I just watched the DVD of The History Boys based on the internationally popular National Theatre play by Alan Bennett. It’s a brilliant- I’ll even say important- film that I recommend highly. (I’m trying to find the script to the stage play but it’s out of print; the screenplay’s in print.)
Since I’m not sure if there’s enough interest in the film to discuss it, I’ll start by asking a couple of GQ style questions first since I’m only superficially familiar with the English education system.
1- The boys attend Cutler’s Grammar School. I know that in England a public school is the equivalent of a private school in the U.S., but I couldn’t tell from the film whether this school was public (in the U.S. sense meaning “free tuition”) or private (in the U.S. sense, meaning tuition paid by the student’s family).
2- Are the Oxbridge exams only for students wishing to study/read at Oxford and Cambridge or are they used by all English universities (like the SATs are in the U.S.)?
3- Is English liberal arts education in high schools more seminar style than lecture style or was that just in the movie?
4- Had the boys in the class in the film already been segregated as university prep?
5- Dakin asks Irwin what degree he received at Oxford and is told “Second”. What would this be similar to in the U.S.?
Rudge: How do I define history? Well it’s just one fucking thing after another.
Mrs. Lintott: Durham was very good for history. It’s where I had my first pizza. Other things too, of course, but it’s the pizza that stands out.
Hector: The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.
Hector: Pass the parcel. That’s sometimes all you can do. Take it, feel it and pass it on. Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day. Pass it on, boys. That’s the game I want you to learn. Pass it on.
I also loved Hector’s quoting of A.E. Housman:
Ah, if only 1 in 12 students would agree with the above, I’d be so much happier. :rolleyes:
A bit like saying “If only he hadn’t killed cheerleaders, Ted Bundy would have been such a nice guy”, but “If only he’d kept his hands to himself, Hector would have been my dream teacher”. Something you would almost never see in a modern American film is Hector’s “little problem”. In a mainstream American film, he’d be a great teacher fired solely because he was gay (or, more probably, because he was framed by an obnoxious stock character homophobic twit).
PS- In an American film, Hector would also have been played by Robert Downey, Jr., or, if really big budget, Tom Hanks, and never by somebody who was age appropriate and completely devoid of sex appeal.
In fact I loved the way that homosexuality was, save for its significance in the “benedictions of Hector”, incidental to the plot rather than integral. Almost refreshing to see gay (or in some cases sexually ambiguous) characters to whom their sexuality isn’t the total focal point of their existence.
No answer to your questions, but Amazon.com has the play script available. And I loved the movie as well, although some of the aspects of the UK education system were unfamiliar.
I’ll do my limited best, and bear in mind that I’m 40, so my answers may be somewhat archaic:
Paid or scholarship. Grammar schools were around for years, and were fee-paying, but then “secondary modern” arrived, post-war, when the education system became universally state funded. Secondary moderns were less well-regarded, and more technically focused, and whether you got into one or the other was based on an intelligence exam you took aged eleven, called the “11-plus”. The system still exists in a couple of counties (Kent and Buckinghamshire, IIRC) but most people now go to a “comprehensive”, which is universal state education. To confuse matters, though, there are still private schools in all jurisdictions called grammar schools.
Yes. They’re peculiar to Oxbridge, and are separate from the whole of the rest of the education system.
Haven’t seen the movie, but “liberal arts” is a bit of a misnomer. We specialise very early on compared to the US, so those who don’t leave at 16, who progress to A-level (16-18) usually take only 3 subjects, and university is even more specialised. In the past, “PPE” would have been as general as it got: politics, philosophy, and economics. This has changed drastically of late - but generally, assuming the movie is set in the past, it would have been lecture-based. Oxford and Cambridge have a lot more of this personal tutorial system, which sets them apart from the “redbrick” universities.
If at old-style grammar, then yes - see above.
Not sure. The grades are “First”, “2.1”, “2.2” (also called a “Desmond” - get it?), “third”, and “pass” (which means “fail”).
