So... I actually have a theory. He had kids. His kids are precocious and bright. And if you watch him on twitter he loves to talk about how smart they are. Which is hardly weird. But read back through his early writing: PG's school experience seems kinda traumatic. He hated it, he has an essay likening schools to prisons. So he's projecting his anxieties onto his kids.
And modern educational thought (be it "woke" or not), has very much moved away from a focus on the Best and Brightest students and onto a theory of education that prioritizes the needs of the disadvantaged. PG's kids just aren't what people are talking about. Educators tend to assume they'll do just fine given their existing advantages.
But PG didn't do fine, in his mind. He thinks society is moving in the wrong direction.
Which is ironic, because if anything modern educational environments (my kids are almost the same age) are much MORE inclusive and benign and much less likely to produce the kind of anxiety he experienced. His kids will do better than he did BECAUSE the school brings everyone else into the discussion and doesn't drive a competetive prison. He just can't see it.
And modern educational thought (be it "woke" or not), has very much moved away from a focus on the Best and Brightest students and onto a theory of education that prioritizes the needs of the disadvantaged. PG's kids just aren't what people are talking about. Educators tend to assume they'll do just fine given their existing advantages.
But PG didn't do fine, in his mind. He thinks society is moving in the wrong direction.
Which is ironic, because if anything modern educational environments (my kids are almost the same age) are much MORE inclusive and benign and much less likely to produce the kind of anxiety he experienced. His kids will do better than he did BECAUSE the school brings everyone else into the discussion and doesn't drive a competetive prison. He just can't see it.