Op-ed exposes private school "civility gap"

A brief but interesting opinion piece by Charles Blow of the New York Times was published yesterday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/opinion/30blow.html

Blow's article discusses the "civility gap" that plagues private schools - which is the same thing I've been trying to tell people about for the past 20 years, but nobody would listen.

Blow says private school students "are literally the chosen ones" and that "this sort of thinking has a way of weaving itself into the fibers of a family and into the thinking of the children." In other words, it's a sense of entitlement and privilege.

I noticed this too back in my day, but everybody had such thick skulls that they wouldn't believe me when I said bullying and classism were worse in private schools. When I was forced to attend a suburban private high school, some of my schoolmates were the offspring of people who pretty much ran the community - and by golly, they were going to make sure I knew who was "better." They were the Tea Party movement before the Tea Party movement was "cool."

Maybe this article will finally bring more daylight to one of the most ignored phenomena in America today: the "civility gap."