A face-to-face place

This week we welcome our Deputy Head (Academic), Dr David James, who reflects on the importance of face-to-face relationships.
Evidence seems to grow each week that mobile technology could be playing a significant role in the rise of mental health issues among young people. Of course, being online is not in itself a bad thing: you could be on Google Art Project researching Caravaggio, while listening to Handel’s Messiah on Spotify. There are endless opportunities to be educated and uplifted on an iPad or mobile phone, and it should not be forgotten, in the rush to ban technology from our schools, that, as one teacher puts it, not all screen time is equal. This is complicated enough when one is an adult: we should know when to close the lid of the laptop, or to switch our phones to airplane mode in order to get some rest, or to read a book. Having said that, many parents are as guilty of modern social faux pas, such as phubbing, as their children. How many meals have been ruined because Mum or Dad simply has to reply to that email? But teenagers may be under more pressure to keep Snapstreaks going, or to move to the next mission in GTA without letting their friends down, than adults are to keep email correspondence alive. To adolescents, friendships and being accepted by others have always been of profound importance. And, like much of the world today, a lot of that has moved online, which in turn has made it - and the possible concomitant shaming - more public.

Such things shouldn’t surprise us. But what should alarm all parents and teachers (and indeed anyone with any interest in the wellbeing of young people) is that social media companies have deliberately made their sites as addictive as possible. When Sean Parker, an early investor in Facebook, claims that the company is deliberately “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology” then the laid-back West Coast mask that Mark Zuckerberg wears begins to slip a little; and when Parker admits that Facebook’s effect on children “literally changes your relationship with society, with each other...God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains,” then the reality dawns that these new companies may be just as ruthless at exploiting human frailty, and addictive tendencies, as Marlboro, McDonald’s, and Jack Daniels. As Roger Daltrey once famously sang: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Where do schools fit into this? Well, we could go to one extreme and ban all technology from our site (just as a junior school popular with Palo Alto CEOs has done, which in itself raises some disturbing questions), but we suspect that teenagers, being teenagers, will find a way around that. In addition, parents understandably want to keep in touch with their children when they’re at boarding school, and so even asking pupils to hand over their devices for long periods of time (as is becoming popular in some US schools) presents certain problems as well. Plus, to reiterate what I said before, there is so much wonderful stuff out there that actively aids learning that only the most retrogressive and anti-intellectual educational establishment would contemplate switching it off at source.

But perhaps the solution to the challenges that technology is presenting us with now is, literally, staring us in the face. And what we’re looking at is another human face. An anecdote that might illuminate my point. When I was interviewing a pupil who wanted to join Bryanston from her day school last term, I asked her why she wanted to give up the 4.15pm finishes, and have lessons on a Saturday. Her answer has stayed with me ever since. She said: “I’m a face-to-face person, and I guess this is a face-to-face place.” She went on to say that the many arguments that teenagers have via WhatsApp and Snapchat tend to escalate after school. By the time the pupils return to school the next day, or on Monday, grievances have deepened because correspondence has occurred via text, not voice. We all know that a simple statement like “I hate you” can be spoken with venom and with humour, and how we modulate our tone makes all the difference. But as a flat, written text, it can be destructive. For my interviewee the answer was simple: she wanted to talk to people, and in doing so form bonds and friendships that are robustly independent of Zuckerberg’s nefarious network. For her, Bryanston would provide her with more opportunity to make real and lasting friendships. Through articulating our ideas to others we make sense of our thoughts to them, and to our own self, at the same time. For young people this is an essential part of establishing their own identities. In time, I have no doubt, the miracle that is the human voice will win out over cold digital dialogue. Ideally, both will add richness to our lives. But it is perhaps only in a boarding school that the time and space, and the opportunities, are so varied, and allow for such ongoing interaction, that our young people develop in a more fully human way.

Ten years on

Class of 2007

At the weekend the classes of 1987, 1997 and 2007 returned to Bryanston for their reunion. Benjy Barkes (Sa ’07) reflects on his return to school and what it meant to him.

What an amazing, rewarding and fun day! Mostly we hadn’t seen each other for 10 years and for many it was their first time back in Dorset, let alone the school grounds. The last time we were together as a group we knew a huge amount about one another, at least we imagined that we did. We had spent most of the previous five years in each other’s company, whilst going through the same experience.

But talking to others at the reunion, it became clear that we hadn’t had the same experience. Five of the most formative years of your life spent anywhere, but particularly Bryanston, are a unique experience, and we all have our own memories of our time at school.

Besides some smart new additions, the school feels and looks largely the same. The worlds we lived in – for me, the four corridors of Salisbury House and a few small bedrooms that were my home for years of my life – also look the same.

Even as we were given a tour of the house, the group of recent strangers slotted back into their former school roles: the loud ones, the shy ones, the musicians, the rugby players. It was nostalgic and curious, bouncing from mature catch-up chat to long forgotten school-boy banter.

