But who are the meringues and who are the strawberries? When the Eton fallout hit, I scoured the story trying to work out the goodies and the baddies. Was it Will the English Teacher? Could be? Surely he was the goodie in a Dead Poets kind of way - along with Art teachers, English teachers are the ones we thank in acceptance speeches and fall a tiny bit in love with.
But when I watched The Patriarchy Paradox, the video which still resides on the weight-lifting Mr Knowland’s YouTube channel Knowland Knows, despite headmaster Stephen ‘Trendy Hendy’s’ (so called because of his oxymoronic mission to make the £42,500 a year institution more inclusive) requested he take it down, I wasn’t so sure. So what exactly do you know Mr Knowland? Well the weight-lifting was a giveaway, as was the eagle-like moniker for KK - Mr Knowland has a penchant for law of the jungle tropes – images of ravaged male lions and wounded Vietnam vets abound on his video – leading to a view that due to the heaviness of the guns female soldiers rarely make it to the front line. Or maybe they just don’t want to kill anyone.
Eagles also feature as a handy acronym for dissecting English. ‘Don’t be the slimy snail, smearing your generalistic ideas across a piece of text with neither bite nor direction - be like the eagle - the raptor with gimlet eye for the choice quotation which you break open with your talons. Just for the record any English teacher worth their salt teaches this – it’s called ‘zooming in’ and is the Z in the much loved PEAZL paragraph. This acronym is meted out to state schools up and down the country - gratis. State school pupils can be eagles too you know.
But the whys and wherefores of Mr Henderson and Mr Knowland are not my concern here. My initial reaction when reading the piece was what he was teaching - the Perspectives Course taken by sixth formers to encourage critical thinking. Which feels like a prelim to the Oxbridge interview segwaying deftly into PPE.
Most state sixth forms do not teach this – yes there are a healthy number of after-school clubs and activities – debating societies, history clubs, film clubs orchestras, sports clubs et al to stretch and broaden, to awaken and stoke debate and encourage thought and stimulate reasoning. Which surely is what education should be? Not the narrow funnelling towards the endgame of exams and results. State schools vary hugely in their provision of extra curricular activities, curtailed by budget, staff and parental will. But I venture none can match what is on offer at Eton and other private schools. This is where, dear parents, your £42500 (a number I feel is worth repeating – in some parts of the country this could buy you a house) goes.
So let’s take a closer look at what’s on offer extra-curricularly at Eton.
Drum roll please… there are 3 state of the art theatres – 3! Staffed by professionals with a lighting designer, a filmmaker in residence and a professional theatre director (clearly sold their soul) and these are appointed each year ‘so that the most up to date perspectives’ are achieved. That’s drama. Music – 7 choirs, 53 instrumental ensembles, a Symphony and Sinfonia orchestra who tour all over the world. Art - the drawing school boasts a rolling art gallery featuring the work of such greats as Barbra Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, and the opportunity for two students to be artist in residence at the RA! These aren’t after-school clubs these are gilded dreams one aspires to as an adult. Then there are the infamous notable speakers: former prime ministers and presidents, Nobel laureates, CEO’s, leading scientists – all infusing young Etonians with the belief that they can be king one day too.
So let’s put some perspective on this privilege - I taught English in a comprehensive school in Southampton this year. Jack was one of my students. He was already struggling in English but he was making progress. Then lockdown struck. Jack is still waiting for his laptop from the government scheme, although when it finally arrives he still won’t be able to access the online learning as there is no internet at home. His mum was coming into the school each day to pick up worksheets for him to complete. He has fallen further and further behind in English simply because he cannot access the curriculum. He is not in an orchestra or a drama club although the school does provide them. He does not know what critical thinking is. In 2020 the already present gap between the privileged and the poor grew to a galaxy.
And a bit more perspective. I am reminded of a piece I read recently about a girl who had been in care and then fostered – abused and then thankfully fostered by a wonderful family. She was amazed and delighted that for the first time she ate at a kitchen table and there was talk and discussion at mealtimes. Not only had this child not had the benefit of a family talking around a table she hadn’t even had the table.
So my two go to the local comprehensive where they get taught the curriculum and actually the English department do a pretty good job of teaching as broad a swathe of books as they can before they are whittled down to the largely dead white men of the GCSE. But they don’t get classes in critical thinking. But they do get it unwittingly from us. From a lively kitchen table debate because that’s who their parents are – Radio 4 on all the time, The Observer at the weekend, books everywhere… my two could give you chapter and verse on the ins and outs of Brexit and the American election system. One of my son’s friends who came to supper recently said “Blimey your family always talk about such big stuff the most we say at mine is ‘who’s farted?’
And so what to do? – I can’t invite everyone to tea – like osmosis they pick up on the family vibe – I’m sure there are some tiger mums out there who have pinned on the kitchen noticeboard - topics of debate this week- Is evolution necessary? I confess I went through a Word of the Day period – which after a while became mere wallpaper but a few good ones went in (in egalitarian terms I was also messaging my English tutees with the words too to share the love).
Middle-class families are going to take their children on enriching holidays, museums, provide them with art materials, feed them houmous, piano lessons, ballet classes and on it goes – but where we can narrow the attainment gap – where we can try and level the playing field, is at school which should be a place where there is access to everything – to all the books, all the music, all the theatre, all the critical thinking. All the water in the tap. School should be the kitchen table.
So what to do, what to do? – I can’t tear down Eton (not today at least) so we will have to build up ours instead and as the fabulous Kate Clanchy, a teacher at the Oxford Spires Academy – a small comprehensive school where over 30 languages are spoken, said, the most important political decision you make is which school you send your child to and if you decide your child should be educated in a monoculture then they will be the poorer for it.
I’ll leave you with this from Maisie – one of Kate Clanchy’s pupils who is at the University of Reading and how hard she fought to get there.
I didn’t come from
the right side of town, warm hands
on the walk to the school, a phone to check
in the middle of class. I didn’t know the difference
between lunch and dinner or tea and supper or why
a meal was better if it came from the stove not the microwave,
why it mattered if I could figure out the area of a triangle that stealing
was always bad even if you didn’t get caught and that cigarettes weren’t
meant to burn your fingers when you held them
I didn’t come from a bedroom all to myself
WiFi that worked past 5pm or clothes that hadn’t been
worn before, I didn’t know that homework wasn’t optional
that you had to say please and thank you to everyone even if
they were a good for nothing teacher that didn’t even understand
that sometimes you were late because you had to
wake up your mother and make sure she remembered
to take her tablets and brush her teeth and you had to brush
your own teeth with a toothbrush made for giants that had green
in all the wrong places and tasted like pennies and disappointment
and the adverts always said it made everything ‘minty fresh’ but
the other kids laughed when you spoke
so you stopped speaking altogether
Maisie Crittenden
We must be careful not just to individualised educational inequality. It is systemic and underpins the hierarchies that are slowly dismantling what is left of the opportunity for social mobility that our generation benefited from during the post-war liberal consensus. Lizzie, a must-read is Diane Reay's Miseducation. https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/miseducation