I really liked that line, too. Is it original to this play, or is the definition of history as “one damn thing after another” an old definition? I could swear I’ve heard it elsewhere.
I liked the film for the most part, especially the choice of music - obscure stuff like the “Mustapha Dance” remix of “Rock the Casbah” by The Clash, the “New York Remix” of The Smiths’ “This Charming Man…”
The boys were semi-likable. I mean, I liked them okay, especially the gay Jewish singer with the crush on the the pretty rebel guy. I thought that character was particularly unlikable, but I think he was supposed to be edgy… too sexy for his own good. I don’t know if we got to know some of the other boys that well, but given the ensemble nature of the play/film, that’s to be expected, I suppose.
I do agree Hector is a character you’d never see portrayed sympathetically in an American film… unless it was in a Todd Solondz picture. I was at once feeling sorry for him but enraged that he was exploiting his students, even if they didn’t necessarily think it was a big deal. I guess it’s the teacher in me coming out… keep your hands to yourself!
I think what the handling (heh heh) of Hector showed was that sometimes it’s the hysterical reaction to such situations that causes the real damage; that within certain mutually respectful constraints, the individual idiosyncracies of respective human beings to each other are understood for what they are, and are not as harmful as the produces of L&O:SVU would have you believe they are. I think the reality is that boys the age of the boys in this movie understand more than American puritanism gives them credit for, and are capable of navigating such situations to their benefit, practically and emotionally, and are not automatically irreparably damaged by such interactions. Homosexuality is not *ipso facto *pathological, like a virus; and a mature, worldly “youth” can understand and accept it in situations such as were suggested in this movie.
I actually believe Hector when he says it was more of a benediction than lust as well. He’s a classicist and has Greek notions of his role and his charges (and also biblical: I don’t know about blessings, but in Genesis men would sometimes put their hands on another’s privates to make an oath). Of course the fact that he says “No” when Posner (who he’s evidently doesn’t find that attractive) offers to ride home behind him it shows that he wants to bless some more than others.
On the whole “hands off the kinder” thing, I’ve never had a good looking student offer me what Dakin offers Irwin and hope I never do, but I don’t know if I could really fault a teacher for that with a student who’s of age and knows exactly what he’s doing. (I did have a former student somewhat more than ‘come onto’ me after he was in my class, though he was drunk and we were sharing a bed at the time, but I declined because 1) I was drunk myself and 2) I knew he was drunk and 3) he was a Posner rather than a Dakin , but then we’re also talking about the difference in a 21 year old and 17 year old student.) I’ve asked several teachers- male, female, gay, straight, college, high school- if they’ve ever had a student they were sexually attracted to and almost to a person they said “Oh yeah”, though also to a person none pursued it.
Of course the fact I’m the product of a teacher/student union [albeit I was born 16 years after said union began] may inform my opinion somewhat.
It’s got nowt to do with Hector being attracted to men. It would be equally offensive to me if he was going after female students. The power differential between the adult responsible for evaluating the academic efforts of students and a pupil is such that I consider it way out of bounds.
Former student and former teacher? Have at it, as long as said student is no longer at the school and past the age of consent. Higher education is a different kettle of fish, though I don’t think it is wise if the pair are connected in a student-professor relationship at the time.
Traditionally (I’m talking about the last 40 years or so) you have state schools (public in the US sense - free and government funded and controlled) and independent schools (termed ‘public’ or ‘private and generally single sex - either description means private in the US sense, i.e. fee paying. The school would be called ‘Public’ if the Head teacher (principal) is a member of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference. Otherwise it’s called ‘Private’).
In the State School sector, traditionally MOST kids will go to a Comprehensive school, whilst the brightest pupils sit an examination for entrance into a Grammar school. So basically Grammar schools were designed to provide the best education for the brightest in the land, regardless of their ability to pay.
