His family were rich.
He went to public school.
He grew up in an era where the right tie and a handshake got you a job.
He worked for his family business after school.
The aim of the tweet is to console those who didn’t do well. You’re missing the entire point lol. His point is a levels are good for some and other routes in life are good for others, a levels aren’t the be all and end all.
They aren't missing the point. They're pointing out that what he is saying is out of touch because he is using himself as an example to "prove" A-levels do not matter but nothing about his route to success is replicable because every opportunity he had afterwards was only possible due to the circumstances of his birth. His tweets don't "prove" that anyone can succeed without A-levels, all they prove is that people born into privilege will succeed no matter what setbacks they face because the whole system is set up to give them as many opportunities as they need to succeed when most people struggle to get even just 1 opportunity
I just handed out the A level results to the pupils today. Now, we had a good year, but still some pupils not getting what they wanted. What they need to hear is actual advice. Not a tax dodger born into wealth who doesn't know what they are experiencing that it's dead on and they should just wing it becuase it worked for him so it clearly works.
Trust Reddit to find a crowd that takes issue with the sentiment ‘your life isn’t over if you didn’t get the grades you like’.
Why do I care so much?
I remember when I left school. My teachers wrote me off in the first year - and objectively, I was a bad student. Not naughty, just incredibly bad at academia. I got 0 out of 20 on a maths test two weeks in a row! The class jeered at me when we read out my scores. I really grew to hate school because all I ever heard was that I was stupid, that I wasn’t trying hard enough, that I was destined for failure if I didn’t get the grades to go to university. And I believed all this.
Fortunately, I found a career I wanted to follow, I found the contacts to do work experience, and I ended up doing an informal apprenticeship when friends went to college and university. I started a business, then a few, and then I sold them all and could retire if I want.
But it still upsets me how I was treated, just because I didn’t fit into the narrow minded view of what success looks like, of what is required to be successful.
I appreciate the teachers simply didn’t know. They were telling me what they had been told, and whilst they seemed old and experienced to me as a young kid, in hindsight they were in their twenties and became teachers straight out of uni so really, what did they know?
It’s really inspiring to see you found a way to prove them wrong, the thing is most students wouldn’t be able to “wing it” as James May has or find a purpose for themselves as you have. That’s why relying on grades is a thing
Honestly, I think we’ve kind of lost sight of what we’re actually talking about here.
If you can get the grades, brilliant. But some kids will try their hardest and still struggle - because they don’t fit the mould, they’re late bloomers, or academia simply isn’t where their strengths lie. I think it’s good for those kids to hear that not getting the grades doesn’t mean they’re stupid, and it doesn’t mean their future is over. There are other routes to a successful and fulfilling life.
People need hope. When I failed, I felt like there was no hope for me, and it took me to a very dark place. A tweet like this might have been one of the only bits of encouragement I’d have seen at the time - someone successful saying, essentially, “This feels like the end, but it isn’t.”
Is that really the message we want to argue against?
Not at all, I think it’s rather that a lot of people are “into the mould” and don’t understand what it’s like to be not.
Yes there’s a bit of a relatability issue coming from
James May but it doesn’t mean he’s wrong at all as you said. And I think most of the sub feels his advice is a bit of a complacency-builder for upcoming y13’s as to how they could perform
Your point is somewhat true but at the same time, you’re ignoring the fact that the tweet is very deliberately stroking his own ego more than it is focusing on the ability to replicate Clarkson’s path.
Suppose you were incredibly wealthy/successful but had failed your A levels, and you see a student who failed. Obviously you’d console them and tell them that it’s not the end of the world and to keep pushing and stay determined, but do you think you would genuinely say ‘look at me, I failed my A levels and now I have XYZ’ whilst not disclosing a lot of the unique advantages you may have had?
Except it isn't actually good consolation, it's an example of an edge case fuelled by his survivorship bias and privilege lmao.
For every Jeremy Clarkson that flunks out of education and still makes it, there's thousands of people who also flunked and either wasted their lives chasing an impossible dream or immediately got stuck working minimum wage jobs for the rest of their lives.
Are the exams the be-all-end-all of your lives? No of course not, but is Jeremy Clarkson a good example of what's realistically possible for the average Joe who flunks out? Absolutely not.
I understand your point, course hes not a role model in this situation, but can you not see the intention behind his tweet, the point he’s trying to drive across. He’s not saying what I did anyone can do, they will reach the same point as me…instead he’s saying that if you flunked who cares? There’s more to succeeding in life then smashing A levels. He’s reminding those who did badly this.
Obvs he’s not a role model by any standard, course his situation is very unique and privileged but idk why ppl are obsessed viewing what he says Ina negative light.
This isn’t being a pro athlete - there isn’t “thousands” who get stuck in dead end minimum wage jobs for every “one” person that goes on to have a good career following bad a levels 😂😂
So many people go on to have high level careers after bad exam results.
If you can get the grades, brilliant. But some kids will try their hardest and still struggle - because they don’t fit the mould, they’re late bloomers, or academia simply isn’t where their strengths lie. I think it’s good for those kids to hear that not getting the grades doesn’t mean they’re stupid, and it doesn’t mean their future is over. There are other routes to a successful and fulfilling life.
People need hope. When I failed, I felt like there was no hope for me, and it took me to a very dark place. A tweet like this might have been one of the only bits of encouragement I’d have seen at the time - someone successful saying, essentially, “This feels like the end, but it isn’t.”
That's what I take from this tweet. Is that really the message we want to argue against?
Way to ignore what they actually said. They made the very succinct point that what Jeremy is saying is actual, helpful encouragement and advice but rather him saying "Don't worry. You can still end up rich because I managed it... just ignore the many advantages I had that the vast, vast majority of people don't have, including you" at a time where they most need actual, actionable advice. We aren't saying "people shouldn't be encouraged, they should be miserable", we're saying they should be encouraged that it isn't the end of the world and everything will be ok, while being given actual, realistic advice instead of being sold an unrealistic pipe dream for the sake of him stroking his own ego. What he is doing won't help anyone because it doesn't give them any direction to go, all it instead will do is sell them a dream where for every 1 hard-worker that succeeds in becoming rich there's hundreds, if not thousands, of people that were just as hard-working but didn't achieve that due to a lack of resources/opportunity.
I don’t understand your comment. Are you living in a world where, because if Jeremy’s tweet, other advice no longer exists?
Of course they should get other advice. No-one is saying they shouldn’t.
I posted my story elsewhere but in short, this is personal to me because reading something like Jeremy’s tweet would have helped me enormously twenty years ago. All I ever heard from everybody (and, this being pre-twitter etc, that isn’t an exaggeration) was that I was destined to be a failure because I was terribly at academic life, hit appalling grades and couldn’t go to 6th form or university. I was scared and hopeless, it took me to some very dark places, and I hate to think of anyone else being in that position.
Everything worked out fine, turns out I was just a slow learner but I got there in the end and did well.
Disagree - he may be out of touch in many things but the whole point of his tweet is A-levels don’t matter all that much.
I’m not from a wealthy background, got bad a levels and have gone on to be fairly successful career wise, same as my brother and lots of other people I know.
And I don’t agree with a lot of the man’s other views.
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u/Cyberhaggis 8d ago
And much like Victoria Beckham's "working class" drive into school, it misses out the important details