Home
Log in / Sign Up
    Private Messages   Advanced Search   Rules   New User Guide   FAQ   Advertise   Contact Us  
Forum -> Hobbies, Crafts, and Collections -> Reading Room
E. Blyton: St. Clare's, Mallory towers - a bullying system?
1  2  Next



Post new topic   Reply to topic View latest: 24h 48h 72h

Ora in town




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 5:33 am
Are those boarding school novels by Enid Blyton still read?

I loved them when I was a teen.

Now, I went back and read some of them again, and I was appalled. Reading the books now, these boarding schools look like a huge bullying system to me.

What is particularly shocking from my present perspective is the system where every student in grade 1 and 2 is assigned to a girl in grade 5 or 6 to perform little services for her, quasi as a maid. The idea is that the girls should learn how it feels when they have to serve someone else (because supposedly, later in life they will have servants, and should learn to treat them well). In my adult eyes, this means to set up the small girls for bullying and exploitation.

Class punishment, where the whole class won't speak to a girl who does not fall in line, also seems like serious bullying to me.

Also, when I read the novels as a child, I tended to agree with the author's opinion on the "bad" girls and kind of wanted them to be bullying. Now I see that what author thinks should be done to the "bad" girls is indeed bullying.

What are your opinions?
Would you send your daughters under 18 to a sem that had similar rules?
Back to top

Ora in town




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 4:43 pm
I suppose no-one is reading them any more...
Back to top

amother
Oak


 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 4:46 pm
Ora in town wrote:
I suppose no-one is reading them any more...


My daughter used to read them. She enjoyed them. I think she just recognised that the bullying mirrors real life school so that was part of the appeal.

BTW, in the U.K., kids start school a year earlier (the academic year they turn five versus six) so US grades and U.K. years are not synonymous.
Back to top

Raisin




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 4:50 pm
I read them, my kids read them. Did they have that system in those schools? Probably typical of all British Public (boarding) schools then. In boys school beating with a cane was also common. Pretty sure it doesn't exist anymore.

It's well known enid Blyton was a not a particularly nice person. I think many of her characters are horrible. She was also racist, classist, and sexist.

We love the modern adult takes on the Famous Five in my house. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Five-.....87551

Of course, we can't have a picnic without referencing the famous five either.
Back to top

Raisin




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 4:55 pm
Secondary school in the UK starts at 11. So you enter Form One. School starts with Reception at 4 or 5, going up to Class 6 and then you move to senior school. There are 7 years in secondary school - sixth form has upper and lower 6. Nowadays they have changed it so classes are called years 1-13. But never grades.

(frum schools often skip the last 2 years or abbreviate them into one year)
Back to top

amother
Tangerine


 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 4:58 pm
The BBC just made a tv series of Mallory towers. My kids watched it. It was full of black and mixed race characters, with no explanation how they ended up in a boarding school in 1950's Britain. I asked someone who went to such a school in the 50s and she said the only black or ethnic students were princesses from India or Africa. Rolling Eyes So very nice bbc to try and be politically correct but please be historically accurate.
Back to top

Ora in town




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 5:22 pm
amother [ Tangerine ] wrote:
The BBC just made a tv series of Mallory towers. My kids watched it. It was full of black and mixed race characters, with no explanation how they ended up in a boarding school in 1950's Britain. I asked someone who went to such a school in the 50s and she said the only black or ethnic students were princesses from India or Africa. Rolling Eyes So very nice bbc to try and be politically correct but please be historically accurate.

I suppose the education principles were considered very progressive back then, too...

That's the way I read it. No more hitting. Trying to appeal to reason... A caring, wise, loving headmistress...

But how, the world has evolved even more... and those principles seem obsolete and sometimes abusive...
Back to top

Elfrida




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 5:30 pm
I reread them recently. About once a decade I can cope with Enid Blyton, and this time the pressure over Corona and lockdown meant I didn't have the mental energy to read anything that actually meant I had to concentrate.

The system you describe was very common in boarding schools. It is open to exploitation, but also had a lot of potential benefits in allowing the younger girls to develop a relationship with the older ones. Almost a kind of big sister programme. When the older girls were sensible and responsible it worked. When they weren't - there was room for a lot of problems.

