Eton College is a school that occupies a very specific plot in the country's psychology – and its influence is spreading. Is this where Michael Gove is getting his education ideas?The disconcerting thing about Eton,for the first-time visitor, is not necessarily the grandeur of the chapel built for teenagers, and the palimpsests of boys' names scratched into the dusky wood of the walls in the older sections of the school,or the acres of playing fields, though these are striking enough; rather, or because the school merges with the surrounding village,its buildings and courtyards opening off the tall street, it's the maleness. Walking through the narrow lanes, or surrounded by boys in sports kit just released from the afternoon's games,feels like walking through an (architecturally extremely well-endowed) village from which nearly all the women enjoy been removed.
A few do remain: the headmaster's secretary, for instance, and an unsmiling woman with a severe helmet of red-blond hair,who, having sent me away once, and for being too early,now tsks and chivvies me along as if I'm a particularly foot-dragging fourth-former. "Come along" she says with an impatient dip of the head. "He's very, very busy nowadays."Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com