Did monitors have any real use?

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richardb
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Re: Did monitors have any real use?

Post by richardb »

J.R. wrote: Wed Aug 01, 2018 4:57 pm Sitdowns ? I never came across them.

I recently tried to trace the whereabouts of the school and house punishment books a few years ago. They had to be kept by law at the time. Guess what ?

YUP ! Amesia rules, OK ?
I wouldn't be surprised if loads of records of all descriptions have gone missing.
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Re: Did monitors have any real use?

Post by jhopgood »

J.R. wrote: Wed Aug 01, 2018 4:57 pm Sitdowns ? I never came across them.

I recently tried to trace the whereabouts of the school and house punishment books a few years ago. They had to be kept by law at the time. Guess what ?

YUP ! Amesia rules, OK ?
I remember the punishment book, from which I remember the number of punishments given out by the dayroom monitor, who, unless I am mistaken, is now resident in Canada!
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Re: Did monitors have any real use?

Post by bakunin »

jtaylor wrote: Wed Aug 01, 2018 11:22 am I think the hierarchy and monitor system was overall a good thing, with the main aspect being the aspiration to achieve and gain a position of authority, and the recognition of achievement which being a school/house monitor provided. I think it probably formed the foundations of wanting to progress in business, get up to the next level, take on more responsibility etc. So it wasn't about wanting the authority - it was more about wanting the recognition - as let's face it, the extra responsibilities were menial and boring, with the benefits being non-existent really.
I think it was a bad thing for precisely the same reasons you think it was a good thing! I think hierarchy should be avoided whenever possible (hence the user name). Some kind of democratic student body that elected monitors might be better, though still largely pointless. The hierarchy didn't make me want to achieve, it made me resentful and bitter and want to subvert.

As I've been saying in other threads and as others have said it better, the whole unnecessary hierarchy thing was all part and parcel of getting upper class children used to their roles as feudal oppressors, and then then later on (1800s+) for getting middle class children used to their roles as colonial administrators. Now it's only of use in the rather mundane world of business, where psychopaths and bullies are still the best candidates for CEO positions (and it's well documented that they disporportionately fill them). The hierarchy is to get you used to a general atmosphere of bullying and pushing others around, and obeying orders without questioning them. The "fagging" system, which existed in a distorted form at CH, specifically evolved out of the medieval knight and page "arrangement". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagging

The fagging system is quite similar to the "prison bitch" system. Once you strip away all the pretentious layers of "culture" and "tradition", you realize there isn't much difference, it's all mindless and brutal protection rackets and petty psychological tricks.
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Re: Did monitors have any real use?

Post by jtaylor »

Definitely a different view, and can see your point.
I guess it depends on how you felt about it, and what you took from it. On the whole, seemed broadly ok in my time - but I’m sure I was over-zealous on occasion, and know I was also on the rough end of bullying and nastiness in Leigh Hunt - not always the nicest kids in the years above, and the differing backgrounds and values all thrown together, combined with an absence of staff presence for 95% of the time, certainly led to a Lord of the Flies environment, with kangaroo courts and evil punishments dished out. I’d like to think I never followed suit as I rose through the years, but kids can all be nasty, and I do look back with embarrassment on some of things I said and did, that’s for sure!

I don’t recall any anti-bullying messaging at all, and definitely no anti-discrimination teaching, let alone diversity acceptance messaging - but maybe that was the era we were in?
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Re: Did monitors have any real use?

Post by ZeroDeConduite »

bakunin wrote: Wed Aug 01, 2018 6:27 pm ...for getting middle class children used to their roles as colonial administrators.
The whole school (seniors anyway) took a view on that when the ever last Empire Day was celebrated in May 1957 - the year after Anthony Eden's Suez invasion debacle. Empire Day had been traditionally celebrated by school parades up and down the whole country.
As there was no official CH parade that year - the tradition had not-surprisingly lapsed - someone had the bright idea of organising a suitable one....
The largest school union flag was filched, and a coffin was constructed out of shower duckboards, and then in the evening about 400+ of us lined up and slow-marched behind the coffin out onto Big Side, and then there was a mock ceremony where a shallow grave was dug and the coffin was buried right on the crease of the First XI cricket pitch. To much mirth.
I think Seaman chose not to make a big deal of it: the whole school was gated for next weekend (or month or something).
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Re: Did monitors have any real use?

Post by sejintenej »

sejintenej wrote: Tue Jul 31, 2018 5:33 pm (On the subject of monitors priveleges)

. In my last year, evenings up to about 11pm was homework, 6am to 7am was homework, weekends were usually homework full.
The thread about Dr Ken Little caused me to read up on Rick Slater where I found this moving piece by Gabrielle Fisher which summarises the thoughts of those taking exams at CH
I remember that the reason given was that he felt that he was hopelessly behind on his 'A' level studies and felt he could not pass. It was Easter time. Personally, I felt it was accepted that failure meant resits and that was the end of the world. We were on a coach on the way back from Pleneuf when Farrar pulled it over in the middle of nowhere and just told us, matter-of-factly what had happened. This has always stuck with me; the Head's catchphrase 'academic excellence' took on a new and vulgar meaning.
I have also mentioned the fact that Dr Scott had to keep a grecian under sedation, bringing him out for the duration of each exam because of the mental stresses the system imposed on him.
.
Gabrielle also wrote in 2005:
I would have hoped that CH would have learned from this and taken a more active role in management of pupil workload/school committments a little better but I know they haven't.
This covers a span of 46 years though I suspect that 246 years would be more accurate. What EFFECTIVE methods is CH actually using now? What cases of self harm have occurred since 2005 and what was done to improve the system?