Overall Enid Blyton takes a rather simplistic view of character development. If you fit in to the system, you can grow up in it. If you don't quite fit, but subscribe to the values of the system, you can normally make your own niche. If you remain apart from the accepted system and values, you are doomed to eternal misery.

I first read those books when I was around eight or nine. I didn't have a very complex understanding of people, and a lot of the storylines fitted in with my view of the world. As I grew up, they became less appealing.

Enid Blyton sometimes wrote fifty books in a year. You can't be surprised that they became somewhat formulaic, with very little depth. She also wrote quite a few of the entries in the Encyclopedia Brittanica pertaining to British nature and wildlife - an area in which she was very knowledgeable.
Back to top

Ora in town




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 5:41 pm
Elfrida wrote:
I reread them recently. About once a decade I can cope with Enid Blyton, and this time the pressure over Corona and lockdown meant I didn't have the mental energy to read anything that actually meant I had to concentrate.

The system you describe was very common in boarding schools. It is open to exploitation, but also had a lot of potential benefits in allowing the younger girls to develop a relationship with the older ones. Almost a kind of big sister programme. When the older girls were sensible and responsible it worked. When they weren't - there was room for a lot of problems.

Overall Enid Blyton takes a rather simplistic view of character development. If you fit in to the system, you can grow up in it. If you don't quite fit, but subscribe to the values of the system, you can normally make your own niche. If you remain apart from the accepted system and values, you are doomed to eternal misery.

I first read those books when I was around eight or nine. I didn't have a very complex understanding of people, and a lot of the storylines fitted in with my view of the world. As I grew up, they became less appealing.

Enid Blyton sometimes wrote fifty books in a year. You can't be surprised that they became somewhat formulaic, with very little depth. She also wrote quite a few of the entries in the Encyclopedia Brittanica pertaining to British nature and wildlife - an area in which she was very knowledgeable.


Thank you. That's the impression I got when I reread those books as an adult.

I suppose the primary aim of those books was to make boarding school seem attractive to girls and to prepare them so as to avoid the major pitfalls...
Back to top

amother
Magenta


 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 6:18 pm
As someone who read the Enid Blyton books, and attended British boarding schools, I found her books both informative and wholly unrealistic.

I read the books when I was probably 9 or 10, and went to boarding school at age 11. (Any other old carmelis here? ).

As I haven't looked at them in over 3 decades I can't remember a single plot line. But I remember the overall sense.
Back to top

Ora in town




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 6:21 pm
amother [ Magenta ] wrote:
As someone who read the Enid Blyton books, and attended British boarding schools, I found her books both informative and wholly unrealistic.

I read the books when I was probably 9 or 10, and went to boarding school at age 11. (Any other old carmelis here? ).

As I haven't looked at them in over 3 decades I can't remember a single plot line. But I remember the overall sense.

Did you like boarding school?
Did those books make you excited about going to boarding school?
Back to top

amother
Magenta


 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 6:25 pm
Ora in town wrote:
Did you like boarding school?
Did those books make you excited about going to boarding school?


Did I like boarding school? It's a complicated question. Let's just say, even though I gained a huge amount by attending (great education, independence, exposure to people from all over the world etc.) I wouldn't make the same choices for my children.

I don't remember Mallory towers being influential in my choice, but as a pre-teen, it's possible that it did influence me to go.
Back to top

amother
Floralwhite


 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 6:59 pm
Personally I found Enid Blyton was aimed at younger readers, not more than say 10. Children of that age are fine with a more simplistic black and white view of the world. I enjoyed them as a child but I could never reread them when I was older-they were just too childish.
Yes they are somewhat dated, but then so are other books that are older-Angela Brazil, Elinor Brent Dyer-all these boarding school series have similar issues. They fit into the era they are from.
Are other literary classics not also dated? Dickens, Austen, Brontes, Twain, Shakespeare etc etc-they all reflect the era they were written in.
Now if you're saying you don't like the middos, well that's why some people don't allow their children to read non jewish books.
Personally I'd rather my child read a clean classic than some of the modern books out there.
Btw if we're talking bad children's books-Roald Dahl-what sort of things was he teaching children?
Back to top

