Sending Kids to Boarding School -- Convince Me!

<p>Oldbutwise, I don’t understand why you ask us to “convince you.” Why should we? You are entitled to your opinion, as are we. We don’t need to spend our time attempting to convince you of something that has no relevance in your life. (As you have stated, your children are already out of the house.) If your children are adults, why are you even on this website? Don’t you have anything better to do than raise these pointless observations?</p>

<p>I’m going to give this post a name. I’m going to call it…</p>

<p>Hubris - with a capital H</p>

<p>The face of Hubris: <a href=“http://sydlexia.com/imagesandstuff/spring/■■■■■.jpg[/url]”>http://sydlexia.com/imagesandstuff/spring/■■■■■.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The mind of Hubris: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=321796[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=321796&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>A typical “conversation” with Hubris: <a href=“http://www.stainedglassoriginals.com/images/traffic%20sign%20sticker%20pack.jpg[/url]”>http://www.stainedglassoriginals.com/images/traffic%20sign%20sticker%20pack.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>goaliedad: I agree with you. Please see my previous post if you haven’t already.</p>

<p>I don’t understand why prople need tp or think they can dictate to others how to raise their children. I used to get grief from everyone for not wanting to hire babysitters and for going to my kids every time they cried. My son didn’t stop waking us up in the middle of the night until he was eleven. For some reason that incensed people. However, when he was fourteen I let him go to Rome with the Latin students at his school, some eighteen-year-old seniors.</p>

<p>I know you are doing what is best for your family.</p>

<p>And for the record, MomofWildChild, I have never met a family wirhout issues or psychological complexity (except the Camdens) so I agree with you too.</p>

<p>And my kids went to public school (#2 graduates 6/22). I hate for people to have to be in camps. I sent my kids to private day school through fifth grade and no one in this community understood that either. Then the private school community did not understand why we were opting for public school. I think we follow our intuition and each kid has some kind of destiny we listen closely to hear so we can help bring it about.</p>

<p>(1) Did you attend a boarding school? No, but I wish I could have. While I enjoyed my public hs, I never really had the challenges I craved and most of the other kids in my school were not all that interested in learning. My oldest son was a lot like me in that regard and was very excited to have the opportunity to attend bs. His younger brother was so impressed with his brother’s experience that he was eager to follow in his footsteps.</p>

<p>(2) How would you describe your socioeconomic status? Middle class…and struggling to make ends meet.</p>

<p>(3) If you had to pick the one topic that you and your child talk about most,
what is it? Everything…depending on what they want to discuss that day. For him it is usually what he did in school that day, showing me his newest soccer move, a “hot” girl he met, new music he wants to share with me.</p>

<p>(4) In your social circles, do any of your friends’ children attend (or will they attend) a boarding school? No…mostly not.</p>

<p>One of the main reasons my children really love bs is that they do get the diversity that you referred to as only being available in a public hs. Our public hs is almost 100% caucasian middle class. There is not one person of color; no one of Asian descent. The only differences in religion are Catholic/Protestant. The closest synagogue is over an hour from where we live. At bs, my children met kids from all over the world and from every socio-economic level (from very wealthy to inner city poverty). My youngest, in particular, really craves this type of experience. You seem to hold to the stereotype, old, that bs is only for wealthy white people. I think that is outmoded.</p>

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<p>old but wise, don’t talk about what you don’t know. A lot of kids who’ve gone to boarding schools will tell you that dorm faculty are interested in children <em>precisely</em> in a “parental” sort of way. Having worked as a dorm head at a boarding school, I can tell you that I always saw my role in the dorm first and foremost as one of helping kids grow up and treating them as if they were my own kids. Not all dorm faculty have a “nurturing” attitude; but then, neither do all parents.</p>

<p>Personally, I think the Camdens are pretty screwy. I mean, honestly, all I have to do is say “Lucy” and I’ve proven my point even though I could go on.</p>

<p>lol wow heated discussion!
i haven’t read any of it, so i’ll just address the original question:</p>

<p>public hs wouldn’t cut it for me. i was frustrated by always being held back, even in the accel. classes, and i never felt genuinely challenged. while there were a handful of great teachers, the rest were unmotivated and barely qualified to teach their subject. and with 3000 kids and classes with 25+, i knew that i could be learning a lot more at a faster rate. </p>

<p>not only that, but bs have so many opportunities, and i got to know so many diverse people and was exposed to more of the world. it was a place where i could learn from exciting teachers as well as learn from and be challenged by my peers, most of whom are better than myself. it’s amazing when you find your friends just as enthusiastic to learn as you are, and find yourself engaged in every class (except for junior studies…lol.) and the dorm setting is incredible, where you develop very close friendships.</p>

