Rich Kids Act Like Jerks. No one surprised.

[lesbiassparrow]

Except for some of the commentators on the piece:

NY Magazine on Horace Mann School in NY

Thanks to cbackson I bring you this link about rich kids and their parents acting like jerks. Whatever you think about the article I feel rather strongly that the comments by people who claim to be current or past students of Horace Mann pretty much prove the author's point about the toxic nature of the institution. Most of them seem incapable of admitting that there might be anything remotely wrong with doing or saying of the things these students did. Instead, they seem curiously attached to the idea that Facebook is private space and appalled that anyone would read nasty comments they wrote on it. Based on that misapprehension alone, I feel the parents should be wondering what sort of education their kids are getting. (Schools get sued over things their students wrote on the internet about students so pretty much every school that can afford it does some internet monitoring of their students.)

Comments

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

You know, I went to a prep school. So did vwlphb. Not everyone who goes to these places is automatically an asshole. There are plenty of assholes in public school too, judging by Columbine (and I'm not just referring to the killers).

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I taught at one and I certainly taught some nice kids; I am not sure where you got the impression that that what I was saying is that all students at prep schools are jerks. Though, going by the comments on that piece from Horace Mann students (or people claiming to be from there) many of them have missed the whole point of the article nor are they willing to admit that at the very least having a facebook club of this sort is pretty nasty.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

the impression that that what I was saying is that all students at prep schools are jerks

From this and the last entry, that's exactly the impression I took away. If you didn't mean to give that impression, then I withdraw the comments. I really hate the idea that prep school teachers are looking down their nose at their students, because if that's the truth, all the good relationships I had with teachers that I thought were real were a lie. In at least one case, that's turned out to be so already, so this is a bit of a sore spot for me.

ETA: The title to the entry may have given me the impression.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Because you are clearly so offended by this post I just wanted to clarify a few things about both posts

1. Do I think children who go to elite private institutions are privileged? Yes. No one would be paying those fees if they weren't getting something for it. Some of them may be financial aid but in my experience (only my personal experience) that's not true for the student body as a while

2. Do I think that they are often unaware of just quite how enormous the privileges and advantages they are getting are? Yes. Even the ones who volunteer just have no idea just how much help they are getting not only from their education but all the extra things that money and class can get them. But they're teenagers - that doesn't really astonish me. I wasn't much of a reflective teen myself. I am astonished that their parents also seem to be unaware of it or unwilling to admit it and I think that's a problem. Your kid may work hard - and many really do - but that still doesn't mean that other kids are failing to get to Harvard because they are lazy. Many of us have some level of privilege that we're not aware of or don't want to particularly think about because it makes us uncomfortable (for example, my whiteness) but I still think it's important to think about it and acknowledge it and try to understand that you have had chances because of what you are as much as who you are.

3. Do I think this situation is particularly fair? No, I don't. Looking at the money poured into some of these kids and the army of people ensuring they succeed makes me feel unhappy that other people aren't even given a decent starting chance in education. I understand why parents do it and why students benefit from it but it doesn't make it fair.

4. Did I hate the students I taught because I though that they were getting privileges that other kids weren't? No, of course not. Many of them were lovely kids. And many of them weren't. Like all kids.

5. Did I spend my classes shrieking at them for the advantages they had? No. Because I'm not a wanker. But it doesn't mean that I couldn't and can't have the opinion that this sort of system is manifestly unfair.

[library-of-sex.livejournal.com]

Geez, those kids and their parents are horrible! I feel bad for the decent students at Horace Mann because they're probably lumped in with the pricks now. It's funny that the parents are paying tens of thousands of dollars per year to send their kids to that school, and apparently many of the kids aren't learning anything besides sexism, racism, and intolerance of anyone thought to lean towards the left.

[sucrelefey.livejournal.com]

They do live on their own little planet don't they.

[meyerlemon.livejournal.com]

These things are so mystifying!

I went to prep school, but nothing like this ever happened. There was a huge amount of pressure to do well enough to stay in the school (which dropped 50% of its first-year class over time) and... I just don't think it would have occurred to any of us to feel that we were somehow in charge. What these Horace Mann kids need to straighten themselves out is some INTENSE ACADEMIC PRESSURE to get into college, not the assurance that they can fuck around and still be daddy's Harvard legacy.