Ora in town




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 8:17 pm
amother [ Floralwhite ] wrote:
Personally I found Enid Blyton was aimed at younger readers, not more than say 10. Children of that age are fine with a more simplistic black and white view of the world. I enjoyed them as a child but I could never reread them when I was older-they were just too childish.
Yes they are somewhat dated, but then so are other books that are older-Angela Brazil, Elinor Brent Dyer-all these boarding school series have similar issues. They fit into the era they are from.
Are other literary classics not also dated? Dickens, Austen, Brontes, Twain, Shakespeare etc etc-they all reflect the era they were written in.
Now if you're saying you don't like the middos, well that's why some people don't allow their children to read non jewish books.
Personally I'd rather my child read a clean classic than some of the modern books out there.
Btw if we're talking bad children's books-Roald Dahl-what sort of things was he teaching children?

Roald Dahl was strange... I didn't like him, as a child, but I did not read much he wrote...
Back to top

amother
Crimson


 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 8:31 pm
I read Mallory Towers, but hardly remember it... except for the apple pie beds.


My father who went to City of London which is a boys' private school (not a boarding school) told us that the sixth form boys were allowed to give punishments to younger boys. I think they were even allowed to cane Surprised

I had friends at Carmel, sounded like fun Smile
Back to top

amother
Crimson


 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 8:33 pm
Thankfully the prefect system apparently evolved over the years.
My prefects were simply there as role models, and possibly a been there done that figure to get advice from. No carrying out commands.
Back to top

Mommyg8




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 8:36 pm
Ora in town wrote:
Roald Dahl was strange... I didn't like him, as a child, but I did not read much he wrote...


I was going to say that I read Roald Dahl's biography, and let's just say that he got inspiration for the more sadistic parts of his books from the boarding school he went to...

At least the boys boarding schools in England (at that time) were extremely sadistic and cruel. I haven't yet read any women's autobiographies on this topic, but it's not a huge strain on the imagination to assume that the basic premise was the same....
Back to top

amother
Crimson


 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 8:47 pm
Was never allowed to read his books as a child because he was an outspoken antisemite - or so my father said.
But when my son brought it home, I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and really really was turned of by it.
Back to top

mary6




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 9:22 pm
Wow never really thought these kinds of school existed. Magenta can I ask how long ago this was?
I guess I grew up really naive and just pictured this being over 100 years ago. Btw I’m 30 and read these when I was 10 and now my 9 yr old is reading them. She likes them but I prefer she reads books with more substance to them. If anyone has ideas what that would be great cause she reads through books sooo quickly that we get from the library.
Back to top

tigerwife




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 25 2020, 9:56 pm
Mommyg8 wrote:
I was going to say that I read Roald Dahl's biography, and let's just say that he got inspiration for the more sadistic parts of his books from the boarding school he went to...

At least the boys boarding schools in England (at that time) were extremely sadistic and cruel. I haven't yet read any women's autobiographies on this topic, but it's not a huge strain on the imagination to assume that the basic premise was the same....


Yes, I also thought of Ronald Dahl and his terrible experience in boarding school. I also know someone who went to boarding school back then and let’s just say the punishments received would never pass these days.

In general, when you re-read children’s books as an adult, you are also reading with a more sophisticated and experienced mind, so your appreciation will likely vary. I found Dahl’s books very disturbing as an adult. I cringed from zxual references in other books that went over my head as a kid. Although, when I reread Harry Potter recently (although I read the series tens of times), I thought it just got better and better. It’s been a few years, maybe it’s time to read again.
Back to top
Page 1 of 2 1  2  Next Recent Topics




Post new topic   Reply to topic    Forum -> Hobbies, Crafts, and Collections -> Reading Room

Related Topics Replies Last Post
Can anyone explain the Israeli chareidi school system?
by amother
7 Tue, Mar 26 2024, 5:21 am View last post
I need a new system its a disaster
by amother
40 Tue, Feb 27 2024, 8:42 am View last post
Anyone ever deal with one child bullying a sibling?
by amother
18 Tue, Feb 13 2024, 10:04 pm View last post
ISO System to Organize Shul Shelves
by amother
6 Mon, Jan 22 2024, 11:45 am View last post
I'm extremely disappointed in our system
by amother
203 Sat, Jan 20 2024, 10:20 pm View last post