Why boarding schools produce bad leaders

[marmar]

Why boarding schools produce bad leaders
The elite tradition is to send children away at a young age to be educated. But future politicians who suffer this 'privileged abandonment' often turn out as bullies or bumblers. A psychotherapist explains why

Nick Duffell
The Guardian, Monday 9 June 2014


In Britain, the link between private boarding education and leadership is gold-plated. If their parents can afford it, children are sent away from home to walk a well-trodden path that leads straight from boarding school through Oxbridge to high office in institutions such as the judiciary, the army, the City and, especially, government. Our prime minister was only seven when he was sent away to board at Heatherdown preparatory school in Berkshire. Like so many of the men who hold leadership roles in Britain, he learned to adapt his young character to survive both the loss of his family and the demands of boarding school culture. The psychological impact of these formative experiences on Cameron and other boys who grow up to occupy positions of great power and responsibility cannot be overstated. It leaves them ill-prepared for relationships in the adult world and the nation with a cadre of leaders who perpetuate a culture of elitism, bullying and misogyny affecting the whole of society.

Nevertheless, this golden path is as sure today as it was 100 years ago, when men from such backgrounds led us into a disastrous war; it is familiar, sometimes mocked, but taken for granted. But it is less well known that costly, elite boarding consistently turns out people who appear much more competent than they actually are. They are particularly deficient in non-rational skills, such as those needed to sustain relationships, and are not, in fact, well-equipped to be leaders in today's world

I have been doing psychotherapy with ex-boarders for 25 years and I am a former boarding-school teacher and boarder. My pioneering study of privileged abandonment always sparks controversy: so embedded in British life is boarding that many struggle to see beyond the elitism and understand its impact. The prevalence of institutionalised abuse is finally emerging to public scrutiny, but the effects of normalised parental neglect are more widespread and much less obvious. Am I saying, then, that David Cameron, and the majority of our ruling elite, were damaged by boarding?

It's complex. My studies show that children survive boarding by cutting off their feelings and constructing a defensively organised self that severely limits their later lives. Cameron, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt, Andrew Mitchell, Oliver Letwin et al tick all the boxes for being boarding-school survivors. For socially privileged children are forced into a deal not of their choosing, where a normal family-based childhood is traded for the hothousing of entitlement. Prematurely separated from home and family, from love and touch, they must speedily reinvent themselves as self-reliant pseudo-adults. ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/09/boarding-schools-bad-leaders-politicians-bullies-bumblers

[treestar]

1. K&R

[xchrom]

2. du rec.

[Chan790]

3. I was going to argue against this...

then I remembered I went to prep-school and lived at home.

Then I also remembered the boarding-school kids that we often sported against and how they were all "Lord of the Flies" savage--cruel, sociopathic, guileful and predatory upon their weaker peers.

[Nye Bevan]

4. FDR went to boarding school.

http://history1900s.about.com/od/people/a/fdr.htm

[sulphurdunn]

7. He also had polio.

That may have changed his outlook a bit. Who knows?

[JHB]

18. It hit him in 1921, when he was 39 years old.

As for "who knows?", it's not as if the man doesn't have biographies available, from multiple biographers and in detail.

There may be something to the boarding-school theory (it actually seems likely to me), but that would be "on average", not everybody who goes to one.

[Downwinder]

23. He also had Eleanor.

[Bibliovore]

5. Some general exceptions probably apply

Deaf people born into hearing households often feel very isolated at home -- a lot have few if any people around them who know how to sign, if they were even exposed to sign themselves. Many talk about going to a Deaf institution / boarding school as initially hugely traumatic (can you imagine being dropped off somewhere by your family when they can't even communicate where you are or what's happening or whether you'll ever see them again?) but then hugely empowering: Being among a lot of other people who can actually talk with them is amazing, as is a school environment where they can understand what's being said, participate directly in class discussions, and much more.

That would seriously change the psychological medium of boarding school, to say the least. And Deaf people probably aren't the only general exceptions, just the ones I'm most immediately aware of. And, of course, not all boarding schools are the same.

