Thread by @suzannezeedyk

The challenges of talking abt Boarding School. A THREAD.
I checked in this eve w/ @heraldscotland website, to see what kind of response @NeilMackay article was drawing from a non-Twitter crowd. I thought I'd share my insights.
@SimonPartridge @axrenton
heraldscotland.com/news/19529579.…

2. Robert Sim focuses on the "particularly shocking" implications for political leaders, reflecting on what happens when they lack empathy due to childhood trauma. I agree. We need to think more about this. And about the impact in other networks - media, banking, business.

3. L WS makes links to Residential Schools in Canada, with First Nation children"kidnapped & enslaved by the Catholic Church". @eperryinsights, based in Canada, has made this link earlier today, noting that the structure of those schools was based on that of UK boarding schools.

4. Douglas McKenzie recognises the misery of the stories. He was a boarder in the 1970s & recalls the teachers condoning the beatings pupils inflicted on one another. "I cannot ever remember any teacher punishing anyone for bullying and certainly not prefects."

5. William Lawrence went to boarding school at 8. He got on with it. He thinks t opportunities of BS "are enormous". And he doesn't like me. "The Dr's grievances are another pathetic attempt to highlight [her] misguided opinion that all people who attend BS are over privileged."

6. Jackie Dawson has 25yrs experience of psychotherapy w/ ex-boarders. She uses @nickduffell term "privileged abandonment", noting that it produces "bullies or bumblers". She puts parents' choice forthrightly: "A family-based childhood is traded for t hothousing of entitlement."

7. I wanted to highlight these responses because @NeilMackay makes the point in his article that the Boarding School Survivors Movement views what is happening as a kind of #MeToo Movement. Hidden stories are pouring out. Controversy inevitably follows. heraldscotland.com/news/19529579.…

8. One form of pushback will be Legacy: "This is all the past. We don't treat children this way anymore." Well, the @mandatenow campaign makes t point that, actually, staff in private institutns are still not legally required to report t kinds of acts the public assumes they are.

https://twitter.com/mandatenow/status/1429492356416409602?s=20

9. Another pushback will come via t manipulation skills that elite boarding schools hone in their pupils. @BeardRichard tries to help us see this in his new book on BS, due out later this month: Sad Little Men. In short: Johnson's hair-ruffling is a ruse. theguardian.com/education/2021…

10. In 1950s, when Robertson wanted parents to be able stay w/ children in hospital, t medical establishment pushed back.
In 1870s, when Lord Shaftesbury wanted the societal practice of putting children up chimneys stopped, homeowners pushed back. historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Hist…

11. In 2006, when civil rights activist Tarana Burke started a campaign against sexual violence, which became the #MeToo Movement, pushback came from men.
"Power & privilege doesn’t always have to destroy and take. It can be used to serve & build.” theguardian.com/world/2018/nov…

12. As the voices highlighting the harm of BS grow louder, so too will the pushback. Who will it come from? Those who benefit from that system.
So what can be done? Start by just keeping a look out for the resistance. See how many different forms of it you can spot.

13. Yes, it is true: not every child who attended Boarding School suffered abuse. That's a relief, isn't it? And not all 6-yr-olds recall pining dreadfully for their parents. But none of this is the point, is it?
It is time to stop silencing t many stories of pain that do exist.

14/end. My thanks go to journalist @NeilMackay for his determined efforts to give a platform to t courageous ppl willing to speak out about t pain of Boarding School. And to the @heraldscotland who did not put his article behind a paywall. THANK YOU both.
heraldscotland.com/news/19529579.…

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