During the 1970s, the left-wing Labour Government of the day decided that Grammar schools did not fit with their ‘universal education for all’ policies and started turning (most) Grammar schools into Comprehensives, admitting people regardless of ability. Some Grammar schools in wealthier areas decided to turn ‘private’, i.e. independent and fee-paying, so as not to lose their elite education status. So you now have the rather confusing situation whereby some schools are called ‘Blah Blah Grammar School’, but may have turned private, whereas some Grammar Schools have retained their state status (or reverted to that status under Maggie Thatcher). In the History Boys I ‘suspect’ that the Grammar schools is state-funded, otherwise Alan Bennett might as well as called it a private school. Probably makes for better theatre, otherwise all the pupils would just have been posh kids.
Just Oxford and Cambridge. Most other universities don’t require a sat examination and instead rely on written applications, interviews and a requirement for certain grades to be achieved in the ‘A’ Level exams that all university-headed school leavers take.
Not sure there’s a clear answer to this one, it probably depends on the size of the school. For instance, a comprehensive school may have up to 2000 pupils, whereas as my private school had a mere 800, and of that, only nine people took history ‘A’ Level so out teaching was certainly seminar based.
Certainly looks that way, although it’s not something that happened at my school. In fact they’d been segregated specifically as ‘Oxbridge’ prep. At Grammar and private schools, virtually all pupils will be going to university in some form.
I don’t know how US degrees are graded, but the UK system goes ‘first class, 2.1, 2.2, 3rd, pass’. I’ve always took it when someone’s told me they have a second class degree to mean they have a 2.2, otherwise they’re automatically say ‘2.1’. ‘2.2’ is fairly average/mediocre, like getting a C on a paper.
I finally got around to seeing the film a couple of weeks ago, although I’d been getting recommendations to see the play all the way back to 2004.
I went through the whole Oxford/Cambridge admissions process at a time similar to that shown in the film; if one changed Sheffield to South London, History to the Physical Sciences, and removed the homoeroticism, it could have been a vignette from my own life!
It’s important to note that the action of the film goes from July / August 1983 through January 1984, and that the separate Oxbridge entrance exams for which the History Boys were studying was phased out in the late 1980s.
jjimm gives a good overview in post #6 above; my additions below will refer to how things were at the time the film is set, not how they are in 2008.
Prior to 1976, a UK school with the name “X Grammar School” would have been most likely to be state-run (no fees); nowadays there are far fewer schools with “Grammar” in their name, and they are more likely to be private (fee-paying). Here is a brief overview. However, even to this day there are “Grammar” schools that are state-run and free. Back in 1983, the name alone wouldn’t have been a particularly good indicator of its public/private (n the US sense) status. They wear a school uniform, but that was true of many state-run “Grammar” schools of the time, particularly one with high aspirations as shown in the film.
I’m going to disagree with jjimm and say that the school in the film is state-run and not fee-paying.
There were separate exams for Oxford and Cambridge, although they would have been taken on the same day as shown in the film. AFAIK they were all applying to read History, so would have taken a General exam and a History exam set by the dons (i.e. faculty) of the university to which they had applied. Since some (at least 4 IIRC) of the eight boys applied to Oxford and some to Cambridge, they were not all taking the same exam that day. I don’t think that’s clear from the film; it’s not really that important, I suppose.
The film doesn’t show “high school teaching” at any point. When we first meet the Boys, it’s in the school summer holidays and they’re getting the results of the “A-level” exams that they sat back in June, at the end of what in the US would have been 12th grade (i.e. their Senior Year in High School). If the Boys hadn’t got exceptional grades (all A’s IIRC except for the “dumb jock” who got an A and 2 B’s), they would have gone on to universities other than Oxford or Cambridge. The reaction from the teachers shows that it’s very unusual to have 8 History pupils with Oxbridge potential in a single year. So, the 8 come back in September for a “seventh term” of Sixth Form :three terms in the equivalent of the US 11th grade, three terms in the equivalent of the US 12th grade, and now an “Autumn Term” devoted purely to preparing for the Oxbridge entrance exams. This seventh term (usually called “Upper Sixth Form”) would not have any set syllabus: the A-level results would have show the Oxbridge dons how well they were at learning material, but the Oxbridge entrance exams were designed to show “something extra” (typically, the History exams they took would have questions taken from previous-year exams set to first-year students at Oxford / Cambridge respectively).
