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Marriage and the Chalet School
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Author:  MJKB [ Fri Nov 14, 2008 3:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Marriage and the Chalet School

Does anyone else feel that Kathie Ferris should have been rewarded with an engagement ring? I know I deserve criticism for this opinion but I'm prepared to risk it. The reason I put it forward is that, in view of the narrowness of the lives of the CS staff, marriage is at least another experience for them. I'd hate to think of Kathie spending thirty to forty years in the same environment, being expected to live vicariously through the lives of those she teaches. Joey, in particular, seemed to think that everyone should be fascinated with stories about her, her children, her friends' children etc etc.

Author:  Emma A [ Fri Nov 14, 2008 5:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

*laughing*
The problem is that Kathie was most likely to meet a doctor, given that narrow social circle, and she would have been stuck on the Platz with the same people but without even the intellectual challenge of teaching. She seemed to enjoy herself when we see her in the books, anyway. Maybe she decided to leave and teach elsewhere, or use her languages in another field?

Author:  Alison H [ Fri Nov 14, 2008 9:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Kathie would only have been around 26 when the series finished ... although she did seem pretty settled at the school by then! But maybe she and Nancy both packed it in and went off to teach somewhere more exciting!

We never really get to see anyone have a life after teaching, unless they leave to get married, do we? The only people I can think of who retire are Herr Laubach and (mainly through ill-health) Mlle Lepattre, and neither of them live for very long afterwards :( . I'd quite like to've seen Hilda and Nell both pack it in and go and travel round the world! Matron too.

To get back to Kathie, the rule in Chalet-land seems to be that in most cases you have to put in a few years' teaching service before you can hope to be swept off your feet by a doctor - Biddy O'Ryan, Hilary Burn, Mary Burnett, etc. Maybe Kathie's turn was just around the corner when the series ended. Or maybe, seeing as the most eligible doctor around at the time was Reg Entwistle, she had a lucky escape!

Author:  Cat C [ Fri Nov 14, 2008 10:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Quote:
We never really get to see anyone have a life after teaching, unless they leave to get married, do we?


Possible exception of Grizel - who disappears off to run a music shop (I think?) for a few years... but we don't really 'see' that, and then of course in the end she gets her doctor!

I must say I wondered from time to time about the longevity of the staff, but never really analysed it, and we're rarely told what age they are when they come to the school, which also makes it a bit difficult!

Author:  Alison H [ Fri Nov 14, 2008 10:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

IIRC Nell gives her age at 30 in United (correct me if I'm wrong, someone!), which would make her around 11 years older than Joey and therefore in her early 50s at the end of the series. Hilda would perhaps have been the same age, and Mlle de Lachennais a little younger. The Dennys, Frau Mieders and Matron were probably all a bit older ... but, as you say, it's never made clear anywhere!

Author:  CBW [ Sat Nov 15, 2008 9:48 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Quote:
The problem is that Kathie was most likely to meet a doctor, given that narrow social circle, and she would have been stuck on the Platz with the same people but without even the intellectual challenge of teaching


Given the changing times wouldn't Kathie have been of an age to get married and then carry on teaching? Maybe she could have had her doctor and her career

Author:  JayB [ Sat Nov 15, 2008 12:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Quote:
Given the changing times wouldn't Kathie have been of an age to get married and then carry on teaching? Maybe she could have had her doctor and her career


I don't think the CS ever had any objection to employing married teachers. It was just that in EBD-land most women who married had babies almost immediately, and couldn't easily combine teaching with motherhood - we see Jo's difficulties when she was filling in during Gay while still breastfeeding Stephen. Later on, when she hasn't got a young baby she teaches for a term or two after Mary Burnett leaves and before Biddy arrives. Biddy continued to teach for half a term after she married - she only stopped because she was pregnant.

I think it is more difficult for married women to teach at the CS because it is a boarding school and therefore mistresses have to be available outside normal school hours. Also weather conditions often make it difficult for people who live offsite to get there - Jo sometimes couldn't get across to the Island when she was teaching.