I don't think it's good for teenagers to feel like they're in charge. It's their job to rebel, and it's the adults' job to provide impassive boundaries to that rebellion. This school is going to turn out a bunch of jerks. Thanks, Horace Mann!

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

I went to prep school, but nothing like this ever happened.

Same here. In fact, I'd say that most of the people I knew in school were fairly aware of (and a bit uncomfortable with) how privileged they were. A lot of people did charity and community work outside of classes.

[meyerlemon.livejournal.com]

Well, I wouldn't go that far. All I'm saying is that where I went to school, although I believe that all teenagers are total shits and we were certainly no different, the academic pressure was so high there wasn't much time for our jerkhood to manifest itself as horrid anti-teacher clubs.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

There's some truth to that, but I don't agree that all teens are total shits. Teens are part-time shits. Especially male teens in groups.

I just hate when people characterize everyone who goes to boarding school as an elitist idiot. Especially when the person doing it is a teacher.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I just hate when people characterize everyone who goes to boarding school as an elitist idiot. Especially when the person doing it is a teacher.

...

[meyerlemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I thought I misread that. But I don't think I did.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I don't think you did either. Apparently, one should not judge the rich. I do and I did because they get chances other people don't. Doesn't mean I hate them all or that I wreaked terrible vengeance on their kids.

[meyerlemon.livejournal.com]

People complain about their jobs. I don't know why this is hard to grasp.

[cbackson.livejournal.com]

I Agree With This Comment, yo.

[meyerlemon.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone is talking about you, and I think it's safe to say that the kids in that article are lousy people who could benefit from a year at military school.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I took it more personally than I ought to have, but sometimes I feel like screaming that I can't help who I was born to any more than anyone else can.

[meyerlemon.livejournal.com]

You taking a post about some article completely unrelated to you personally at all was probably not a terrific option.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Er, wait. This isn't some April Fools thing is it? Because I'm going to feel dumb if it is.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Heh, if I were less than honest, I'd totally say so, but no. I really was/am offended. I also feel like I'm being a bit silly. Apparently, it's possible to feel both at once. Your last comment to me sounds a lot more reasonable than the remarks like, "Rich kids act like jerks" that you posted here and implied in the last post.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

My header was 'Rich kids Act Like Jerks' because they were. And in my last post I don't think I said anything that startling beyond that my personal experience is that rich people are massively advantaged and frequently unaware of it. I don't think that's terribly shocking or news to anyone. It's like saying that being white is an advantages and that white people are frequently unaware of this.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

We are agreed about your last post. You don't need to defend it.

[chelseagirl47.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this -- I saw it on the newsstand and was curious as I've known both teachers and students there. I've never gone to Rate Your Professor.com because I feel like that's a venting space, but Facebook and MySpace are getting so universal . . . The thing that I'm most appalled at is whether teachers are given *any* authority over their students, and it's become such a buyers' market.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I don't go looking for this information either and I assume that much of it is like venting in corridors or over the phone. Though I think there's a difference between that and setting up groups to do it which seems like a little extra step in nastiness. And kids do have short fuses so I don't really take that a lot of their wrath as being a sign of anything more than normal teen venting.

But the situation in this article seems to show actions that most schools would consider disciplinable - they are in public space and clearly have the school's name attached. But clearly nothing happened to the students at all. (Or very little.)

[meyerlemon.livejournal.com]

It disturbs me when teenagers - who are prone to this anyway - get into these creepy Lord of the Flies situations and nobody pushes back (in this case, because the parents are crazy and overprivileged, in many other cases because the teachers are in an environment where people are actually afraid of the kids.) That's not okay on a really fundamental level, in my opinion. That's how you end up with really terrible adults.

/butts in.

[library-of-sex.livejournal.com]

I went to a Catholic all-girls school, and while there wasn't so much trashing of the teachers and ratting to rich parents (we only wished we had them), there was plenty of student hateration and getting knocked up. It almost seems like public schools are the mosy well-off at this point, in terms of avoiding scandal!

