"Privileged" Education

[allycat06]

Where you went to school *shouldn't* matter but definitely in certain circles and professions it does and always will. It's a rather old fashioned mindset which seems to have carried through in a lot of the old elite private schools. In my experience (I went to a private school, as did everyone in my family) there seems to be strong emphasis on tradition in private schools i.e ex students will send their children there and so on, play rugby for the old collegian team etc. There is also the rivalry between schools, like Scotch vs Melbourne Grammar. So it no longer becomes just somewhere you went to school, it's part of your identity.

[boomba]

Isn't that passing judgement of someone by where they went to school? And to not be hired for a job due to the school you went to is discrimination?
Personally I think you will succeed if you want to...yes a little help from a school is great but you could go to heaps of different schools and still have the same outcome if you don't want to learn? I know lots of people who went to the worst highschools and have amazing lives now?

People pass judgement on my DH all the time as he loves to wear boardies and thongs they talk down to him as he is dumb and treat him like dirt...but you know what he owns and runs a successful business and he went to a basic state high school, his success has come from within him self and his upbringing not from his school. This mentality really annoys me you are not better than someone else just because of the school you went to. People are wonderful in their own right not because of the school they went to?

[Emma09]

This is a great thread ladies- afm- my sisters and I were educated at the local public school. They have all gone on to university and in fact 3 sisters have at least 2 degrees. My parents never attended university, but always instilled in us that we could be whatever we wanted- career wise.
I will be sending DD to a local primary school and then onto whatever secondary school suits her, whether it be public or private.
I feel that each child will learn in whatever environment, if they are engaged. In VCE, it is more important to be at a school that offers the subjects that your child wishes/needs to study.
It is far more important to me that my DD is taught by teachers who engage her, which you can find at public and private schools. My sister is one of the most dedicated teachers you will find, she was headhunted by the most prestigious school in Melbourne, but turned it down to work in a public school.
Just my opinion

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[Bathsheba]

ONLY from my personal experience it seems that this confidence seems to come from the relationship between students and teachers. Now I'm walking on shaky ground here because I also know of quite a few public school teachers who seem to teach in a manner that imparts confidence with their students.... but it's almost always been in evidence with my daughters teachers at the private schools she has been to. I know that that the teachers all seemed to LOVE working at these schools... the class sizes were small (my DDs first teacher only had 10 girls, what teacher wouldn't be happy about that!)... the pay is better... the facilities and resources are better... happy teacher = happy kids?

On the flip side it's a different story at my DS's public school... he's had ok teachers but they seem to lack the spark... I don't like the one-size-fits-all approach... I really don't like their school reporting system! The grounds are grim and the rooms uncomfortable. The teachers talk to the kids in a way reminiscent to how I was spoken to at my public school... can't put my finger on it but it's different to how the teachers speak at the private ones... can someone help me out? Anyhow he's not returning next year. But we'll most likely try the public system again when we move... I REALLY do want to find something good to say about Australia's public system!

[HotI]

double post

[Jas]

Well my only comment is the school this guy went to seem to have a negative effect on him, what a pig!

[Junglemum]

I think the school you go to can definitely shape who you are. But i don't think it comes down to public v's private. I think it has more to do with the actual school. I went to a public primary and private secondary and my parents, like Divy's were paying off the school fees well after we finished.

Does the school you went to matter? i think so, yes.
Does private schooling afford you priviledges that would otherwise not be open to you?[/B] Absolutely. The school i went to had a big focus on general life skills as well as education. For an hour every day we would do an elective called 'activities'. Once ever 6 weeks you'd put a ballot in for what activity you wanted to do. It could be anything from cooking, tennis, scuba diving, pottery, sewing, chess, music, the options were endless. We also had two camps a year. One you got to chose the other was a general camp for the whole year level. On these camps we learnt orienterring, bush survival skills, rafting, horse rideing, rock climbing, abseiling just to name a few. For the elective one you could chose a school based camp and do a performing arts camp, sewing, lots of different sporting options, or you could go on a surfing, scuba diving, horse riding, or a city experience or central Aus type trip. You don't get those opportunities at very many schools.
Does it play a role in your future eg job selection, lifestyle choices etc? I think it is not the be all and end all, but it definitely plays a role. I went to a private school who were actually concerned about their students and not worried about keeping their grade averages high. So no one was asked to leave if they were making the school look bad. This happened at several local private schools in our area. I find it shocking. We were encouraged to be what we wanted to be, not pushed into something that didn't suit us. My schooling has definitely contributed to the person i am today.
Does it shape the person/adult you become? There are so many contributing factors, but i say yes, schooling is one of them. MY parents are the primary 'shapers' but peers, and experiences contribute too. Schooling is an experience.