So, the seminar-style teaching shown was not typical of a UK “high school” classroom, because they were no longer “high school” students in any real sense. They were there just to prepare for Oxbridge; no new material to cover, just honing their skills.
We see the Boys taking the Oxford / Cambridge exams in what would have been late November / early December 1983, then going to their College Interviews at the end of December 1983 (while the undergraduates would have been “down”, i.e back home so their rooms could be used to put up the interviewees. We know that the “dumb jock” applied to Christ Church, Oxford (and got in because his father had been a college servant or “scout”, but his rugby prowess didn’t hurt his chances either). During the brief scenes showing the Boys at Oxford / Cambridge for interview, we also see the “stud” at Corpus Christi College, Oxford checking up on the younger teacher’s alumni status, and we see a couple of the Boys saying that Magdalen College, Oxford looks like a stately home, but I don’t think that we’re given the specific Colleges that any of the Boys applied to except for the “dumb jock”.
The Boys would have received their acceptance / rejection letters (and Champagne in the Headmaster’s office!) in early January 1984, and headed off to Oxford / Cambridge in September 1984.
As mentioned above, all 8 Boys have completely finished their high school work and taken their final national exams (A-Levels); the final term that we see is just for Oxbridge entrance. So, more than just “University prep”. Their schoolmates who didn’t get such high A-level grades would already be going off to Bristol, Durham, Sheffield, Hull (all mentioned in the film) etc. in September 1983.
As jjimm says, there’s the First, the Upper Second (“Two-One”), Lower Second (“Two-Two”, hence Desmond), and the “Third” (all Honours Degrees). I’m not sure that the “Pass” existed in 1983, but the “Gentleman’s Fourth” was abolished sometime in the early 20th Century IIRC. Typically at the time, about 10% of the students would get a First, 40% a Two-One, 40% a Two-Two, and 10% a Third. [I didn’t know anyone who actually got as far as taking Finals and failed to get even a Third.] It’s perhaps telling that Irwin didn’t specify further than “Second”, which could mean either a 2.1 or a 2.2. He’s claiming to have been in the middle 80% of the undergraduate body, but given his lies
who knows what he got at Bristol?
ETA: I see SanVito’s post on preview, so I’d better read that to see if we’re in agreement!
I have seen the film and I agree - it was a normal state-run school. The fact that they had such a large group of kids vying for Oxbridge entrance was a big deal for this school. I went to a state-run grammar school myself, within 30 or 40 miles of where The History Boys was filmed, leaving just a few years earlier than when the film was set.
It was also possible to get into Oxbridge without taking the entrance exam - you could get in (or not, in my case) on the basis of A level results plus an interview.
I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and hope to see the play someday. While Hector is a sympathetic character, I found both him and Irwin quite morally ambiguous. No matter his motives, I can’t brush off his advances towards his students as anywhere near okay. I also found Irwin’s interactions with Dakin at the end disturbing. In many ways, I think Mrs. Lintott is the most honorable character in the film. I wish she had gotten more screen time.
There’s no real equivalent to this in American universities, where one either receives a degree or doesn’t. The nearest you could get to this tiered degree-granting would be in class rankings, such as Valedictorian or Salutorian. Some US colleges do grant bachelor degrees with “Distinction” or “High Distinction”, but these generally indicate exceptional work in a very specific field, such as writing a thesis while still an undergraduate, and are not indicative of overall performance.
, but then we’re also talking about the difference in a 21 year old and 17 year old student.) I’ve asked several teachers- male, female, gay, straight, college, high school- if they’ve ever had a student they were sexually attracted to and almost to a person they said “Oh yeah”, though also to a person none pursued it.