Author:  Alison H [ Sat Nov 15, 2008 12:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Madge went back to teaching for a little while once the School moved up to the Sonnalpe in Exile, and said that she'd've considered taking over as Head again temporarily (after Hilda and Nell's accident) had she not been expecting (Ailie) at the time.

Maybe Len would've been the one who broke the mould, with Joey (or more likely Anna and Rosli :roll: ) around to help with the kids. I'd love to see her telling Reg that she was carrying on teaching whether he liked it or not :D !

Author:  JayB [ Sat Nov 15, 2008 12:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Quote:
...had she not been expecting (Ailie) at the time.

Ailie is a very strong character, considering she started her existence as a plot device! I'd have liked to see Madge taking over again, but of course it would have been a completely different book.

Quote:
I'd love to see her telling Reg that she was carrying on teaching whether he liked it or not

It's so not much the teaching that's the problem, is it? It's all the extra-curricular activities - leading Sunday afternoon rambles, half term expeditions, producing the Play, attending the ghastly Saturday evening entertainments, just being available in the evenings if a mistress is needed.

If too many mistresses are disappearing off home to husband and babies at weekends and in the evenings, the burden will fall on fewer and fewer live-in single mistresses, and I can see all kinds of resentments building up.

Author:  MJKB [ Sat Nov 15, 2008 6:24 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

The mark of a good CS mistress is almost complete dedication to the school first, closely followed by the san. She is not unlike a secular nun in that she is presumed to be contented with, what really amounts to, community life. I suppose EBD saw this devotion as essential to the success of both enterprises and, of course, it is.
Marriage and children are seen as the final reward for devoted service to the school, and I suppose that is the reason I always felt a vague sense of unease that Kathie was not granted this before the end of the series. I'd love someone to write a sequel featuring Kathie meeting her future husband. It's the child in me wanting the 'happy ever after' ending for one of my favourite characters.

Author:  macyrose [ Sat Nov 15, 2008 8:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

I've always been curious as to why Mary-Lou, one of EBD's favourite charaters, wasn't married off by the end of the series, while Len who is younger was (engaged, anyhow). If the series had gone on I wonder if Mary-Lou would have been rewarded with marriage to a doctor (or fellow archaeologist)? Or perhaps Mary-Lou was supposed to reperesent the modern career woman?

Author:  Alison H [ Sat Nov 15, 2008 10:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Mary-Lou would only have been in her early 20s at the end of the series but, as you say, it's surprising that EBD hadn't found her a nice doctor (David Russell or Rix Bettany?) to settle down on the Platz with. In Reunion, when she turns up in Switzerland all lost and lonely :( , having temporarily abandoned her studies and doing a lot of talking about having none of her blood family left, it's as if the scene's being set for a nice doctor to sweep her off her feet, but it doesn't happen.

I've always been quite glad about that - Len's future was all set down before she'd even left school, but we're left to imagine Mary-Lou travelling the world and doing all sorts of exciting things :D .

Author:  Pado [ Sun Nov 16, 2008 12:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

OOAO and Indiana Jones...?

Author:  Kathy_S [ Sun Nov 16, 2008 4:23 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

In New Beginnings, Heather Paisley has Mary-Lou stun Joey with news of her marriage to fellow archaeologist Peter Emerson. Clearly a relative of Amelia Peabody's Emerson. (Well, Paisley doesn't say so, but it is so right for M-L. :D)

Author:  kirstyb01 [ Sun Nov 16, 2008 2:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

But other people give up careers - Daisy Venebles is a paediatrician then gives it up when she gets married. And in a later book her husband has to look after an injury even though she is there. Does she just forget all that training?

Author:  Lesley [ Sun Nov 16, 2008 4:24 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

To go back to original question posed - maybe Kathie Ferrars didn't want to be 'rewarded' by an engagement ring, marriage and husband? Not all women do - and she makes the point quite early on in her career that she is a 'born teacher'. In that age (1950's) she would have had to make a choice between career and husband - and perhaps she wanted the former? Not everyone that remains single considers it to be a poor second - it could be through choice.

Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Sun Nov 16, 2008 5:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

JayB wrote:
Ailie is a very strong character, considering she started her existence as a plot device! I'd have liked to see Madge taking over again, but of course it would have been a completely different book.

Sprinkles bunny treats copiously around.

MJKB wrote:
The mark of a good CS mistress is almost complete dedication to the school first, closely followed by the san. She is not unlike a secular nun in that she is presumed to be contented with, what really amounts to, community life.

This was pretty much the norm for many of the staff when I was at boarding-school in the 1960s. Most of the teaching staff lived off-site, but some combined the post with that of Housemistress, and although they nominally had one day off a week, in practice that meant they had to go right out, or sit in their bedrooms all day. They mostly had their own bedroom, which was totally private, and sitting-room, which wasn't, plus bathroom.

Some older and retired housemistresses were surprised, one Old Girls' Day, to find much more copious and luxurious accommodation now available. I pointed out that they, in their generation, were expected to be single - the modern generation may well have families with them and need the extra space.

Author:  Cat C [ Mon Nov 17, 2008 11:00 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Quote:
If too many mistresses are disappearing off home to husband and babies at weekends and in the evenings, the burden will fall on fewer and fewer live-in single mistresses, and I can see all kinds of resentments building up.


That's not madly unrealistic, given the resentments that DO build up nowadays with employees with children wanting/needing time off during the school holidays - or just to go to school events in term time.

Author:  Mez [ Mon Nov 17, 2008 9:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

My first housemistress was married with a small child (1986). She and her family lived in and had their own quarters within the house - including a private living room. I remember her as not being as approachable in the evenings as the unmarried housemistresses (but was only 11 and trying to settle in to school). Whenever you went to see her about something her husband and child were always in the office as well as you felt like you were interrupting them, whereas the unmarried housemistresses would have a more informal atmosphere in their offices in the evening.

Author:  MJKB [ Thu Nov 20, 2008 2:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Not all women do - and she makes the point quite early on in her career that she is a 'born teacher'. In that age (1950's) she would have had to make a choice between career and husband - and perhaps she wanted the former? Not everyone that remains single considers it to be a poor second - it could be through choice.

I agree with the above, but Kathie's life in the CS would have been very narrow socially. She would have been expected to have taken an inordinate amount of interest in the comings and goings of the school's 'grand daughters', especially Joey's offsprings. It would be nice to think that she formed an adult relationship or that she at least broadened her cv by applying to other schools to achieve promotion. I know that married women's lives in the CS were quite retricted too but they at least got to experience relationships with husband and children and, who knows, Kathie might have been one of those who get to abandon children and jet off to remote areas in Africa or South America!

Author:  Alison H [ Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Madge does pretty well, actually. Not only does she have a teaching career (without even having any qualifications), but she sucessfully establishes and runs her own business. She then gets to marry a doctor - and the head of the San at that - and to have six children, and then she gets to travel to Canada, Australia and various other places, whilst still getting the income from the school.

Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Fri Nov 21, 2008 5:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Alison H wrote:
Madge does pretty well, actually. Not only does she have a teaching career (without even having any qualifications),

It's only in very recent years that qualifications have been compulsory for teachers, certainly within the private sector.

Author:  Cat C [ Fri Nov 21, 2008 7:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Ditto Mrs Redboots - private schools have traditionally been allowed to employ whomever they wish to teach!

In practice (from what I saw during my time at private school) most teachers had a degree (or two) and quite a lot were also trained teachers - for understandable reasons the school didn't flag up those teachers who weren't officially qualified!

Certainly as recently as about 8 years ago, I knew of people going straight into teaching from an undergraduate degree.

Author:  KatS [ Fri Nov 21, 2008 8:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

The Teach for America program takes students straight out of college to teach in inner city and otherwise underprivileged schools normally for a year or two. I've had several friends who have done just that, they are essentially thrown into a difficult classroom with no teaching experience - most of them love it, as far as I can tell, but do find it extremely challenging.

