Do Manners Still Maketh Man?

Jenni Russell in ‘CiF’ thinks so, I’m glad to say:

A headhunter I bumped into last year told me about the difficulty she'd had in finding suitable staff. That week she'd taken a candidate with excellent paper qualifications for a meal. Which was where it all went wrong.

"His manners were just unspeakable. Shovelling food on to his fork with his fingers. Talking with his mouth full, but holding his hand over it. Licking his fingers." And that was that. "My business is done over lunch. That's where you persuade people and do deals. I can't employ someone if people won't want to eat with them."

You’d expect this to cue howls of protest from the usual CiF crowd but surprisingly, it doesn’t (though there are, of course, a few)…

Jenni goes on to explain that exam results aren’t everything:

Social barriers are more complex, as are employers' priorities. Yes, they want qualifications. What they prize most, though, are more elusive social skills: articulacy, tact, team-working. Those words all describe much the same thing – an employee who can get along with, and be understood by, those around them. Employers want people who can understand their business's social codes.

Unfortunately, not only are those qualifications themselves often not worth the paper they are printed on, but the children have been taught precisely the opposite of tact and team working.

The introduction of ‘child centred’ education has turned them into demanding little monsters, never corrected and therefore expecting to be able to ‘express themselves’ whenever and wherever they wish.

For many, the concept that their ideas might be wrong, or not as favourable as someone else’s ideas, will be a new experience. Which should make team meetings a bit of a challenge…

There's much talk of Britain being more egalitarian and multicultural. In reality it remains deeply hierarchical. The dominant culture is that of the white middle class; the elite culture is that of the upper middle. Anyone who hopes to be socially mobile has, by definition, to learn to read a culture that is not the one they grew up with. Otherwise, no matter what their formal qualifications, they will either fail to get in, or fail to progress. In essence, they are emigrating from one kind of life to another, but our pretence that these barriers no longer really exist means they often emigrate without a map.

Ouch! That truism has got to hurt the trendy educationalist that usually hangs out on CiF...

In west London, William Atkinson, the inspiring head of a school with a very deprived intake, says that it's essential that pupils understand the dominant culture. He introduces them all, whether future doctors or gardeners, to great literature, theatre, art. He expects a work ethic. He tells his pupils that street culture is fine for home, but that it's joining the dominant culture that will give them choice.

How far, do you suppose, will those who are told that ‘street culture’ is part of their identity and no-one should ‘stifle their creative expression’ expect to get?

Yeah. Just what I thought…

Teenagers need to spend time with adults outside their social groups as mentors, friends and employers. And we need to find a way to talk about behaviour, manners, codes. Not because one set is better than another, but because it's the way humans recognise their groups. Pretending rules don't exist or matter only has one result – it freezes social mobility, and entrenches elites.

She loses her way a little bit there – we should be able to advance the idea that ‘one set is better than another’.

But the main thrust of her article is bang on the money – the progressives who have hijacked the education system and pushed the ‘no one culture is better than another’ concept have crippled the chances of thousands upon thousands of now almost unemployable youths…

Raedwald also picks up on this and has a hiring anecdote of his own to recount.