FFS - Is nothing good enough?

[AdvocatusD]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19109724

"Olympics 'dominated by privately educated'

Too many of Britain's top sportsmen and women were educated privately, the country's Olympic chief has said."

What utter nonsense.

As a friend (he's British) just commented: "We just love to have a good old whinge in this country. It's not even good enough that the gold medals are coming in - they're not being won by the "right" kind of Brits. I'm just sick of this place and all of the class warfare b/s. It's not ok to stereotype someone by calling them a "chav" but it's fine to lay into someone else for being an upper-class toff (and you actually hear ministers doing it, for political advantage)."

Good to agree with him! This country needs to man up. It's ok to be good at something, it's ok to be "better" at something than someone else. It's also ok to be more fortunate or be born with a golden spoon in mouth. All this is fine, as long as you're not a total spanner about it. A perfectly equal society would be nice, but we've been trying for a while to get there so I would start being more comfortable with who we are...

[Zod]

What he's trying to say is not that it's a bad thing that there are so many successes from private schools, but that there are so few from state schools. If the state sector could put even a quarter of the resources proportionately into sport that the private sector invests, our national sporting achievements would be even more impressive.

[davepoth]

Zod said:

What he's trying to say is not that it's a bad thing that there are so many successes from private schools, but that there are so few from state schools. If the state sector could put even a quarter of the resources proportionately into sport that the private sector invests, our national sporting achievements would be even more impressive.

As I've said on the other thread about this, it has not a lot to do with the schools. Private schooled children usually have rich parents. That's the key.

[Zod]

davepoth said:

Zod said:

What he's trying to say is not that it's a bad thing that there are so many successes from private schools, but that there are so few from state schools. If the state sector could put even a quarter of the resources proportionately into sport that the private sector invests, our national sporting achievements would be even more impressive.

As I've said on the other thread about this, it has not a lot to do with the schools. Private schooled children usually have rich parents. That's the key.

Yes, that helps, but private schools mostly have fantastic sports facilities, a tradition of promoting sport and quality coaching staff.

[davepoth]

State schools don't have to be rubbish. My school has quite an illustrious history in sport, having taught Sir Roger Bannister, Amy Williams and Jason Gardener, as well as a number of other professional sportsmen and women. That was entirely down to the high quality of the teaching staff though - intra house sports competitions were very strong throughout the school and those who were good at sport were looked up to rather than mocked, as I understand can sometimes happen.