They don't get paid for the first year, but they have the option of staying on as a regular teacher after that. It's quite a popular program.

Author:  MJKB [ Mon Nov 24, 2008 12:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

That's not madly unrealistic, given the resentments that DO build up nowadays with employees with children wanting/needing time off during the school holidays - or just to go to school events in term time.(cat c).

It is not only in teaching that resentment is building up against women, in particular, taking time out for child rearing. I have a friend in the civil service who is in a senior management position. She doesn't have children herself and is getting increasingly fed up with the effects of the family friendly legislation on her work load. Practically all of the women in her section take family leave on top of maternity leave and there is no one employed to take up the slack. I guess there is a price to be paid for everything and sometimes people are not prepared to pay it.

Author:  JayB [ Mon Nov 24, 2008 10:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Quote:
I have a friend in the civil service who is in a senior management position. She doesn't have children herself and is getting increasingly fed up with the effects of the family friendly legislation on her work load. Practically all of the women in her section take family leave on top of maternity leave and there is no one employed to take up the slack.

A friend of mine is in a very similar situation. She is the only single, childless woman in her team, and is the one who always has to cover if one of her colleagues has to take time off for child-related reasons. Meanwhile, she frequently has to miss evening get togethers with the rest of the crowd, or arrives late, because she can't get away at a reasonable time.

Author:  Elle [ Tue Nov 25, 2008 12:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Mrs Redboots wrote:
Alison H wrote:
Madge does pretty well, actually. Not only does she have a teaching career (without even having any qualifications),

It's only in very recent years that qualifications have been compulsory for teachers, certainly within the private sector.


Off the top of my head I can think of five teachers at my school (state comprehensive) who are not qualified in any way, shape or form, they are not even doing their GTP.

Author:  Katherine [ Tue Nov 25, 2008 4:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

That’s interesting. I thought you had to have a PGCE/B Ed to be a teacher (as opposed to a TA) in a state school. Are there special circumstances?

Author:  Clare [ Tue Nov 25, 2008 5:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

One of the teachers in my school (coming up to 60) has a desire to achieve a degree before she retires; and she is one of the one's who gets the best results! There are a few teachers in my school who did a certificate in Education who do not have a degree. The condition for degree + PGCE is relatively recent. My mum has been in teaching over 30 years and she did her degree in Science at night school, and she'd been teaching five years when she started the degree.

Author:  MJKB [ Tue Nov 25, 2008 6:57 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

The only unqualified teachers I've heard about in the past thirty years in Ireland were in the private junior schools. This was because the Department of Education did not pay their salaries. Unqualified teachers could work as substitutes in the state primary schools, but could not be permanent whole time. A minority of teachers in the secondary schools did not have their Higher Diploma, but they would have had degrees. Now I come to think of it though, one did not need a H.Dip to teach in the vocational schools, an Irish exam called the Ceard Taisteais (wrong spelling) was required for a permanent post.

Author:  Kate [ Tue Nov 25, 2008 8:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

I worked as an unqualified teacher last year in Ireland because there were no qualified applicants for the post and the principal begged me to take it on (as I was half-way to being qualified which was better than nothing). They're trying to stamp out unqualified teachers but as there is a shortage of teachers in some areas there's not a lot to be done. You can't be permanent though. (I am now as I'm qualified.)

Author:  Róisín [ Thu Nov 27, 2008 7:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

Kate wrote:
You can't be permanent though. (I am now as I'm qualified.)


... sure you can! You just need to relocate to the Alps, buy some cheap local furniture, and start your own venture...

Author:  charmkat [ Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Marriage and the Chalet School

At the risk of upsetting everyone, I don't think Kathie comes across as being into men, rather women... the "undertones" of her being 'shocked' to hear that Biddy is getting married (at their first meeting) and then 'upset' when she is leaving to have children (Kathie speaks quite "sharply" about it) come across quite clearly in today's open world and several people I know who have read the books say the context of the meaning behind this seems quite clear. Whether EBD was hinting at this is of course questionable.

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