It's become apparent to me the last 5 or so years that people are unaware how toxic boarding schools can be. Here's a clue from a Fresh Air interview with Anthony Horowitz. If your rushed for time listen from 4:55 to 6:30. From the interview: And it occurred to me that I could write a book about that sort of education because I what did my parents want. They wanted, I thought as a boy, to make me different; that I wasn't good enough as I was. But they wanted to somehow improve me by putting me into this very hostile environment. And that was the inspiration for "Point Blank." A school - it's not actually a school for little kids. It's a finishing school, so it's a sort of a school for troubled teenagers. But all the kids who are sent there are sent there to be changed. And, of course, Dr. Grief is changing them in ways that the parents cannot believe. But the thing about it is - but as fantastical as the idea is, it is based on a truth, which is that when the children come back home and they are different, the parents think, well, the school has succeeded. They don't realize that their children have actually been replaced. Link: https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/9361...and-the-joys-of-reading-and-writing-mysteries
Have you read George Orwell's essay "Such, such, were the joys"? It's an account of the horrors of his being at St Cyprian's prep school as a boy. A bit later, Roald Dahl's short story "Galloping Foxley" has the narrator reminisce about an older boy who bullied him mercilessly during his time at school. It apparently is based on personal experience. I have no doubt that the English boarding school was a place of horrors and abuse of the worst sort for many, although I suppose a few did OK. Do you remembered that scene early on in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" where Hugh Grant's character, at the inn "The Boatman" gets into conversation with another wedding guest? "I was at school with his brother", the other guest explains, "Tremendous bloke. He was head of my house. Buggered me senseless; still, it taught me about life."
Thanks for the reply and reading material suggestions. The really interesting thing is, my boarding school experience was so horrible I simply blocked out whole events of what occurred. Well until now where said events come back as flash backs. .
My boarding school experience was toxic alright ... up to age 9... after which I was removed by my parents and sent to a state run day school. The experience changed my very being and the course of my life. Negatively... and irrevocably!
Yup. Only the last two or so years (2018ish - 2020ish) have I come to realize how my boarding school experience changed my life. Boarding school experiences can be a whole unknown, little talked about, form of child / young adult abuse. Mere civilians, people who never went to a board school, have no clue what it could be like. I've recently had flashbacks, all related to my boarding school experience.
Most people I've spoken with who went to boarding school do not have good reports of their experiences. I'm sorry this happened to some of our EC members and to anyone, really. It makes for an environment that's far removed from a preview of what people will experience in the real world and the remoteness of it all makes for an environment that can't be monitored as easily and that's a hotbed for dysfunctional activity. I met someone within the last month that I've had some discussions with and this individual went to a very prestigious one. He went through all the rites of passage after that such as great education and access to some great jobs but he told me some weird stories of things that happened there and I think he could have gotten to the same places in life without the boarding school experience.
Agreed. The really sad thing is, even though the upset might be short lived for some people, the effects can be long lasting or even never ending. Like dropping a toxic chemical upstream and watching it pollute the entire river till it reaches the sea.
I'll drop a little clue, while maintaining anonymity. I was 15/16 while attending an all male boarding school. I didn't know anything about being gay, but hey I must have been giving off gay vibes, because kids would come up to me, pull their pants down and ask me to suck them off. I was horrified, didn't suck them off, but at the same time was fascinated by a few of the really nice dicks. This is the lesser of bad things that had happened to me. Get my drift? Thanks for your post on this thread.
Good question. I do not know. Reflecting, they too could have been gay and wanted to initiate male-to-male sex. These acts definitely set up conflict within me. Consciously I was horrified, reflecting a bit, sub-consciously I wanted it.