I would like to send my kids to a school like the one i went to. My Dad thinks it was a waste of money, mainly due to my poor grammar and spelling skills. But English was never my strong point, i have many others.

[ladybird11]

Not sure if I'm delving off topic, but recently I was waiting to give a road safety lecture at an exclusive school and in the room was a teacher holding a student council meeting. And they were discussing how lugging heavy bags around was an OH&S issue and were brainstorming how to get around the issue. A few joked to get rid of text books then one said "why not have the school supply us each with an iPad?" - and the room fell silent. The teacher running the group said that was a great idea and would put up the suggestion to the board.
One month later the school received delivery of 2,500 iPads.....!

Information in text books can be loaded onto a iPad - and I see the use of it as more of a luxury than a need - so yeah, I would say they were privelleged. Will they gain any further advantage from that alone? I think its purely up to the indivdual to use the opportunities presented to them.

[Phteven]

I REALLY do want to find something good to say about Australia's public system!

I'm really happy with our local public school it's fantastic in so many ways.

[Shanti]

I think there are many great public schools and many great private schools. We as parents need to take alot of the responsibility for our kids and how they are learning too. Not just the schools.

We have a wonderful public school up the road from us and another co-ed private school up the other road near us where our DD could go. We are lucky we are in the position to be able to afford the private option if we choose to send DD there.....we will have to compare both schools and make up our mind based on what we feel is best for our DD at the time. ie school values, code of ethics etc etc

I think it's horrible that someone would judge someone based on where they went to school.

[fionas]

just to add to my previous post, if anyone was stupid enough to start carrying on about a private education in front of me, I would probably say something like, "so you made it to uni along with 90% of your private school classmates. I made it to uni along with four other people out of 300. Who d'you reckon is smarter mate?"

[krisp]

just to add to my previous post, if anyone was stupid enough to start carrying on about a private education in front of me, I would probably say something like, "so you made it to uni along with 90% of your private school classmates. I made it to uni along with four other people out of 300. Who d'you reckon is smarter mate?"

[*TripleJ*]

i went to a pretty crappy high school that was very focused on sport and i suck at sport but i managed to get into uni along with a huge percentage of my classmates not sure wat it was was but only 1 out of 172 students who graduated didnt have something planned to do at the end of the year everyone had uni or tafe offers or jobs lined up so id say thats pretty good for a crappy public school in dandenong

so maybe private schools are better but that paints a picture that public schools arent bad either

[Trillian]

I"m divided on it. I've met a lot of people who were private school educated who are absolute tools and have a huge sense of entitlement, but I've come across those same people who never set foot in a private school - just as I have known a lot of publicly and privately educated people who are truly the most amazing people you would ever meet. I was publicly educated and DH was public for primary and then private boarding for high school for 7-10 and then came back to his local high school for 11 and 12 because he couldn't live with the knowledge that his parents were paying $20k per year for his education when he knew he wanted to be a farmer. He said he got jack of the pressure from the school to change his mind and become something else that entailed a stint at Uni. He felt there was absolutely zero support for students who did not want professional careers. His brother on the other hand stayed at the school, went onto business college, then became a demolition worker before coming back to the farm. Their sister refused point blank to go to the same private school, spent 7 weeks there in year 7 and came back to the local high school and scored nearly a perfect 100 in her HSC. She became an accountant and even then still had people say she should have done medicine because of the high marks she got. There are no guarantees that private school will set your children up a certain way if they truly want to do something else.

