Having given this quite a bit of thought, I think it's not so much iron discipline those hothouse places need to get results, as an absolute identification of a pupil's own interests with those of the school, irrespective of what the school wants is good for you or not. So I could see judiciously applied matiness as part of that strategy; one might want to cock a snook at Authority, but one is much less likely to want to let down someone you see as your friend.
I think I'm with Patrick and Nicola as rejecting the matiness as essentially false; the power imbalance between pupil and teacher is being deliberately obscured but remains in place, as we see playing out later (someone used the term "grooming" elsewhere in the thread, and while I don't think there's a sexual element in it -- or, to be more accurate, while I don't think there's likely to be more of a risk of improper student/teacher relations in Patrick's trendy school than in a more traditional one -- I do think that the element of leading someone on for an ulterior motive is there.)
Which is to say, I can see Patrick's school as a credible place and, indeed, up thread there are accounts of similar schools in the Hampshire area, which Forest might have been aware of -- from post-Mass chit-chat among her fellow communicants if nothing else. I am more sceptical of the first name basis for pupils below the Sixth Form - it seems to me to be more credible as a post-'O' level privilege -- but it doesn't seem wholly off the wall, either.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Peculiar O Level Timing
Date: 2015-02-16 08:42 am (UTC)I think I'm with Patrick and Nicola as rejecting the matiness as essentially false; the power imbalance between pupil and teacher is being deliberately obscured but remains in place, as we see playing out later (someone used the term "grooming" elsewhere in the thread, and while I don't think there's a sexual element in it -- or, to be more accurate, while I don't think there's likely to be more of a risk of improper student/teacher relations in Patrick's trendy school than in a more traditional one -- I do think that the element of leading someone on for an ulterior motive is there.)
Which is to say, I can see Patrick's school as a credible place and, indeed, up thread there are accounts of similar schools in the Hampshire area, which Forest might have been aware of -- from post-Mass chit-chat among her fellow communicants if nothing else. I am more sceptical of the first name basis for pupils below the Sixth Form - it seems to me to be more credible as a post-'O' level privilege -- but it doesn't seem wholly off the wall, either.