Working class? Don't think that Oxbridge is for you.

And I watched her speech and then read the transcript. No intervening journalists.

The left love to misunderstand this woman?

The right love to deify this woman.

Balances out.

We read this very differently volver and I've no more to say about it.

Fair enough.

I read what was actually there and you imagined some things and got the purpose of her role wrong. ??

I think some people love to hate her and are very happy to cherry pick anything she says (or doesn't say) to make a good headline (or opening title to a thread). She's a controversial figure but that doesn't mean that her views aren't worth considering and I like the fact that she speaks her mind even when it is clearly going to be unpopular or out of step with current thinking. She doesn't think BJ is a good role model for children and said so. Good for her!

She thinks girls don't like maths and physics because its too hard. And after saying that she says that all the lefties are out to get her.

That's quite controversial. I like people who speak their mind but I'd like them to be right about things if they are going to have responsibilities to live up to.

When pressed, Birbalsingh's views about Johnson were this:

"I like Boris, I don’t think he’s a bad guy you know, but I don’t know enough about what he’s got up to, but I do not think that he is a good role model for children."

"When pushed on why she believed this, she said: “His personal life, for instance, that does make me raise an eyebrow. The other day I saw a picture of him in the Metro and I looked at his hair and I thought, oh my goodness, we expect our children to have professional-looking hair."

“Now, you might think that’s a bit pedantic and that’s a bit silly, but it isn’t actually. It’s important to look professional and sometimes Boris looks professional, but sometimes he’s not professional enough for me. Put it that way.”

So the thing she pinpoints as most distressing about Johnson is his hair!!! Nothing about his lack of honesty and integrity and law breaking.

First in my working class family to even go into 6th form. Progressed on to Oxford. Met husband there from a northern council house family. Sister followed me 9 years later. My son also ended up with an Oxford first in mathematics after a state school education.

Interesting that a few posts refer to people from ‘up,north’ or ‘northern council estates’ who got into Oxbridge. Have I missed the references to down south?

Oxbridge can cause problems for clever students, from working class homes.

My g.daughter's friend is just finishing her first year at Cambridge. Lovely girl, very bright and works hard - which is how she achieved her place. Her parents are from Eastern Europe, been here from before she was born. Live in a one bedroom flat above shops. She has always had the bedroom, parents sleep in living room on sofa bed. They both work hard.

Problem has arisen as students in the cheaper halls at Cambridge have to completely move out every holiday - as Uni lets those rooms during holidays for conferences, etc. Neither of her parents drive, nor have a car, so this is a real problem for her. She also has to pay more for those cheap halls, that in most other Uni's.

I am sure she will survive there, as she will not want to let her parents down - they are so proud of her achievement. However, it does appear that she is missing out on the fun and enjoyment which should also be part of University years.

She's not telling anyone they shouldn't aim for Oxford, simply pointing out that other, smaller successes in life are worth celebrating. I must say I'm not keen on her teaching methods though.

0xbridge can cause problems, full stop. Look at our PM and many in his party.
The daughter of friends went to Oxford for interview. She was academic, expected to achieve A stars, and did. Both her parents are Professors. Her brother Oxbridge etc.
She hated the interview, the process and the place. Turned down her place, went to Manchester. She’s a prof now

A real problem for my son's friend, apart from being unable to relate to many other students, was the inability to pay for trips back home, and for his unemployed mother to visit him. It wasn't the happy experience it might otherwise have been.

Some of the comments here are very much like the staff who hadn't quite 'got' the equality and diversity training in my job.
"Oh, he isn't allowed to help in the kitchen in case he burns himself".

"No Maureen, you've had 3 cigarettes already, and I think that's quite enough!"

We should be looking at ways around making sure poorer people don't feel like fish out of water, when they are with people they are equal to. I do understand the practicalities may be a problem, though.

Sorry, but these are anecdotes about people other people know, not an average experience. Students have differing experiences at all universities, and some would struggle with uni life wherever they go. It’s not related to class, it’s related to each individual. For every negative experience there’s a positive one - and with such a low dropout rate, even the unhappy are coming out with an Oxbridge degree.

True enough Casdon, and as we all know, an Oxbridge degree opens doors other degrees can’t touch.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting the personal anecdotes make research, only that it’s interesting to share experience

CaravanSerai

When pressed, Birbalsingh's views about Johnson were this:

"I like Boris, I don’t think he’s a bad guy you know, but I don’t know enough about what he’s got up to, but I do not think that he is a good role model for children."