[Legender75]

6. Boarding School damage

I went to boarding school at age 5 - a decision that my father's family thought was the most optional given that my father had no home and my mother was not allowed to have anything to do with me (!!!)
And I can attest that that experience scarred me for life. It wasn't being bombed or being moved around from home to home for 2-3 years, it was being incarcerated, for six years, together with 9 other little girls, in a large house that was converted into a boarding school. I can look at pictures of me before that time when I am laughing and obviously at ease with myself, and then look at the few pictures I have afterwards when I am standing and taking up the smallest space I can in the world. And yes, being in a relationship has never worked. I tried, many times. Now, in my 70s I can look back on many deep and enduring friendships, but no intimate relationship.
I agree. Boarding School is immensely and permanently damaging.

[cali]

10. of course. You were 5.

not good for small children, but you can't compare your experience with that of a teen.

[Gormy Cuss]

16. The article in the OP is about sending young children to boarding school.

It's not about sending your high school age student to Choate or Phillips Exeter or Simon's Rock.

[cali]

22. the article title does NOT say that it's about young children and most people

responding don't seem to differentiate.

[csziggy]

28. Subtitle: "The elite tradition is to send children away at a young age to be educated."

From the first paragraph"
"Our prime minister was only seven when he was sent away to board at Heatherdown preparatory school in Berkshire."

The closing paragraph calls for ending early boarding:
"To change our politics, we'll have to change our education system. Today, most senior clinicians recognise boarding syndrome, several of whom recently signed a letter to the Observer calling for the end of early boarding."

The article does not rail against ending all boarding schools - he seems more concerned with the emotional stunting effects of sending off young children.

[Gormy Cuss]

29. Surely you read beyond the title before responding.

The article is CLEARLY talking about sending elementary school age kids off to start their Lord of the Flies education.

[Kber]

17. Thanks for sharing your insight

And welcome to DU.

[Generic Brad]

8. Emotionally damaged, parentally rejected children grow to be bad leaders?

I can see that happening.

[cali]

9. sure- if you send a kid away at age 7 to 12 or 14, but beyond that?

I don't see it. It's not for all kids, but many teens thrive in a boarding school environment- if it's the right match between school and kid.

[AngryAmish]

11. Not to mention the smaller boys get raped a lot.

[toby jo]

12. Welcome to DU, Legender 75 ~ Love that old time wisdom

The double whammy on the dysfunction of the boarded kids is that they come from money and that means control of society. How many of us have been hoarded to bind up their souls?

Hope this study goes big time.

[spooky3]

13. Interesting. Romney and Bush also seem to

Have had many of the same characteristics and behavior patterns.

[cali]

14. JFK went to Choate

FDR went to Groton, so did Teddy Roosevelt. Adlai Stevenson never made it to the Presidency but he also went to Choate.

[spooky3]

19. There are always exceptions and statistically,

Variables have distributions.

[cali]

20. uh, how do you know these are the exceptions. it's nonsense to make that claim

without firm evidence- which you do NOT present.

[spooky3]

24. The author has been studying and working with

People involved in this, for many years, as described in the full story at the link. Until you present evidence stronger than his, your anecdotes aren't going to convince many people that he is wrong.

[cali]

30. yes, children who are sent away to school at a very young age. not the same thing as

going off to boarding school as a teen.

[former9thward]

15. John Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kerry went to boarding schools.

Probably a lot of others. So a pretty broad brush.

[woo me with science]

21. K&R

[BrotherIvan]

25. The true problem is the idea that the wealthy and privileged are born to rule

Once we get rid of that, we're halfway there.

[Warpy]

31. ...and to have as little as possible to do with their offspring

The nanny delivers them at convenient times, dressed, bathed and on their best behavior around emotionally distant parents. Once a school will take them, they're whisked off to be raised by emotionally distant teachers and hostile schoolmates.

They have no experience of unconditional acceptance, let alone love, so their relationships are likely to be quite distant and businesslike, also.

What I find hilarious is that their parents are often in politics on the side that criticizes mothers for going out to work and abandoning their offspring to day care.

That a lot of the offspring of the wealthy turn out to be sociopathic should come as no surprise.

[pnwmom]

26. I think there is a huge difference between a 7 year old being sent off

to boarding school and a 14 year old. I've only known a couple teens who went to boarding school, but they both felt constrained in small schools in small towns and were dying for a change. It's not a bad choice for some kids for high school.

[vanlassie]

27. Exactly. The article and the documentry linked- which I watched as well, detail the

practice of sending BOYS off at age 7. An absolutely devastating thing to do to a little boy. They take their teddy bears, for God's sake. Horrible. One mother is quoted saying she knows some people question what she is about to do, and she replies "It will be the MAKING of him." Maybe so, but how he will end up made is sad.