I guess that we are still the same people that left Bryanston a decade ago, we certainly look similar! But we are all, without a doubt, so much better for those 10 years. The shy 18-year-olds are now young professionals. Some of those that played in bands at school are now musicians playing to crowds across the country, some of the rugby players are now professionals, hard workers are now accountants and bankers, some are married with children; there are soldiers, artists, naval officers, actors and composers.

Every person, in every way, seemed a better version of themselves. A more confident, happier and developed version of the person that emerged from Bryanston all those years ago. I imagine that this, as an observation, would probably be consistent with other schools. However, with Bryanston there’s one clear difference: the diversity.

I cannot envisage that any other school produces such a happy mixture of people, who not only relish seeing each other, but also cherish their differences and are thankful for the school that offered the chance for everyone to find their niche. There truly is no Bryanston stereotype.

By and large, everyone at the reunion expressed the fondest memories of their time at school and loved the opportunity to spend the day together. It’s a curious virtue of our newly discovered confidence and maturity, that most of us had longer conversations with people in our year at the reunion than we ever had in our five years of shared classes. A missed opportunity, but such is life. Bring on the 20-year reunion!

See more photos from the reunion.

Against the clock

It’s a term of exams; one which is more complicated than any of my teaching career, as the latest round of national exam tinkering starts to bite. The country’s Year 12 pupils (we call them A3) are engaging, depending upon their choices, in a mix of legacy and reformed A levels - and it is a cocktail that is producing headaches across the country. Our job, parents and teachers, is to keep our charges sane. And to allow them to do their best.

Exams are one of those unavoidable snapshots of life; not attractive to many of those engaged in them, apart from a few odd souls who relish the adrenalin rush of proving themselves against the clock and without access to any notes that may help them. I remember my tutor at college, the wonderful Stephanie West, asking me as I was getting a little ‘stressed’ preparing for my unseen papers in Greats (which means ‘Finals’ in almost every other part of the world): “If we found a new manuscript of a Greek author, to whom would we give it for the better translation: a nervous finalist student in an exam with no dictionary, or a focused and rested expert in a library surrounded by all the texts one could possibly need?” That helped me a lot to realise what a damn silly idea in lots of ways an unseen translation exam is. It has to be done of course, but the aim of the test is not the production of a perfect translation, but the production of the best you can do in the most unnatural of circumstances. Doing well in exams is all about recognising upon what it is that you are being tested and making your peace with that.

My husband is a big horse-racing fan. He often talks to me about the horses, the trainers and the races and I understand a (very small) percentage of what he says. This is of course the secret of a long and happy marriage. He talked to me recently about ‘breeze up sales’, in which young horses (two-year-olds) are galloped (‘breezed’) for a quarter of a mile or so, the better to inform the on-looking prospective purchasers as to their potential as racehorses. Recently, it has become modish to time this test gallop. And still more modish to pay the highest price for the fastest horse. This has resulted, of course, in young horses being specifically prepared to excel in the test gallop, with less regard for their future health and racing prospects.

I was struck by, and indeed moved by, some of the language of horsemen who see the limits of this exercise. One said: “It’s a fad. But the shrewd guys are seeing through it. They know that if you push these young horses too hard, their heads will be fried, their legs will be fried, and you can forget any idea of them becoming racehorses. Best of luck to these lads with their stopwatches … I know we’re being penalised for not doing fast breezes. But our turn will come. People will come full circle.”

We all have to do ‘breezes’ against the clock. We call them exams. But whilst we accept we have to do them, and that it is generally a good thing to do well in them, I do hope that by next year we shall indeed be seeing a full circle. We will very soon be returning to the days of a two year sixth form (i.e. no AS exams) and, by 2019, we’ll be going back to something like 1926 and the School Certificate, with GCSEs graded 1-9, rather than A* to G. With that might return also the educational memory that not everyone is supposed to get only the highest grade; not everyone is first in a particular race. Or as another racehorse trainer put it: “A lot of the real ‘road runners’ that break the clock at the sales don’t turn out to be ‘race runners’, so to speak … and some of our best horses were bought simply because we liked their make and shape and attitude.”

I have two OB daughters in their early twenties who I very much hope, having been pretty decent ‘road runners’ at Bryanston, are now much more importantly ‘race runners’. All I have ever cared about is their ability to be independent, happy, and fulfilled. I wish them lives of brave choices and paths explored. I wish them loving and loved. These ‘breeze ups’ or exams are, and always have been, just irritating snapshots on the way to these greater goals. I do very much hope that between us we can make sure all our children have the right priorities in life. Some of achieving that is in making sure we don’t buy into any nonsense.

In other words, focus long-term. Or if you prefer, it’s not the snapshot or the stopwatch that matters but how it fits into your plans for a happy, fulfilling, and contributory life.