George Harrison Once Said if He Had Children He Wouldn’t Let Them Go to School — Did Dhani Harrison Get an Education?
Even though he initially received the label of “the quiet Beatle,” George Harrison wasn’t shy about sharing his beliefs in interviews. He spoke frankly about his skepticism of authority and the present school system. In 1967, he said if he ever had a child, he wouldn’t let them go to school. Of course, the Beatle and his wife Olivia had Dhani on Aug. 1, 1978. Here’s what his education looked like.
How George Harrison felt about the school system
When Harrison was interviewed by the Evening Standard in 1966, he referred to authority figures as “Big Cheeses” and “King Henrys,” and he was wary of all of them. He believed these authority figures, and the reality they’d created, were ruining children.
He specifically had a problem with the way teachers conducted punishment.
“Take teachers,” he said, as recorded in the book George Harrison on George Harrison. “In every class when I was at school there was always a little kid who was scruffy and smelly; and the punishment was always to sit next to the smelly kid. Fancy a teacher doing that.”
When the Beatle was interviewed by Melody Maker the following year, he was asked if he had a child, “do you know what you would try to do as a father?”
“I haven’t and I can’t really know what I’d do,” he replied. “But I do know I wouldn’t let it go to school. I’m not letting Fascist teachers put things into the child’s head. I’d get an Indian guru to teach him — and me, too.”
Where Dhani Harrison attended school
In the end, Dhani did, indeed, go to school. He attended Dolphin School near Twyford, a Montessori method school, then Badgemore Primary School. Later, he attended Shiplake College and eventually Brown University, where he studied industrial design and physics.
After university, Dhani got a job as an aerodynamicist for the British sports car company McLaren. But after Sept. 11, he was moved to begin pursuing music.
His first project as a musician was to finish Brainwashed, the album George had been working on when he died. Then, in 2017, Dhani began to focus on his own music career. That year, he released his debut solo album, In Parallel.
George Harrison ‘always wanted [Dhani] to drop out’
While Dhani did receive an education, maybe George never changed his opinion about his son going to school. In an interview with the San Diego Tribune, Dhani said his father always encouraged him to drop out.
“My father always wanted me to drop out, or maybe he was just joking,” he said.
Despite his father’s ideas about education, Dhani always knew he wanted to go to college.
“Whatever he thought, I needed to get my degree,” he said.
