I was at a school full of rich kids today in connection with my job, which normally has nothing to do with schools, praise the lord. There was a ceremony of some kind, attended by guests of honor including a bishop, an ex-foreign minister’s wife, people from the theater, various VIPs familiar from the media. Skinny, privileged, well-educated boys in suits ran around with ten dollars worth of gel in their hair. I am so thankful that I am the age I am, for one thing. I hated being a kid, mostly, and failed to appreciate the parts that I should have. For another, I had a mild urge [can you have a mild urge? would "weak hankering" be more accurate? "slight impulse"?] to take everyone two at a time, one in each hand, and crack heads together. Not sure why. We all need our heads cracked now and then, maybe. Unless you have a cold sore, as I do.
Mostly, I just thought, why can’t all kids go to schools like that?
Priveleged rich kids sooo need their swollen little heads bashed together- as a Public Service if nothing else. Someone, somewhere will do it at some point. Having gone to a private school myself for 12 years, my father helped ‘keep it real’ by getting me a job loading and driving a truck over summer vacations… for my perspective on life.
I know the public school systems’ budgets are way too small for what they need to accomplish, but… maybe we could orchestrate promotional tie-ins, where every kid gets a goodie bag from Sebastian or Aveda?
Also: did you swallow a pin?
No, I always spit the pins back out.
The head-cracking impulse is a good one. Trust me — I was a denizen of one of those schools, but not really a part of that world (my mom was the nurse).
Also, Chris: “Someone, somewhere will do it at some point.” Alas, that is often not the case. Repellant rich kids become repellant rich adults become, say, President of the United States. It’s all very depressing.
I’m not saying that the kids were especially snotty or repellant exactly. I’ve known snotty and repellant children in the average public schools I attended. Nor do I think that they abused the privilege they grow up with any more than someone else might… I’m just not sure that they appreciated their special position, that they realized not everyone gets that kind of a start, or that they don’t especially deserve it any more than anyone else might. That they don’t know how lucky they are. Like I said, every kid should go to a good school.