NEW MESSAGE FROM DAVID BODDY

[anti_ses]

Take a closer look behind the facade.

I had opportunities to do that both while I was a pupil at St James and after I had left.

The Upanishads and Mahabharata are the highlights of the curriculum.

That is a gross exaggeration. What, by the way, do you have against the Upanishads and Mahabharata? I think they deserve the same importance historically given by Western society to Homer, Virgil and the Bible.

This is not a normal school.

And that's what's best about it. Normal schools are disproportionately concerned with gaining high rankings in league tables.

[parent]

Anti-Ses, I am glad that you are happy and obviously benefitted from this unique education.

Good luck with your life. Just don't shove your way of life down other children's throats. Which is probably what your school seems to be doing.

There is no point entering into a discussion with you. The school obviously works for you and you are content. Nobody wishes to take you into an uncomfortable zone.

God bless.

[leonmich]

Anti SES.

Thanks for pointing out how lowly and pointless my comments are.
In future I will try get as close to the absolute as I can before replying to your posts.

I thought I would counter your glowing views on St James teaching by providing a few direct quotes from my own text books. As well as being utter balderdash they give a pretty clear example of how SES shaped the schools teaching. See my new thread " excerpts from ST James school books".

[grimep]

Take a closer look behind the facade.

I had opportunities to do that both while I was a pupil at St James and after I had left.

The Upanishads and Mahabharata are the highlights of the curriculum.

That is a gross exaggeration. What, by the way, do you have against the Upanishads and Mahabharata? I think they deserve the same importance historically given by Western society to Homer, Virgil and the Bible.

This is not a normal school.

And that's what's best about it. Normal schools are disproportionately concerned with gaining high rankings in league tables.

anti_ses. I become more and more confused by your stance with every post you make.

For starters, do really you think western society actually gives a toss about homer (unless you mean simpson), virgil (unless you mean the Thunderbird) and the Bible?? They're only points of reference used by the SES. There is another world out there you know pal. The real one.

[anti_ses]

Just don't shove your way of life down other children's throats....There is no point entering into a discussion with you.....Nobody wishes to take you into an uncomfortable zone....God bless.

This sounds remarkably condescending. I don't have a clue how you know anything about my way of life. However, I feel just the same as you. There is no point entering into a discussion with you. Nobody wants to make you feel you are being delusional.

For starters, do really you think western society actually gives a toss about homer (unless you mean simpson), virgil (unless you mean the Thunderbird) and the Bible?? They're only points of reference used by the SES. There is another world out there you know pal. The real one.

I think they deserve the same importance historically given by Western society to Homer, Virgil and the Bible.

[a different guest]

well given the excerpts from the school's texts that leonmich has posted I am SURE the schools are great houses of learning. :frown:

[parent]

anti_ses,

Do not ever tell a parent that has had a child adversely affected by this system that she/he is being delusional.

Over and out.

[anti_ses]

anti_ses,

Do not ever tell a parent that has had a child adversely affected by this system that she/he is being delusional.

Over and out.

Nobody wants to make you feel you are being delusional.

Doesn't anyone ever read what I write?

[Keir]

I have just read every one of your posts on this subject anti-ses and I find your posts arrogant, rude, unnecessarily confrontational, and dismissive of almost any other view apart from your own. If this is the sort of behaviour you learnt from your time at St James I would not be at all surprised.

Of course you have an inalienable right to be as rude as you like, just dont get all defensive when someone is rude back to you. I don't know how old you are, but if you wanted to appear as if you were a mature, intelligent, and together individual, you might want to take a closer look at your own posts.

I have met people who talk like you write, I met a whole bunch of them in St James 6th forms, hell, I probably sounded a bit pompous and belligerant when I was 16 too. What concerns me is your interest in this site. If you are only moderately 'anti' a very few 'cosmetic' aspects of SES policy in the school, and are quick to jump to the defence of many of the other idealogical standpoints of the SES, why call yourself anti-ses? You are more pro it than against it. Or is it just a cry for acceptance?

I wouldn't be so quick to presume to tell fellow posters how to deal with what they are feeling. If as I suspect you are not fully conversant with your own feelings, you might need to do some counselling work to resolve the aggressive dysfunctional way that you communicate. Better to deal with it now than wait 20 years. I do hope that when you are exploring those feelings of alienation and anger that you meet some jumped up fuckwitt who has the temerity and ignorance to tell you to 'suck it up' or some such bollocks. Then, and only then will you realise how annoying it is.

Fuck you, you fake!

[Free Thinker]

Hear, Hear!!!

