Private/public school education is academically better in the main, but what you really pay for is the old boy network. You pay for the privilege of putting your kids through school with the children of people who are connected. I grew up poor and went to a fancy uni on merit, and while my peers were no smarter than me and didn’t do better than me academically, the influence of networks and connections is vast. Also the confidence it drums into kids is amazing. I wish I’d had such an upbringing tbh.
This is the thing that motivates me the most. My sister in law is obviously smarter, better looking, drastically more personable, much harder working and frankly superior in all the work related skills to my brother.
She also has the confidence of a kicked puppy, whereas he was given the confidence of Cristiano Ronaldo by the fancy education she didn’t get. My brother learnt to “act as if”. I came across this concept later in life and understood that this is what parents were paying for.
My sister in law is a person I deeply love and admire, and she says no kid of hers is going to what she refers to as “the crap school I went to”. I am not going to gainsay her experience.
My spouse went to a fancy med school on merit from a comp. I know that despite his faults, he is a very smart and hardworking dude at work. He expected a top career in surgery or some such and to retire Professor Sir.
He’s a GP, because when it came time to get the coveted and high status training posts, amazingly they were all assigned to young folk who Knew People and were Related To People and Went To School With Peoples Kids. You know exactly the sort of thing I mean. I have a mate - a truly lovely guy - who was about to fail his fellowship exams for the final time in his speciality. This would have meant he couldn‘t take up his consultant post. Luckily for him, his dad was the emeritus head of the relevant college and a schoolmate of the current head, who was handily also godfather of my mate. Imagine the general amazement when he passed the exam.
Now, I don’t approve of that shit at all, but I throw it in there to underline: it matters so much what networks you are in that if you aren’t in them, you will probably never realise the opportunities that exist that weren‘t even offered to you.
Is it fair? Absolutely not, no. Is it the optimal way to run society? Also absolutely not. Am I prepared to gamble my kids’ future opportunities on my political principles? Fuck no.
I have two side gigs in what I laughably refer to as my personal time. One of them I do freelance through people I know. I do very little considering, charge a cheap rate, and it pays my mortgage. The other I do for free and actually accomplishes something. I do interview training and CV writing for young kids leaving school/college etc, because the number of them who are leaving school, college etc without basic knowledge I got from my dad is terrifying. Like.... this is what you wear to an interview. You shake hands, you make eye contact... I mean shit like that. These kids are often bright, usually hard working, and they just do not know how to write up their work experience and extracurricular stuff into anything that resembles a standard form (let alone good) CV.
I don’t know where you learn this shit, if there‘s no one in your family to teach you and for some reason school doesn’t view it as important. What I do know is that I help as many kids as I can, and these kids who literally could not get an interview at Boots before are now getting good jobs at 25k a year. I didn’t change one thing about them. (Okay, I also give interview wear advice. Christ, that is sometimes desperately needed.) What I did was show them how to present themselves in the way I was taught. It’s not much to pass on, but I pass on what I can. And I wonder why this isn‘t happening more.
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