making relationships in Europe, as John Major could. He can talk of leading Europe, but not of belonging to it.
There are many pros and cons of boarding school. The decision to send your child to a boarding school will entirely depend on the nature and needs of your child as well as the particular boarding school in question. Do your due diligence and reach out to other parents whose children go the school you are researching. Sign in. Forgot your password? Get help.
Create an account. Password recovery. FirstCry Parenting. Big Kid Preschooler Education. In This Article. Truth: You will live with your friends One of my favorite things about boarding school is definitely the fact that I get to live with my friends, all in the same building.
Myth three: Parents only send their unwanted children there No, sending me to a boarding school was not a way my parents found of getting rid of their parental responsibilities. Truth: Parents want their children to have a bright future The academic environment encourages you to study.
Truth: You meet people from all backgrounds and learn from them EF Academy is international. Feeling inspired? Experience something new with EF Academy. Learn more about boarding school life. Explore Oxford. Share this article. Latest articles from Boarding Life. Making the most of your time at home By Ed Davies 2 min read. Creativity, activity and service: Shaping students outside of the classroom By Alexandra Levitt 2 min read. Why boarding school is the best place to make mistakes By Madeline Ames 2 min read.
0コメント