Fighting Change in a More Modern Britain: Eton College
Fighting Change in a More Modern Britain: Eton College
Students at Eton College, a boarding school located in the British countryside, are required to attend courses dressed in tailcoats and white ties. Eton College has been responsible for the education of 20 British prime leaders. However, some people have been seen wearing waistcoats bearing the Black History Month insignia underneath.
The students continue to sleep in stone dormitories that are covered with ivy and date back to the 18th century in certain cases. Some of them are flying rainbow pride flags, and others are flying rainbow pride flags.
Even though it is an all-boys school, there is a feminist organisation there, and they celebrate International Women’s Day every year.
Alasdair Campbell, a recent graduate who is 19 years old, believes that the organisation is heading in the correct direction.
“Horrible,” was the response that 21-year-old Felix Kirkby, another of its grads, gave. “It is doing irreparable damage to its reputation.”
Eton, which was established in 1440 and educates boys between the ages of 13 and 18, has long been seen as a symbol of British history and continuity due to the fact that its campus is located in the shadow of Windsor Castle, it is known for being elite, and its tuition is quite costly.
Eton, like the rest of Britain, is becoming more diverse racially, more open to problems about gender identity and economic injustice, and increasingly rejecting the aristocratic heritage of a white-dominated empire. This is happening in the context of a Britain that is also becoming more economically unequal. A good number of students and alumni have expressed their satisfaction with its development. Some have not. Others maintain that Eton must undergo an even more fundamental transformation if it is to maintain its standing in the Britain of today.
Simon Henderson, who at the age of 39 became the school’s youngest ever headmaster, is walking a tightrope between the school’s history and the present day. He has done this successfully for the past eight years.
Mr. Henderson, a graduate of Oxford who taught history at Eton, has increased access to scholarships. Annual tuition is around 45,000 pounds, which is equivalent to $57,000. Just last month, he announced an expansion of his prior project to cooperate with public schools in less affluent parts of the north.
He has encouraged conversations on masculinity, sexism, and gender identity; celebrated Black History Month and L.G.B.T.Q.+ History Month; and created a “director of inclusion education” to address issues pertaining to race and sexuality. He terminated the employment of a professor who refused to remove a video that he had uploaded on YouTube and in which he suggested that patriarchy was partially caused by the decisions that women make because it is to their advantage.
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As a result of some of these actions, Mr. Henderson has earned the nickname “Trendy Hendy” and criticism as a “woke” activist, and his decision to fire the lecturer has sparked a discussion over free speech on the college.
Mr. Henderson views himself as a careful modernizer who is attempting to both preserve Eton’s tradition and encourage progress.
During a recent interview in his office, Mr. Henderson stated that “Eton is not immune from the broader society in which we sit,” while wearing the school’s signature white bow tie and cuff links with its coat of arms. Mr. Henderson was speaking about Eton.
“There are moments in the path of an institution where it needs to step forward a bit more firmly,” he added. “It is important to recognise these moments.” “And you know what? This is one of those moments.”
He called the allegations that he wanted to destroy the traditions of the school a “myth,” but he did add, “I know some people might feel the pace of change has been quick.”
Henry VI established Eton as a school for the children of the poor; nevertheless, over the course of time, it evolved into a haven for the progeny of Britain’s wealthy and influential families, and acceptance there is nearly automatic.
Both Prince William and Prince Harry, the Prince of Wales’s brother, are graduates of the institution. Bear Grylls, George Orwell, and John Maynard Keynes all graduated from the same university. Percy Bysshe Shelley was also a graduate, as was Bear Grylls. Boris Johnson, a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, also received his education at Eton. When he was 16 years old, he penned an article in the school magazine recommending that all parents send their sons to Eton because it will instill in them “the most important thing, a sense of his own importance.”
Political figures who entered Parliament through a pipeline that included Eton College and Oxford University have been accused of taking into politics the sense of entitlement and nonchalance they learnt at their respective schools, as well as of being out of touch with the realities of Britain.
In 2011, prospective students were asked, as part of the admissions process to Eton, to assume that they were the prime minister and to give a speech explaining that using the army against violent protestors and murdering many of them was “both necessary and moral.”
In recent years, Eton has been accepting a greater number of sons of foreign money, with fewer viscounts and a greater number of investment bankers. Additionally, Eton has been accepting a greater number of children from families with lower incomes, with the number of scholarships increasing each year. Even Nevertheless, at least seventy-five percent of the students continue to pay the total amount.
Because of the increased level of competition in the educational system, a smaller number of students from Eton are able to continue their study at Oxford or Cambridge than in previous years. The school has also grown more academically selective and difficult. According to Mr. Henderson, some students are now being accepted into Ivy League universities located in the United States.
