The Letters of Destiny

Actually, most of you A-level students don't get letters, do you? You go into school on the offchance there's a Mail or Telegraph photographer hunting for pretty blondes to photograph. They give you young people a day's grace before the columnists put the boot in by declaring that exams are 'dumbed down'. It seems rather unfair, but that's the media - it both has cake and gorges on it.

All very different to my A-level results day. Having spent the final years of my schooling at an unpleasant and academically awful monastery boarding school, and been pretty lazy, I didn't greet the morn with any enthusiasm at all. I phoned up for the results and got the headmaster, a vicious bully whose subsequent death is the only one I've ever actually celebrated. As expected, a good result in English, an OK one in French (would have been better if I'd managed to pay attention to the exam requirements and answered questions in each section) and a poor one in Latin. I'd never wanted to take it, but I was the last person in the school and moral pressure was put on me. Between hating the subject and a nice but useless teacher, even being the only person in the class didn't help.

Not a problem though - I had an escape route planned: I'd passed a competitive audition (despite a forcible haircut while being held down by prefects the day before) to get on to Trinity College Dublin's prestigious Drama and Theatre Course. 400 applicants, 8 places. God alone knows why I - or they - thought I was competent or cut out for a career on stage, but there we are. Sadly, not to be: when the parents caught wind of the lack of 'serious' study on the course (i.e. nothing they could willingly acknowledge in polite company), that was the end of it - and funding for an Irish course would have entirely dependent on their generosity (not a notable feature of family life thus far).

So off I went to Clearing. I spoke to a very kindly Scots gent at Bangor University who didn't seem to care two hoots that I couldn't string a sentence together in Latin, and the offer was made. I'd never heard of Bangor before and - this being Pre-Internet - had no resources with which to familiarise myself. All I knew was that it was far enough away from home and school to be ideal. So I turned up in late September to find myself in a veritable Paradise: sea, mountains, an instant community (of other Clearing flotsam) many of whom are still very close friends, a wonderful course, exposure to a new language, a student newspaper to write for, demonstrations to attend, as many books as I could stuff through my eyes, the world's greatest record shop (Cob, sadly recently closed due to my departure) and above all, not a single person I'd ever met before. I was free. Free to reinvent myself: new clothes, new hair, new tastes, new friends, new attitudes, new politics (well, more applied versions of the public-school Marxism I'd acquired), new foods, new ideas. I joined multiple clubs and societies and wildly plumped for courses I'd never suspected existed - particularly Philosophy, which changed my life.

Kids: it was wonderful. It never felt like I ever did any work, because it was all such fun. Away from the predictions and low expectations of family and school, I was liberated, and I blossomed in a quiet, shy kind of way. Prizes, first-class degree (actually, I expected a 2.2 and dreaded a 3rd) and postgraduate study.

Things have changed since 1993. New students are burdened with massive debts, and often can't afford to leave home for university. HE has become a tool for career development, which is sad in many ways: I didn't give a moment's thought to the future until I graduated, and benefitted from such carelessness, because I could follow my heart to some extent. It's changed in other ways too: my students have to work much harder than I ever had to. All I had to do was inhale some books and pass exams at the end of the year. Only the 3rd year exams counted other than one at the end of 2nd year. No dissertations, no modules, no credits building up. So in many ways, if you come to The Hegemon and suffer my teaching, you're way ahead of me: you'll be forced to pay attention right from the start, to take everything seriously. In other ways, you'll lose out: it's harder to take risks when your degree and your future depends on every single grade. But don't let that stop you: my colleagues are all great and you can get round me easily enough.

Without Clearing, I'd never have arrived here in the Dark Place, working at the Hegemon. What greater reward could there possibly be?

A-levels: just for girls?

As you can see from this site, only fruity teenage girls pass A-levels. Or is it just that the entire news media only print pictures of fruity teenage girls opening their results because the implied reader is a lecherous heterosexual male encouraged to view all human beings - but especially teenage girls - as sexual commodities.

If the Daily Telegraph and the Mail could get away with naked teenage girls on the front page (white and upper-class, naturally), they would, but until then, results day is a fixed highlight of their year.

