Stapel
Well-known member
Guys, please help me out!
Introduction: Two weeks ago, I was on tour in East Sussex, where we (my relatively crap cricket team, which has only three players who have held a bat before the age of 30) would play two matches against village teams. Good fun!
Unfortunately, our 2nd match was rained off completely, so we spent the day in the pub, playing pool, darts and poker. It also offered a proper opportunity to have more serious conversations with our hosts. As it appeared, the team represented the village quite well. Half of them were born and raised there, had jobs as plumber, butcher, or welder, and were proud to show some tattoos. The other half were working in London, had a 2nd home in this village, and had their kids at some private boarding school. I hadn't noticed this difference in earlier years and wouldn't have, if not for the rain. As a group, there was no noticable division!
With two of the guys, I discussed the educational system. I'm a teacher myself (over 96 classes, so I'm entitled to an opinion ), so I was very interested. In Netherlands, private schools are a rarity. Expats send their children there, and 17 year old drop-outs can be sent to a private school for a year, to avoid further delay. But that's it
I asked the guys why he spent all this money on very expensive education. Are independent schools that bad? All of them? If so, regarding that 93% (source = wikipedia) of British youth attends independent schools, does the UK have a problem? Yes, yes & yes, he replied.
At home, I did some digging. Cook, Strauss, Trott (in SA), Bell, Pietersen (in SA) & Broad all attended private schools. That's not really representative of British society, is it?
Is cricket posh in England? Do private schools 'produce' better cricketers? What's on?
Introduction: Two weeks ago, I was on tour in East Sussex, where we (my relatively crap cricket team, which has only three players who have held a bat before the age of 30) would play two matches against village teams. Good fun!
Unfortunately, our 2nd match was rained off completely, so we spent the day in the pub, playing pool, darts and poker. It also offered a proper opportunity to have more serious conversations with our hosts. As it appeared, the team represented the village quite well. Half of them were born and raised there, had jobs as plumber, butcher, or welder, and were proud to show some tattoos. The other half were working in London, had a 2nd home in this village, and had their kids at some private boarding school. I hadn't noticed this difference in earlier years and wouldn't have, if not for the rain. As a group, there was no noticable division!
With two of the guys, I discussed the educational system. I'm a teacher myself (over 96 classes, so I'm entitled to an opinion ), so I was very interested. In Netherlands, private schools are a rarity. Expats send their children there, and 17 year old drop-outs can be sent to a private school for a year, to avoid further delay. But that's it
I asked the guys why he spent all this money on very expensive education. Are independent schools that bad? All of them? If so, regarding that 93% (source = wikipedia) of British youth attends independent schools, does the UK have a problem? Yes, yes & yes, he replied.
At home, I did some digging. Cook, Strauss, Trott (in SA), Bell, Pietersen (in SA) & Broad all attended private schools. That's not really representative of British society, is it?
Is cricket posh in England? Do private schools 'produce' better cricketers? What's on?