[anti_ses]

I'm just posting here to let everyone know I still visit these boards as an interested party. I am quite happy without acceptance of the SES philosophy/indoctrination and, fortunately, have never led a lifestyle in accordance with SES values (makes me wonder what "parent" meant by my "way of life"). I am not currently in contact with anyone from the SES and have not been for a while. Keir and others need not worry about my emotional well-being.

So my posts are "arrogant, rude, unnecessarily confrontational, and dismissive of almost any other view apart from your own." I cannot do anything if you find the following an immature statement, but, quite honestly, I can say the same about every reply I have read to my posts. And I have taken the trouble to re-read both my own posts and those of others. I am not at all surprised, since I appear to be the only one who has anything to say to the credit of St James. In any case, I won't be writing posts like I have before: it's been made clear too many times that my input has not helped. I have no intention of causing confrontation or upsetting people.

[Free Thinker]

You should get together with TB, who wrote his last post worded just like this one!

Thanks for apologizing, BTW. I don't think that everyone here needs to be as much against the SES as many of us are. In fact, it's good to have other voices, like Bella's!

However, I think that anyone posting on these boards (and this isn't directly just at you, anti-ses) needs to be very sensitive to the fact that many people here have had horrible childhoods filled with emotional and/or physical abuse due to the SES. This place is an outlet for them to vent, commiserate, and seek ways to ovecome those issues.

Also, you are very wrong to say that you are the only member posting positive things about St. James (and/or the SES.) I have read many posts by other members (I didn't attend St. J/V) saying positive things about the food, the activities, other pupils, some teachers, etc. I have also read positive things about the SES (including some I posted myself.)

I don't feel the need to search for them and quote them but believe me, they're there and if you look at all, you'll find them.

[Tom Grubb]

Although I very often disagree very strongly with anti_ses's views, I admire the forthright, consistent and, to my mind, honest way in which they are presented. I think personal attacks such as "Fuck you, you fake!" are unwarranted.

[Keir]

My words were in response to the offensive and arrogant way in which anti-ses puts forward his views, and while swearing can be seen as being over the top on this forum, I do not subscribe to the view that it is healthy for anti-ses to be cushioned from the genuine untrained unrestrained respone to his arrogance. I do infact think that it is vital that on this BB of all places that we should be truthful about our feelings however they express themselves. There were no other words that I knew of that expressed my anger as honestly as the ones I used.

The fact that anti-ses in my view has at no stage really connected with, respected, or in any way accepted that the stories of abuse on this site and discussion about emotional suppression are genuine is insulting and evidence of his emotional difficulties. It is this denial of feelings that is a fundamental tenet of the SES and by extension the day school, certainly at the time that I was at both institutions. Whilst I do not believe in trying to extract a weeping apology from him for supporting the education he received, I think it is vital that in the real world that he sees the full range of responses that our education has elicited, from the intellectual, reasoned criticism to the outright angry. I have no problem remaining calm and reasonable when I receive the same courtesy from fellow posters, but when being insulted I think that it is a healthy normal response to express anger.

Many of the posts on this BB have discussed the difficulty we were all left with in expressing anger after our experiences, so I think it is doubly important that someone who claims that their education has been nigh on perfect is given an example of healthy emotional behaviour. It may give him a different view of the completeness of his education.

If I am to be censured for levelling a critical opinion in my posts which is my genuine opinion based on reading his posts on a public forum, and for expressing my feelings as truthfully and as accurately as I can, then it is not as free a discussion as I thought.

[Tom Grubb]

Hi Keir,

I have no problem with the "fuck" - it was more the "you, you fake"! I'm most definitely not calling for people to be censored, though. And I have absolutely nothing against the genuine expression of feeling - something which you do very well.

Maybe I've missed something (it's difficult to check because the search function has been vandalised) but I honestly don't remember anti_ses posting anything that seemed (to me at least) fake. A lot of stuff that I strongly disagree with but nothing that wasn't, as far as I could tell, genuinely felt. That's why I thought it was unfair to call anti_ses a fake.

Unfortunately, the view that St James was a wonderful place is not as uncommon as many of us would like. I've had emails to that effect from more than one ex-pupil. I personally think their opinions, despite being bizarre, are genuinely felt.

What really upsets me is when people do the 'burning martyr' act a la Katharine Watson and disappear as soon as their views are subjected to robust criticism. anti_ses, to his credit, has not done this. He has made a genuine (in my view) attempt to argue his unpopular views and answer both fair and unfair criticism.

Cheers,

Tom