Reward and Punishment

I got a show-up on Monday. It was my first one for ages so it felt kind of good. A show-up is the school’s equivalent of a merit - a recognition of good work. It's called a show-up because if get one you are obliged to show it to your house master for his approval.

From the school’s point of view show-ups help to maintain the high academic standards. Eton’s GCSE and A Level results are impressive so this isn’t be an easy task, as it's more likely they'll move down than up. Giving everyone an incentive to work hard therefore on every piece of work they do makes it less of a challenge.

Other rewards exist too. A strong performance in a subject over the course of a term might see you commended for good effort, otherwise known as getting a commended card. 

More impressive still is to win a trials prize, awarded to the person who comes top in each subject in the school’s internal exams. Getting one of these is a real feat, especially if you’re up against 250 other boys as is often the case in F and E block.

Most subjects also have additional prizes, often entered voluntarily and similar to an exam. These are generally open to C and B blockers only since they test knowledge not otherwise included in the curriculum. They are funded by grants from old boys, meaning that a lot of money can be earned from winning one, often hundreds of pounds, and their prestige is enhanced by the external examiners who oversee them, typically university professors. The most famous is the Newcastle scholarship, although to win any is a real feather in your cap. 

However, perhaps the most elusive prize of all is the semi-mythical ‘sent up for good’. I say semi-mythical because a sent up for good is so infrequently awarded that only a handful of boys from each year group will ever receive it. Essentially, it is like an über show-up, reserved only for pieces of work that are so exceptional that you question whether the author is mortal or not. The work in question , rather than being shown to the house master, is fast-tracked straight to the head or lower master, where it is retained to be archived in college library.

Looking over all the past sent up for goods must be a fantastic experience, and there are bound to be some famous names among them. Indeed, I wonder if the whole thing is a money-making ruse, designed to anticipate the future rich and famous whose work can then be flogged off once it becomes valuable. In that case Prince William must have been chuffed when every other EW he did was sent up for good.

Incentives work on most boys, but for those whom it doesn’t there are plenty of deterrents.

The least severe of these is a‘sign for information’ or ‘info’. This is a warning that the work in question is of an unacceptable standard and must be brought to the house master's attention. 

The next rung up the ladder of doom is the rip. The rip, in my opinion, is one of Eton’s finest traditions, blending an unashamed academic rigour with a powerful symbolism. It consists, quite literally, of your work being ripped by the beak as a sign of disgust. Back in the day this used to be done in front of the whole class and would be a full-on tear down the middle of the page, but now it’s more of an incision in one of the corners. 

Personally, I find this a shame because if only to wield this power I might consider becoming a teacher myself. The effect of a rip is powerful, or has been every time I've had one. Just looking at that tear in the page is enough to shame you into never making the same mistake again. Which of course proves true for only a month or so, at which point the process is repeated.

After the odd rip or two things start to get serious, and thankfully I have little experience of what happens here. There is something called a white ticket, issued I believe to any serial offender who must have it signed daily by his beaks and house master. If this doesn’t cure the patient then the only remaining option is rustication, and then expulsion.

Anyway, to return to my show-up this week, it felt like being back in F block, when getting one was like winning the lottery and a rip was pretty much the end of the world. As soon as I received it I took it straight to my house master so that he could admire my academic credentials, useful for any positions of leadership (*cough-cough house captain*).

I remember how in my first few weeks of F block I received a show-up that still makes me smile whenever I think about it. It came in a Latin div in which the average ability of the class was way above my own. It was a real struggle at first and to make matters worse I had to sit next to a boy with an annoying, weasel-like face. This individual wouldn’t stop talking about his prep school being Latin-this and Latin-that, as if it had been some nerdy re-enactment of Ancient Rome. Plus, although he was one of the best in the div he would never help me out with things I found difficult, so I began to resent him.

Each week we were given a grammar or vocab test and I completely bombed the first few. The beak warned me that if I didn’t improve quickly he would be giving me a rip. In contrast, Weasel-face was sailing along and bragged about revising for tests only 10 minutes before the div.

Fourth week came and we were given our vocab test as usual, and this time I decided that I would really nail it, no matter how long it took to learn the words. As a result, I spent the best part of Sunday afternoon shovelling some of the most obscure vocab I had come across into my unreceptive brain. 

Indeed, the words were so difficult that as we waited outside the classroom before the test there was a flurry of protests, from Weasel-face in particular. As the tests were handed out, I saw that with a bit of luck I would get a high mark. Weasel-face on the other hand was struggling, fiddling with his pen and glancing over at my paper. To counter this, I very deliberately curled my left arm around my sheet and smiled at him smugly.

After handing it in I looked forward to the next div all week. It didn’t disappoint. As we walked in the beak was stood stiffly at his desk with a terse look on his face. Once seated, he then launched into a diatribe against us, telling us that we were a disgrace, that we weren’t at prep school anymore and that if we wanted to stay at the school we would have to change our attitudes.

I felt like he was talking to me but at the end he said, ‘The only one, the only one amongst you to put in a half-decent effort was Eton Boy, and for that I have given him a show-up. But to the rest of you - if I don’t see a marked improvement in your tests next week you’ll be going straight to the lower master!’. 

As twenty pairs of eyes fixed jealously on me I turned a deep shade of red. But inside, I felt like a champion.

The only question now was how badly Weasel-face had done. Our tests were the last to be handed back, and as the beak passed me my show-up I looked instinctively over at Weasel-face’s sheet. There, unmistakably, was a large rip running across the top of the page!

Sometimes in life it seems that no words are necessary, and this was one of those occasions. As I held my show-up in front of me I couldn’t help but smile, and like a king weary after a victorious campaign, I leaned back in my chair and surveyed the conquered land.