Kim2s70-77 wrote:It amazes me how narrow our academic focus was, at such an early age. Because I moved to the US in my 20s and was wrapped up in parenting etc at that time, I am not sure to this day, what was the 'British' educational system in general and what was unique to CH. I know that here, my kids still have to take a broad spectrum of subjects (maths/science/social studies/English and a Foreign language) regardless of the Major they take in college.
At CH, I seem to remember in 3rd form (age 13?) dropping History in order to take Physics - so that I could eventually do an A level in that. Wasn't there also some cack-assed system of dropping biology in 3rd form if you wanted to take 3 sciences at A level, because that was the easiest of the 3 to pick up again in 6th form? How bizarre is that? I am WOEFULLY ignorant of British history as a result of that particularly schedule. If I remember correctly, history was taught chronologically, starting from Stone Age and working forwards. I think we were covering Medieval history and may have just got close to Tudor period, when Physics prevailed. My knowledge of subsequent periods of history has come exclusively from novels, TV series and movies!
The streaming of classes into 'A'and "B' was fairly interesting - and somewhat arbitrary to my mind. How was that decision made? I know that the 'second class' mentality seemed to seep in to "B" stream. I remember comments being made about "thick" people around O level time etc, if B streamers were 'only' taking 7 O levels etc. My ex-husband, who had been to one of the largest Comprehensives in the country was amazed at our view of all of this. I know it took me years and years to get over not having done too well at A level. I joined Mensa in my early 20s to try to convince myself that i wasn't stupid, but it didn't work. The power of CH to whittle away self esteem was huge!
The permitted combinations might have been a peculiarly CH thing but the specialised nature (ie low number) of A levels is a British phenomenon. Both the French Bac and the German Abitur include (or at least, used to) more subjects - around 6 IIRC. It was always a criticism of A levels that they forced pupils to specialise too soon, to the detriment of a wider general knowledge.
I had to spend some time in the US in the mid 90s, in my last job, being trained to teach a Six Sigma quality improvement course. For some unknown reason (it really didn't prove to be necessary), they decided to start us from scratch with some statistics, and then a statistical process control course. I was the only non-US person there as I was going to run the training in Europe. I made a few worried noises early on about being intimidated by all the maths/stats involved, but was told it was basic high school stuff and not to worry. Everyone else coped with it fine, but I really struggled - regardless of age or subsequent career specialism, they had all clearly covered the basic syllabus at high school and it was familiar territory for them. I did both maths and additional maths O level (solely on the basis of being in the A stream) so I wasn't a complete maths dunce but it was all new to me.
Kim, Mensa is full of people who joined to prove they weren't stupid and, happily, for many people it does the trick. I'm sorry it didn't work for you but you sound now as though you are pretty confident both personally and professionally so I hope you got there in the end! It sounds conceited but CH didn't undermine my confidence intellectually - fortunately I got good A levels (though only a 2.2 for my degree) - but it did leave me completely socially inept and utterly lacking in self-discipline as all the discipline was done to us. It's taken me ages to get over that - in fact I am still coming to terms with it now.