Krisp, I think the person you met was probably just a tool in general and totally unrelated to where he went to school. Granted yes that some people do have an unhealthy obsession with where people went to school, even if it was so long ago, but if it wasn't school, the people with personalities like that would cling to something else to brag about kwim?

To answer your questions
Does the school you went to matter? Unfortunately in some cases it does. Not saying this is right, but it's the way it is. We have neighbours who homeschool their kids and one of their sons is a very handy Rugby Union player. They have aspirations of him playing for the Wallabies and make sure he gets into local rep teams in the hope that he gets spotted, but the reality is that without a private school education, this kid has buckleys and none of getting into the Wallabies. When was the last time you ever heard of a world-class rubgy player coming from public school, let alone being homeschooled?
Does private schooling afford you priviledges that would otherwise not be open to you? No. Life is what you make of it, plain and simple. It might put you in the place where you have all these opportunities available to you, but what is the point of it if you don't want to take it kwim? If you don't come from that background, there is absolutely nothing stopping you becoming whatever you want to become if you have the drive and determination to get it. And just being in private school does not mean that you will succeed either if you don't have the drive to do it. And in the case of my DH, it can possibly set you up to be something you don't really want to be for fear of 'wasting' that fancy education you have.
Does it play a role in your future eg job selection, lifestyle choices etc? Yes and no. I know that if I had of gone to private school, I would have felt very uncomfortable living that lifestyle because it just does not align with the way I choose to live my life now. And anyone can live the high life if they want to. I have no doubt that it plays a role in job selection but it works both ways - if you have a public school educated person going for a corporate job, you are likely to get dismissed as being a flannie-shirt wearing plebian just as if you are a privately educated person going for a job as a tradie, well you'd be likely to get dismissed as being a knob. Neither is right but sadly it is something that has become ingrained in our culture to think like that.
Does it shape the person/adult you become? Again, yes and no. I would have become the person I have become regardless of the school I went to. I am just too cool for school Seriously though, when I finished school I did not want to go to Uni at all and I honestly don't think that would have mattered whether I went to public school or private school, only with private school I probably would have went anyway because Uni seems to be a natural progression of private school but I would have dropped out because it wouldn't have been what I wanted to do. But look at me now - well on my way to getting a Bachelors degree because I WANT to do it.

And as for private school instilling self confidence and the ability to hold your own, in all honesty I think that isn't true. Self confidence can't be instilled in you by anyone - you have to find it yourself. In my experience, some of the most confident people I know went through public school and they can hold their own because they had to *fight* more kwim. Me included - I can kick anyone's ass if I have to and I call a spade a spade and I think I have the ability to not get people offside while I do it.

Bath, I think you would like the public school that my kids go to (and the one DH himself attended). They have an awesome attitude to education and some very successful people started their educations at this school. The teachers are amazing and totally dedicated to their jobs. It's the school I ultimately want to teach in myself when I graduate because their core beliefs align perfectly with mine. The kids have every opportunity given to them and we have many state representatives for both sport and academic persuits and our school scores pretty damn high on the My schools website too LOL.

[krisp]

Another twist to this thread.

My brother is a high school teacher and he currently teaches in Sydney. He has taught in both the public and private school systems. His opinion from a teachers perspective was really interesting.

He says teaching the boys in a public school and a private school is basically no different. In fact he preferred the public school boys as they generally had more of an interest in his subject - he is an industrial arts woodwork/metalwork teacher (has a new fancy name now apparently!). He says the girls on the other hand in the private system are much more challenging as they tend to look down their nose at this type of "physical hands on" subject. They were too polished and too cool to be bothered. Whereas the girls in the public system were keen to get in there and get their hands dirty.

Intersting huh?

[Jennifer13]

Does the school you went to matter? That very much depends on whether or not you got a tertiary education and what field you're working in. If you want to own a TV company, then yes, you'll need the exclusive ties that will draw in multi-millions of dollars in investment from your fellow former students. Personally, I believe it's your tertiary qualifications and field of work/experience that give you more prestige. It seems odd to me that this only matters if you went to school in Sydney or Melbourne (and it seems to) and it mostly matters if you're male.