<p>sometimes i wonder if i should have stayed with public, where i could have been top of my class but waste those years bored in class. bs should be for the experience of the bs, and not be seen as a path to a better college [b/c that’s not even true. ^.^]</p>

<p>old but wise, I certainly cannnot answer this for every situation, but I will try to describe my own situation, and my reasons. While I will admit mine may come with some “extenuating circumstances”, and I understand that I probably cannot “convince you”, I do hope that I can paint a picture for you of how one child came to this decision. </p>

<p>I have wanted to attend boarding school for a long time. It is probably surprising. I have been interested in school since I was very long. I did not start wanting to attend prep school a year ago, when I started my applications. Not two years ago, when my mum moved away. Not three years ago, when I was starting middle school. No, I started wanting to attend boarding school five years ago–when I was eight years old.</p>

<p>That’s right, eight. Not even in double-digits. No, it was not Harry Potter-influenced, I swear. Eight was the age I started in public school, actually. I wanted to leave, and I started looking at boarding schools. All the schools I looked at where in England, where, by the way, it is custom to send children away to school at the age of seven. Naturally, my American parents, who didn’t even know about possibility of such young children going to school, refused. I would not be persueded. I continued. In the seventh grade, I succeeded in being accepted to an English boarding school. Unfortunately, for financial reasons, I was unable to attend. However, in the eighth grade, this year, I finally managed it. I will be attending Phillips Academy Andover next Autumn.</p>

<p>I chose boarding school for a myriad of reasons. Since you emphasize family and family connection in your posts, I will address first. Though this is, of course, a deeply personal area, I will say that we have “issues”. My family’s story includes a whirlwind of divorce, remarriage, breakups, moving, and includes my mum moving to Tucson when I was eleven (I have not had my mother to kiss me goodnight for several years now, so that’s not really an issue for me). I will not go into painful details, but I know that right not I am not in a very healthy environment. Some families cannot or will not provide the support a child needs, and that child will be better nurtured somewhere else, at least in that stage of their life. Not every child has the same kind of family that yours grew up in, and you would do well to remember that.</p>

<p>Can a child be “smart” in a public school? I don’t know about “a” public school; I haven’t attended them all. My public school: Well, I suppose you can, but it’s not really a matter of can. It’s a matter of “Is being intellectually focused and/or gifted encouraged, nurtured, and not made fun of by peers?” The answer is no. I have been struggling with public education since the day I walked into my first public school. I personally believe that the very foundation of public schooling is wrong, that it is not child-based, but corporation and factory-based, and detrimental to children (please let’s not start discussing this, though; just assume that it is true for me, which only I could know, since that’s all that matters in this context). For example: During the 8th grade, every 8th child at my school must write an “I-Search” a research paper on any topic of your choice. It is typically between 7-15 pages. Mine was 76. I had a lot to say. I realize that’s a lot, and I didn’t mind that some kids were slightly in awe of it. However, I did mind when a friend’s English teacher, upon hearing, by rumor, that such a paper had been written by a child at my school (she doesn’t know who I am), said to a few kids in her class who informed her of it, “No child here could do that, and if they did, it’s all plagerized.” As someone who spent over twenty hours doing footnotes, factchecking, and listing sources for that paper, I take that insult particularly hard. It speaks to me about not only the expectations at my school, but the prejudice against those who rise above them. Andover is a place where that does not happen. That’s the kind of place that I want to be, and that I believe all children should be. (Not at prep school, necessarily, but at a place that honors all aptitudes and all skills–all meanings including not the norm, even above.)</p>

<p>As a final note, about diversity, I will say this. While punks, goths, and failing students may not populate the majority of the Andover population, that doesn’t mean that they are excluded from the students life. Kids see children not only of different backgrounds (who attend there school) but also kids of different appititudes and different strengths, in their work with the community around them. And one last thing about diversity: I go to school in Berkeley, one of the supposedly most diverse places in the nation, and I will say this: the cliques are extrodinarily racially segregated, and in my geometry honors class, the highest tracked class you can take, there is one African-American child, one biracial child, and about 60% white and 35% Asian. I don’t want to experiance diversity where it is all numbers and no actual interaction between different groups. The kind of diversity I see at Andover is true diversity: where different children of different races, religions, sexes, family backgrounds, and cultures not only attend the same school in name–they attend the same school in spirit, together.</p>

<p>So, old but wise, what do you think? Did this convince you, at least in my case?</p>

<p>It’s true what someone wrote about “loco parentis”…Think of Endicott Peabody at Groton or Seymour St. John at Choate. These men were beloved father figures to literally hundreds of boys who didn’t get that in their own homes. My brother went to St. John’s funeral at Choate and said he’d never seen anything like it.</p>