But sadly, it does contribute to ideas of attractiveness and to excluding non-fruity-teenage-girls from the Platonic Academy. Even worse, Badminton College (very expensive exclusive girls' school) even sends newspapers speculative shots of their fruitiest girls to tempt the photographers down on results day. I believe the word for that is 'pimping'.

Pimp My Schoolgirl

We're all wearily waiting for the annual pictures in the Mail, Telegraph and (last year) even the Guardian of fruity blonde girls celebrating their A-level results, as though ugly, male and minority people never get good grades.

It's lazy journalism, right? Well, not entirely: the fee-paying schools responsible are actually pimping their students to the newspapers for advertising purposes.

"Last year, I received an unsolicited voicemail from the press liaison at Badminton School in Bristol...'wanting to give ...some details of some absolutely beyootiful girls we've got here who are getting their A-level results tomorrow'..."
Meanwhile Cook adds that "Bedales School in Hampshire... supplies photos..."

In one case, the school actually invited journalists to watch a sports match for the purpose of scouting out the prettiest ones ready for results day.

"Most alarmingly, another (very grand) private school invited the FT... to an end-of-year sports event [and] said that watching the girls playing sports would have given... a unique opportunity to pick out promising candidates for A-level day pictures."

That sure feels wrong. Wonder what the parents have to say.

Thursday's a big day

Not only are Australia going to retain the Ashes tomorrow, there will be other results to celebrate.

Yes, it's A-level results day for England and Wales (Scots do Highers at 17 years old). Cue the usual howling voices about dumbing down, and the inevitable Telegraph and Daily Mail pictures of attractive blonde schoolgirls celebrating. Apparently nobody else does well.

Are A-levels dumber than previously? They're certainly different, and they aren't as wide-ranging as the rather good International Baccalaureate, but I'm just not equipped to judge. I do, however, feel that we spend a lot of the first year encouraging independent thinking and trying to undo the psychological damage caused by the secondary system.

However, don't despair if you haven't achieved what you needed. I was rubbish in school, only doing well in the things I enjoyed, and even managed to misunderstand the instructions for one subject, resulting in a lower grade. My headmaster, a very unpleasant man, even used my university reference as an opportunity to recommend that I not be given a place at university.

So I ended up using the clearing system to find a place at Bangor University (then University College of North Wales) and it was the making of me. In between sport, writing for the union paper, boring people to tears on committees, making lifelong friends, going on demonstrations and drinking perhaps more than was healthy, I ended up with a few prizes and a first-class degree, then an MA, and now a PhD.

This isn't meant to be boastful - I'm still amazed I passed my BA - but to remind you that all exams are artificial: being bad at them doesn't mean you're thick. Using Clearing isn't a mark of shame, and you might find that the new atmosphere at university is exactly what you need to shine.

The important thing is this: find a subject you love, and you'll stick to it. It might not even feel like work, as mine didn't: I just wanted to read books, and an English degree demanded little more than literacy and an opinion.

Once you get there, remind yourself that just like you, everybody else is keeping quiet because they think they'll sound stupid. I'm horrendously shy, but forced myself to speak in seminars and to ask for clarification during lectures.

I hate the fact that you're having to pay for this, and you'll be surrounded by people talking about employability blah blah blah. Bollocks to that. You've got three years to think about, read, talk about and write about things in a way which won't happen again for the rest of your life. Grab it. Once you're there, you can change courses, clothes or personality as often as you need. After the first week, nobody cares what you got for your A-levels, or your background. You're free.

If, after a lecture, you don't feel like your head's been messed with, you haven't been listening. A good education should change you profoundly - but it's your responsibility as much as it is mine and my colleagues'.

Good luck for tomorrow.

As I won't be around for a Friday or even Thursday conundrum, here's a themed one: what are the best and or worst teachers/educational experiences you ever had? I'll add my many pages when I get back from Oslo in a few days.

Chutzpah!

How I wish I could quote the e-mail currently doing the rounds: 4 academics have been consulted so far - by an A-level student who has had the cheek (or should this be 'bravery'/'initiative'?) to ask the university for help with an upcoming exam - 'any information' on 'chick-flick' films would be appreciated!