I can't speak for Div's field, but in the corporate world, being well-qualified, good looking (and well dressed), female and smart is a winner every time. It's almost as shallow, but true. Oh, and the suburb where you currently live is usually asked/noticed. The other thing is the working relationships and connections you make in your career. Knowing the right people is key, but not as many of them come from Sydney/Melbourne private schools as you'd think, because they're often older and sometimes from overseas.

Does private schooling afford you privileges that would otherwise not be open to you? I think privilege is mostly dependent on your family background and what you then go out and make of your life. Some ppl become very successful through luck, brains and hard work, some start out with not much going against them. How do you define 'privilege'? If it's being able to jet off to Italy for every holiday, live on the waterfront and not have enough room for all the 0s on your bank statement, then it's mostly family connections. If privilege is living well and not stressing about money (or much else), then it's luck, brains and hard work.

Does it play a role in your future eg job selection, lifestyle choices etc? Living where I do, I see a lot of privately-schooled women who have since applied their expensive education to SAHMotherhood. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, by any stretch of the imagination, but if you believe that the private school education is set up to make them world-beaters, then you may be off the mark. A lot of private girls schools still seem to have the philosophy of preparing their 'girls' to become the lovely wives of important men. You could argue that definitely affects their lifestyle choice, given they aren't exactly living on the poverty line, but I hope for better than my DD to become someone's pretty plaything, who speaks nicely and knows all the right ppl. In some ways, their schooling has limited their life choices, because going against family wishes or trying something new out isn't as easy as you think.

I know some women who are drifting in their 30s because that perfect husband hasn't come along (or slipped through their fingers when they found someone younger and prettier) and because they didn't go to university they have no real qualification and no need/desire to earn a living and work their way up. No work, no family, no drive.

Does it shape the person/adult you become? I think personality and what values you instil in your children at home have a much bigger influence and schooling is taken by each child with the attitude you help instil. As someone else pointed out, a w@nker will always be a w@nker. Maybe because he got a good education, he's a better paid w@nker. But I think education needs to be considered in terms of the whole lot - including (and especially) tertiary. The w@nker with the good job certainly didn't stop at Yr 12. And there are plenty of Rhodes scholars who are from the public system.

And how do you classify someone whose run the whole gamut - public, private, regional university, sandstone university? Because I know plenty (and I'm almost one of them, bar the private bit) of women who've done all four. With varying degrees of success. Most of the really successful women I personally know (most in their late 30s, or beyond) actually came from regional areas, where posh private schools don't exist, are very smart and have worked extremely hard. But that's only in the corporate sphere, could be different elsewhere.

[Trillian]

I want to add too that I think if as parents, you want your children to have certain life experiences, then you will do whatever you can to provide them with that. For us, we are going to take the kids places and see things that they wouldn't necessarily see regardless of where they went to school. If you want them to have an overseas holiday to experience other cultures then you will do what you can to make that happen.

And another point on the school holding you back/giving you opportunity in the workforce, well at what point does the school you went to have no baring? I can understand using that methodology for selecting graduates, but is it still relevant when you are interviewing 45yo+ people for a job when they have at least 20 years industry experience in that job? If it does then it says more about the personal prejudices of the person doing the selecting than it does about the job in general.

[krisp]

This has brought up such a fascinating conversation.

How do we define success?

Is it having a career where you work 80 hours a week, designer clothes, a fabulous house, 2 nannies and oodles of cash? Is it being happy SAHM with 4 children, whose children enjoy pre-loved clothes, DH arrives home at 4.30 each day and they have a family meal together each night, attend weekend sport as a family together and have camping holidays twice a year?

To some the $300K job means success and fullfillment even though the 80+ hrs a week on the job means no family time. To some the SAHM mum making home made play dough and kissing scraped knees and hearing sleepy I love you's every night at bedtime means success and fullfillment.

What does "success and fullfillment" mean to you?