<p>That was a great post, prettyckitty. Thank you</p>

<p>I think Old But Wise is having a great time reading these posts. If anything, it has afforded us all the opportunity to shed light on important issues for others considering boarding schools. Wanting and doing what’s best for your children is what it comes down to and it’s obvious that we’re all trying to do that (Old But Wise included). Live and let live.</p>

<p>prettyckitty - wonderful post and maturity beyond your years; you’ll be a great asset to Andover.</p>

<p>Yes, I read the biography of Seymour St. John and he seemed like an amazing man.</p>

<p>And old but wise - I’d like to tell you that here you have about twenty people, all telling you that boarding school is the right decision for them. And even if we can’t convince YOU, you should believe that this is our choice and that we made it because we wanted to, and it would be disrespectful to say we chose wrong. And I know that you want to do the best for your kids - and that every parent does - but sometimes doing that isn’t doing what’s best for yourself (as every parent doesn’t want their kid to leave home). But all of these decisions that you see on this board that have been made don’t mean that the parents here love their children any less than people whose children stay at home - quite the contrary. They, and their children, are open to opportunities that allow their children to “take wing”, as goaliedad said, and experience what is right for them. And that, in their case, is not staying home. </p>

<p>And thanks J… great post! :)</p>

<p>Sincerely…I hope I didn’t offend anyone on here. I did indeed learn much about boarding schools from your posts, and you have done much to educate me to the fact that, for some children, they have merit and are a good alternative to public schools.</p>

<p>Confession: I intentionally word my threads in such a way as to promote “lively” debate. In the process, many get angry at me, and that’s ok. Whether you believe it or not, I am a nice guy. Really.</p>

<p>Way too many of the threads on CC are boring and “same-minded” in nature. Occasionally, I like to go against the grain of the typical CC’er.</p>

<p>I am more open-minded than you may think.</p>

<p>Thanks for your input!!!</p>

<p>This is becoming my mantra but…don’t forget that not all boadring schools are Choate and Exeter. Some are places were kids go to get great academics, arts programs that are quickly disappearing from our public schools, tutoring for learning issues, and close relationships with adult role models all without the pressure to get into the Ivies.</p>

<p>Each year at the school where I work we will have a few students head off to Yale, Harvard, Cornell and University of Chicago. We will also have students head to University of Tennessee, University of Alabama, and East Tennessee State. We love them all.</p>

<p>Why do students come here? Here are a few reasons… Mom and dad are farmers who cannot leave their land but who want a better education for their children than what they can get locally. The students want to play sports but don’t want the high stakes athletics of many large public (and private day) schools. Mom and Dad have to move frequently for work and no one thinks it’s in the best interest of the child to keep switching schools. We have tutors available on campus so students who need extra help don’t have to give up extracurriculars to get it. Mom and Dad want their child exposed to more diversity than is available in their all-white suburb. Mom and dad want their child somewhere where college is the assumption, not the exception. There is no mom or dad. </p>

<p>The reasons are as varied as the kids. When they get here they live in small residences - 12 students to a faculty family. Many of our residential faculty have children on campus so students have plenty of opportunity to learn parenting skills. Interestingly, our students’ parents often comment that they talk to their child more when they are boarding than when they were home and that the conversation is now more substantive than “Can you take me to the mall?”</p>

<p>Sure, it’s not for everyone but I’m glad we ahve so many choices in education and so many choices in types of boarding schools.</p>

<p>What do you mean, all boarding schools aren’t Choate and Exeter?</p>

<p>I’m not going to Choate to get into an Ivy. I’m going there because I feel like it’s the best fit for me, and because I want to do the same for college: I don’t want to necessarily go to an Ivy League school. AESDCH aren’t just out to get kids into Ivies.</p>

<p>Sorry if I took that personally; I’m just very defensive. :)</p>

<p>Olivia, since you are fast becoming an expert on all things related to Choate, I thought you might be interested to know that before Seymour St. John was headmaster, his father, George St. John was the headmaster there for almost 40 years. He was really amazing and like Endicott Peabody at Groton or Frank Boyde (I think its either Boyde or Boyden) at Deerfield, he did a tremendous amount to help build the reputation of the school. It’s said that each year he (St. John) made it a point to learn the name of each new boy and took it as a matter of pride that he always personally knew each of the 550 boys at the school.</p>

<p>Thanks, prppd! :slight_smile: I actually have the bulletin in front of me (is this a little obsessive? ;)). Were you there when either of them were headmaster?</p>

<p>I bet Olivia could learn the name of each new boy, too! ;)</p>

<p>It’s appropriate when schools in the area (private or public) are not good enough for the student academically or otherwise.</p>