Weststander
Well-known member
Exactly. Then pushed out into the world to figure it all out by themselves. One Sunday returning to the bording house after a visit home I was particularly homesick so wrote a letter home thanking my folks for a good weekend etc and popped it in the POST tray outside the housemaster’s office.
Next morning (Monday) at breakfast the housemaster rang the bell to stop talking and held my letter up. Pointing me out he told the whole dining hall that proper young men do not write letters home a mere two hours after seeing them, how would I get on in the adult world if I can’t stand two hours without contact with my parents? He then ripped it up and stuffed it into the waste food bucket.
I was 9 years old. A grown man bullying a 9 year old. If that’s the teacher’s attitude what hope do we have of sorting bullying out in children?!
Through my work, I’ve met many clients who went to boarding schools throughout different decades. Even the larger, arrogant types, who were probably bullies and are now wealthy themselves, were determined that their own offspring only went as day pupils all the way up to A Levels.
The bullying I’m fully aware of late at Brighton state and independent schools follows an age old pattern - psychological bullying by girls which starts at infants (incredible the bitch thing ... is it genetic?), and with boys not so prevalent but physical bullying by groups against an individual. There really are some crap heads in this area, and some brilliant ones too.