Thinking about this subject even more we are discussing youngsters dumped in a different melieu sometimes at the age of nine often alone, under all sorts of stresses from school work, house duties, being force into sports they might not be ready for, cut off from parental guiding advice and often lonely, perhaps suffering from the punishments handed out by adults and other boys - surely an adult offering the hand of friendship would be welcomed, thus paving the way for the likes of Dobie,
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Re: Did monitors have any real use?

Post by jhopgood »

bakunin wrote: Wed Aug 01, 2018 6:27 pm
The fagging system is quite similar to the "prison bitch" system. Once you strip away all the pretentious layers of "culture" and "tradition", you realize there isn't much difference, it's all mindless and brutal protection rackets and petty psychological tricks.
I was a swab for 5 terms and did it for the money and getting off trades.
Basically I did less than I did at home and got paid for it.
No downside as far as I was concerned.
It was also optional, whereas I feel sure that "prison bitch" are probably not.
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Re: Did monitors have any real use?

Post by scrub »

jhopgood wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 11:36 am
bakunin wrote: Wed Aug 01, 2018 6:27 pmThe fagging system is quite similar to the "prison bitch" system. Once you strip away all the pretentious layers of "culture" and "tradition", you realize there isn't much difference, it's all mindless and brutal protection rackets and petty psychological tricks.
I was a swab for 5 terms and did it for the money and getting off trades.
Basically I did less than I did at home and got paid for it.
No downside as far as I was concerned.
It was also optional, whereas I feel sure that "prison bitch" are probably not.
This is definitely one of those things that was different from your time. Jobs (or bokering as I think it was called) was more an extension of the generalised bullying that went on. You didn't get paid, you didn't get let off other trades/chores, this was just older boys pushing younger ones around.
Get me tea, get me coffee, get me toast, go into town and get me smokes, get me a chocolate cake, go there and steal that guy's booze, etc or else. Sure you could say no, but that would usually result in a beating, or finding that your personal things were stolen/trashed, clothes went missing, etc. Very few members of staff tried to do anything about this culture and some housemasters saw it as a way of keeping order in the house.

Some got it worse than others (much, much worse). As a younger kid the only way you could get any sort of payback was to do the job but to mess with it in some way. I don't think I made more than a couple of cups of tea or slices of toast for older boys that I didn't spit in/on. That was just a standard response. If someone had me do things for them after they'd recently given me a kicking ... well ... their food/drinks/smokes always got special attention.
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Re: Did monitors have any real use?

Post by LongGone »

jhopgood wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 11:36 am
bakunin wrote: Wed Aug 01, 2018 6:27 pm
The fagging system is quite similar to the "prison bitch" system. Once you strip away all the pretentious layers of "culture" and "tradition", you realize there isn't much difference, it's all mindless and brutal protection rackets and petty psychological tricks.
I was a swab for 5 terms and did it for the money and getting off trades.
Basically I did less than I did at home and got paid for it.
No downside as far as I was concerned.
It was also optional, whereas I feel sure that "prison bitch" are probably not.
That's my recollection also, from both sides. Getting an extra 10 shillings (if I remember) was a big deal and getting off trades was icing on the cake. I don't think there were any questionable requests like stealing or any other activity that would have been against rules. Of course, as I have been amazed to find out on this site, different houses often had very different cultures.
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Re: Did monitors have any real use?

Post by postwarblue »

I swobbed for the Col B House Captain, Herbert Winter, 1947-8. It w s always clear that swobbing was voluntary and certainly did not include illegal missions or peremptory ones - the duties were clear, bed, shoes and study fire as I remember.

I met my own swob at an OB Day years later and he seemed friendly!

In those days the monitors ran the house entirely, organised games fixtures, marched the house to meals and chapel, inspected clean shoes EVERY night, coats on Saturday mornings, took morning PT etc etc, and dished out Miles and Post Offices to sinners which were recorded in books (with reasons). That way CH ran on oiled wheels as everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing. I was Trades Mon 1953-4 and, looking back, it launched me as an organiser, administrator and project manager. Somehow Col B was a bit odd as it always seemed to have more Button Grecians than anyone else, even after a couple had been exported, and one could be comparatively junior compared to one's contemporaries in class from other houses and therefore with fewer privileges.
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Re: Did monitors have any real use?

Post by bakunin »

By the time scrub and I were there there was no "swabbing" system, just older boys telling us to make them toast or write their essay or get something from the tuck shop or just taking from our own food supply, "or else...", as scrub said. And the "or else" party was often put into practice.

The idea of getting paid for any of this was completely alien. There was no specific assignment of one boy to an older bully, anyone could be ordered around by anyone older, but in practice the more brutish and lazy older boys would pick on the weaker and less popular younger boys a lot more often.
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Re: Did monitors have any real use?

Post by sejintenej »

bakunin wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 5:45 pm By the time scrub and I were there there was no "swabbing" system, just older boys telling us to make them toast or write their essay or get something from the tuck shop or just taking from our own food supply, "or else...", as scrub said. And the "or else" party was often put into practice.
As trades mon those are things I would never have tolerated. Some is bullying, some is theft and as for doing someone's homework that would be cheating. That said in my day there was one house where I suspect things like those did happen.
It never happened to my knowledge but if we had a junior whizzkid I might have supported his doing some coaching and reduced the person's normal duties accordingly.
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