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I think all kids trash their teachers (god, I know I did). It's one of those natural things you do to stay sane. And high schools can be mean places at all levels, but I do think that when you are handed massive advantage that there is a bit of an onus to be better behaved. Or, at least, acknowledge the bad behaviour.

[sucrelefey.livejournal.com]

Ok I'm a freak I never trashed my teachers until after I finished school. Then again I didn't have anyone I could talk to in the first place.

[oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com]

I wish I could say this surprised me, but this sort of shit happens at most high schools. I mean...I am sure I have said that kind of shit about teachers and I've certainly written (possibly publicly) about it in my livejournal. UCLA even has a professor ratings official site called Bruin Walk where people can comment and rate professors, and some of the comments are remarkably similar. I went to a public school that catered very much to the whims of the rich kids' parents, though, so maybe my feelings are skewed? IDK.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised that it happens. I think I'm more surprised that the students took umbrage or were surprised that they were caught. It's Facebook not some private board.

I know I vented about teachers too (god, did I vent) but if I'd been caught I am sure there would have been consequences. My parents would have bloody killed me.

[cbackson.livejournal.com]

It's a horrifying article, isn't it?

I went to prep school. I didn't go to the fanciest prep school in my town--it was the "alternative" school, so we called our teachers by their first names and had a gay/straight alliance and it was "only" $9,000 (not $20,000). But there were absolutely these same kinds of tensions, pressures, and scenarios. There was no facebook, but there were anonymous student newsletters that passed around awful rumors about teachers.

And of course--OF COURSE--there were those awful kids who managed to combine nastiness and confidence in a way that's threatening to teachers, particularly teachers who're sensitive and care a lot. And (once again) of course, they often targeted young female teachers in the anonymous cartoons they put up on classroom doors, cartoons that were just sexually tinged enough to be creepy and threatening.

And sadly, there were some parents (members of the board of trustees, local media figures, prominent businesspeople) who reacted with anger when their kids were busted harassing teachers in that way, or drinking on a school trip to Europe, or whatever. My parents were of the "If you get in trouble at school, you'll be in twice as much trouble at home" persuasion, but then again, they grew up working-class.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I think that most schools (probably all) have some of this going on. And with the internet that nastiness gets spread around faster and more easily - and more permanently. A lot of is that normal teenage venting is just so easy to record.

But I do feel that when you get caught at these things - like everything nasty - you should own up and deal with it. And parents should both look at their children and the teacher in all situations. Bad things happen, teachers can be unfair, but this isn't the way to deal with it as an adult and that's why I think the parents fail the most in this story.

And what they're documenting is more than ordinary teenage nastiness. When you're setting up groups and maintaining them, that takes some active malice.

[cbackson.livejournal.com]

Ah, people hate to admit that teenagers have the capability for that kind of particular nastiness. And yet, I think, coming to terms with the fact that you *can* be that type of person, taking your medicine, and learning how to be a better person as a result is a critical experience in most people's teenaged lives.

These kids, of course, have only learned that they can get out of whatever they want to.

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

I couldn't even bring myself to read past the first page, because I just want to smack both the kids and the parents. I suspect the problems of combatting the issue are magnified by the parents' money and clout, but honestly, I think this is all too symptomatic of all too many kids these days. And I have no kids and don't know what the solution is, but it worries me that no one's been able to figure one out and make it stick. I do think it starts with the parents and not the kids, though, for whatever that's worth.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I don't really blame teens for being teens: I was a bit of a git myself as one. But I do think that as a parent you're supposed to be checking their behaviour and especially when they are getting older to prepare them to be decent human beings by making them face up to consequences when they do something unpleasant.

It's not like teachers can't be jerks, but trying to pretend that having kids vent about them in public forums is the way to deal with poor teaching is just so stupid. Plus probably actionable at some point.

[lage-nom-ai.livejournal.com]

You know, I went to a prep school. And agree with all of your feelings on the subject. :D

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I am not sure that this bunch have much in common with the rest of humanity let alone even your average prep school goer. Occasionally I check the comments on the story to watch them show just how clueless they are about how they are perceived. They are clearly of the belief that they can do no wrong.