Boarding Schools - what are they like?

I went to a school reunion. This school though was not the usual sort that most people are familiar with. It was a public boarding school. After a longish drive through ridiculously lush southern England, one comes to this Georgian market town. And just outside it is this entrance to the school. Well, not to the school exactly, but to the long drive to the school through a world of green. A lot had changed since I was there. It had come into heaps of money and loads of new buildings had been put up, new accommodation, bongos there in the new music school. They had an equestrian center. Yeah. Yes. Not just a few horses and a homemade jump. No, an equestrian center. My contemporaries had all grown up, of course, so I was kneede in other people's blonde children. I was sent here for a two-year stretch. Uh the reason being that my father got a job in America, and so um it seemed a reasonable solution to the problem of what to do with me. Um, and until I came here, I had just been to an ordinary staterun day school comprehensive just down the road just like everybody else. I, you know, took the bus, wore a blazer, and, um, you know, had one of those bags. Didn't actually say Adidas on it, but, you know, the sort. Yeah, I had one of those. Um, and then I came here and, uh, found myself in a completely different world, and it was like 2 years in a foreign country. This was the main building, a converted stately home. I have no idea why any family would want to live in something so gargantuan. This is the central corridor on the ground floor, which apparently the Portman family used as their sitting room. If you want to imagine the smell, floor polish. Lots and lots of floor polish. I'm just going to mow the lawn, dear. I'll be back in June. My unheated dormatory in Hardy House was there and then later there I got about. So, the facilities here are quite stupendous. I mean, they were pretty amazing when I was here, but now they are just holy cow. Anyway, um I want to get across to you the degree of culture shock that I experienced when I first came here. People started talking to me in ways that meant that I really didn't understand what the heck they were saying half the time. Uh I remember being asked, for instance, where did you go to school? And I remember thinking, what a weird question to ask. How could they possibly expect to recognize the school when I tell them? So I would tell them and they would frown in it because they were expecting to have heard of the school that I mentioned. Um here's another thing. The school book. It's a book which contains the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all the parents of all the children in the school. And everyone got a copy. I I was quite shocked. I mean the school I'd just come from, I was really glad that the other kids at the school didn't know where I lived. Um and there are quite some personal details in here. I mean you can tell for instance whether parents are married or divorced a lot of the time by the fact that they may have different surnames and different addresses. Um but it was considered just a convenient thing and actually once I got used to the idea it was just a convenient thing. I never heard of it ever being abused by anyone and it often came in pretty handy. So the school book that was a bit of culture shock. Um but perhaps perhaps the biggest part of the culture shock was time management. You see, you may look at all the luxurious stuff they've got here and think, "Oh, wow. Wouldn't that be wonderful?" But I want you to imagine this. At a particular time every day, you have to go to bed in a particular place with a load of particular people in your dormatory. You don't get to pick those people. They're just the people you have to sleep next to. And then you have to fall asleep. No talking, lights out. You understand? And all right, there were some, but you weren't supposed to. And um then you were supposed to stay in bed until it was time to get up. You weren't allowed to wander around in the night. Night wandering, yes, that's what it was called, uh was strictly forbidden and the punishments for it were quite harsh. Um then at a particular time you got up, got dressed in the school uniform and then you had to go to a particular place to eat a particular breakfast um with a particular sitting and perhaps even on a particular table and then you would have to do various duties like emptying bins and so forth. And then you would have your first lesson of the day, then the second lesson of the day, then the third, and then there'd be break time, which was uh again pretty regimented. And you probably had a few things to do during that break time, and then more lessons, then lunch, and then you would have assignment periods where you were supposed to go to a particular place and work on a particular thing with particular people. And then you would have games. Games was at least three times a week, which I suppose if you're really sporty is good, but for the less sporty was less good. Um, and there was PE as well, which is on top of that. The people here were certainly very fit and then there would be supper and then in the evening that you you would have homework and of course you weren't at home, you were at school. So instead there were just assignment periods which were a bit like more school, more classes only they happened to be in the evening and you weren't being taught. You just had to sit down and get on with your work because there was a lot of the equivalent of homework. Of course you had no home to go to and uh then you would go to bed and then you would get up the next day and there it was. every single minute of your day, you had to be in a particular place doing a particular thing with particular people. Um, and that loss of freedom is a hell of a thing to swap for some, you know, quite nice playing fields. And yes, they are. They're very nice playing fields, but did you do you really want to spend a large proportion of your life being so controlled? The school church. Yes, it had its own church. There are probably Americans watching who are a little confused about the term public school. Let me explain. In America, the term public school refers to a school that anyone, you know, the general public can go to and it's free, paid for out of taxes. But no, we call those state schools because they're funded by the state from money it collects in taxes. In other words, our state school is like an American public school. But in Britain, a public school is funded by the public voluntarily. The people here pay for their kids to come here. Most of them there are various grants and burseries. So some kids here are being taught for free or not for very much. Uh but most people are paying for their children to come here and quite substantial sums as well. And why shouldn't they be allowed to do that? I mean they're paying their taxes which fund the education system and then not sending their kids to the schools funded by that education system. And so they're actually freeing up places in schools and contributing tax money to schools um and not getting anything back for it. Meanwhile, they're on top of that paying for places like this to exist. So they're not actually taking any education away from anyone else. But was I actually happy here? Um no, not really. At least when I was 16 in the low form, I was pretty unhappy. But maybe that was just the life stage I was going through and perhaps I would have been miserable near enough anywhere I was because that's what 16-year-olds can be like. Um being in a place like this doesn't make you happy. Um but you know being in a place like this should even be allowed. Some people say some people say it shouldn't. Some people say that uh these public schools should be banned and closed down. Others say that they should have their charitable status removed. Um I personally no I'm not in favor of that. I'm rather in favor of people being free to do what they flipping well want. And some people choose to pay for schools like this. But you may argue that there are privileges to coming from a school like this um and that people shouldn't be allowed to have these privileges. Well, what privileges exactly? I mean, there's the privilege of perhaps better sporting facilities and so forth. Um but if someone's willing to pay for something nice for their kids, like better sporting facilities or a trip to Disney World or whatever it is, should they not be allowed to do that? Should other people who don't go to public schools be forbidden from sending their kids to Disneyland? But I'm not a product of the boarding school system. I just had what amounted to two years in a foreign country. People who spent their entire childhoods in such school might be far more affected. There are charities and support groups set up to help people mentally screwed up by having been sent away aged seven by their supposedly loving parents to live amongst a load of nasty bullying children. Meanwhile, some people today seem to think that it will all be like Hogwarts. [Music] Indie Mash. Hey,