"When pushed on why she believed this, she said: “His personal life, for instance, that does make me raise an eyebrow. The other day I saw a picture of him in the Metro and I looked at his hair and I thought, oh my goodness, we expect our children to have professional-looking hair."

“Now, you might think that’s a bit pedantic and that’s a bit silly, but it isn’t actually. It’s important to look professional and sometimes Boris looks professional, but sometimes he’s not professional enough for me. Put it that way.”

So the thing she pinpoints as most distressing about Johnson is his hair!!! Nothing about his lack of honesty and integrity and law breaking.

What is professional-looking hair when it's at home?

Johnson's hair should be the least of our worries. And hers. His hair simply doesn't cooperate with his comb and I doubt there's much he can do about it.

... "but I don’t know enough about what he’s got up to"... well, considering the confidence vote and the loss of about 480 council seats recently, maybe it's time to find out?

Professional looking hair!

Does it have it's own little briefcase?

I assumed she meant cut by a "professional", rather than Carrie or perhaps even Wilfred?

Or Larry.
She has a point.

Iam64

True enough Casdon, and as we all know, an Oxbridge degree opens doors other degrees can’t touch.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting the personal anecdotes make research, only that it’s interesting to share experience

It depends on your intended career path. My son turned down an offer from Oxford to take up one from the LSE, which opened more doors in his chosen subject than the equivalent degree from Oxford would have done. He hasn’t regretted that choice.

Casdon

Sorry, but these are anecdotes about people other people know, not an average experience. Students have differing experiences at all universities, and some would struggle with uni life wherever they go. It’s not related to class, it’s related to each individual. For every negative experience there’s a positive one - and with such a low dropout rate, even the unhappy are coming out with an Oxbridge degree.

Well said, Casdon.

His hair simply doesn't cooperate with his comb and I doubt there's much he can do about it.?
I can empathise with him there but I don't run my fingers through mine before I face the cameras

NittWitt

Germany has a very good system of vocational training which the UK would do well to look at, in my view.

Quite agree. All jobs tend to be respected in Germany, not just the professions and that is how it should be.

I know you have all said not to post about our own experiences but we are working class and are educated and I wouldn't have known how to go to these dinners etc at Oxbridge

All my sons that have gone to university wouldn't have known or liked to have gone to al those sit down dinners in full attire either

Do they do all that at other universities? (as I have been to one that didn't do any of that #pintsatthebar)

I don’t think anyone is suggesting the personal anecdotes make research, only that it’s interesting to share experience

Of course personal anecdotes make research. What is research in a subject like this, if not the accumulation of personal anecdotes.

What no one takes into account is that going away to university is a daunting experience for any school leaver. Most will have spent their first 18 years living at home with parents and siblings, never having been away from home alone for more than the occasional school trip or visit to friends and relations. All of a sudden they are far from home, surrounded with people, none of whom they know and having to fend for themselves and it comes as a real shock, quite regardless, of their background.

The formality present in somewhere like an Oxford College is as alien to the student whose father is a doctor or engineer as it is to one whose father is a fisherman or factory worker.

My best friend at university had impeccable middle class antecedents, her father was a senior manager in an international company, but she spent most of her first term, travelling home and missing lectures because she couldn't cope with being away from home, her course and looking after herself. Her parents, with commendable good sense, would sit her down, give her a good meal, and then get the car out and her father would drive her back to her hall of residence. After a term and a change of course, she settled down and thoroughly enjoyed her time at university.

She was not alone, I knew, less well, a number of students from all kinds of backgrounds who found that first term at university very difficult and acted as she did. In fact I would say that the majority of students find the first term at University very difficult. It is lazy thinking that decides that if a child is the first in their family to go to university and has problems then the problem is their background, rather than to look at the problem overall and say that actually the majority of students have difficulties. Going to university is an enormous shock and change for every student, think of those from abroad, who have a far bigger culture shock to deal with.

As I have said before the biggest obstacle facing students from working class backgrounds are all the adults around tem, who should know better telling them that they are doomed, that it will be much more difficult for them to get to university, that when they get there they will be unhappy, surrounded by all these middle class children, most of whom, will also be state educated and some even been at school with them, but who will somehow speak a different language and live a different way to them, once they get to university.

I sometimes think that the left wing do-gooders who are always talking down the chances of working class people instead of talking them up, are actually doing it, not consciously, because if working class people were not struggling, they would have nothing to feel virtuous about.