Did any Dopers attend boarding school?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m talking about prior to college, i.e., grade school and/or high school (or the equivalent of those years in other countries).

If so, what was it like? Also, what country, what era (decade), what age(s) were you, and for how long did you attend?

A good experience or not, and please elaborate some on whether it had a good effect on your life or a damaging one?

When I was in high school (late 60’s) I seem to remember some families that send their kids to boarding school. I can see where a good school might provide some kind of stability and community if home life was troubled and chaotic or even dangerous. But for normal situations, it doesn’t seem like a good idea, especially when you read about kids being sent off for first grade.

Wondering if the real experience matches what one read in novels and sees in movies.

2

US, late 90’s, two years, 16-18. It was a good experience over all. I enjoyed myself tremendously.

3

I went to a school for kids with disabilities. I was there from 9/95-6/97 (17-19) Overall a VERY positive experience (tbf, the highpoint of my life, happiness-wise)

4

I did, in Pennsylvania. It was not a school for “bad kids” but instead a moderately elite school for Main Line Quakers of which I was not one; I was one of the imported urban kids who rounded out their diversity efforts… Went and boarded from 9th - 12th grades. Late 80’s and early 90s. Home life was perfectly fine but high schools where I lived sucked. My childhood best friend went to Andover at the same time I went to my school.

Nothing like the movies like Dead Poets or something, but a fantastic education, great grounding in life and an experience I’d never trade in.

ETA read Prep: a Novel for a pretty good glimpse at boarding school.

5

Hedda-An abusive French teacher didn’t drive a kid mental?

6

1959-1961 (7th & 8th grades). A military school. Run by nuns.

7

That sounds incredibly ominous & terrifying.

8

My son is in boarding school now, in year 11. He’s there for 12 weeks or so at a time, and home on holidays. I’ve posted about it before but he had some pretty serious issues and this was the only way I could find to break the cycle. It’s worked.

He loves it. I offered the opportunity to stop boarding and go to a regular HS now that he’s worked out his problems, and he turned me down.

It’s a Australian country Catholic boarding school for boys with about 200 boys that board of about 600 total boys. The boys span from year 7 to 12. He’s getting ready for his HSC next year - a test that basically determines what your uni major is and where you go to uni. (It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the gist of it.)

He plays rugby in winter and tennis in summer. His day starts (for him, because he’s a freak about sport) at about 6am, he gets up and goes running, then showers, dresses, goes down to breakfast, has a normal school day, changes, does sport, changes, showers (dear og, I hope!), has two hours study, then supper, then one night a week he has mass, then more study until 10pm. Bedtime is 10:30, but this year they have their own rooms - as opposed to a massive big dorm with about 40 boys - so I suppose they can have lights out whenever, but the wi-fi network goes off at 10:30. On Friday they don’t have the evening study, and senior boys can go out into town.

In addition to school, he’s also doing a TAFE course (like a community college course) to be a fitness trainer. He reckons he can earn some extra cash at uni doing training. Other boys are doing trades, or doing a different TAFE course, or just doing harder HSC work.

They go into town instead of doing sport some evenings, and on Saturday after any games, and on Sunday after mass. Sunday is the only time they are allowed in town out of uniform. (Winter uniform is college tie, blazer, jumper, white shirt, slacks, black shoes, summer uniform is that minus the blazer and jumper, and they can wear knee shorts and knee socks.)

He also sings and takes singing lessons, he sings with the college choir and also as part of the church choir, which is extra curricular. He competed in the Songman trail and came fourth, which was good. He was part of the musical - he got the part of Judas in Godspell - but it was going to interfere with TAFE so he pulled out of the musical.

He has a pretty normal life here and there. He dates girls, all the boys do (except for the gay boys, of course, some of them date each other, some date boys from outside the school, etc., it’s pretty laid back in terms of that.) Senior boys - years 11 and 12 - have more time they can be off campus and can sign themselves out later, up till 10:30 on weekends. He’s between girlfriends at the moment, but he’s chasing his running partner (pardon the pun) - she’s the girl he gets up at 6am to go running with, she’s a local girl, but he has dated girls from the girls boarding school up the road. He goes to the movies, mooches about town, hangs out with friends. He occasionally spends the weekend with a mate at his family’s farm, the other boy’s mom signs him out, which is cool. When he’s home, he volunteers at the zoo, goes to the gym, hangs out with friends he has here, all that sort of stuff.

From our perspective it’s done him a world of good. He’s stopped the crappy behaviour that got him sent there in the first place. His grades are good - he’s not setting the world on fire or anything, but he’ll get into a good uni, he’s got a ton of friends, he loves his school and his rugby team, and he’s having a great time.

We sent him in year nine, and the first year was tough. He’s much happier this year than he has been the last two, only because he has a private room and can sleep better. The school is putting in more single rooms or quad rooms for younger boys down to year seven but it’s a big expensive project, so it’s taking some time. The best thing for him - and he says this - is the routine. He knows what he is meant to be doing. They wear him out, he’s always busy and always tired. The boys are totally boys - they get themselves in trouble sometimes, they go out of bounds or sneak out and stuff, but it’s pretty harmless and the Director of Boarding just gives them detention (or fixes the problem - like when my son lost a bet and got half his head shaved, the DoB just shook his head and shaved the other half!)

I talk to him on Facebook, phone or Skype almost every day. I’ll go up next weekend for parent teacher meetings - about a 3 hour drive. I don’t know how it will effect the rest of his life, but I can say that the way he was going, his life was going to be pretty crap if he didn’t change something, so this is always going to better than that.

Can ask him or answer stuff for you, if you want.

9

New Zealand boys high school 1970 - 73. Aged 13 -18. The boarding component of the school was large, 300 boys plus 600 day boys.

Good experience? Hmm…more like the curates egg. Good in parts.

It was a traditional boys school stemming from the English public school system. We had prefects, fagging, and absolute seniority - a term which means you must always step aside, give up your seat, place in line, do as commanded etc - by any boy senior to you. Thus the third formers were in the absolute bottom circle of Hell but the payoff was once they got to the sixth form they were kings. If they got that far.

If you’ve read Tom Browns Schooldays then that is an accurate picture. For some boys it was a cruel experience. Sport was the absolute core focus for us and juniors were required to be able to name the First Fifteen, the First Eleven, and the Tennis Six. Detentions and possibly a thumping if you couldn’t. Academic achievement was grudgingly noticed for the top 2-3% but irrelevant to us.

The Masters (teachers) saw things quite differently and had no idea of what really went on in the dormitories, prep rooms, and prefects studies. Pimping - meaning telling tales, was absolutely forbidden by our schoolboy code. You could be bullied and have sympathy from your friends, but the sympathy vanished if you said a word to anyone in authority.

Still, we were 'appy in those days. :smiley:

10

My son’s school was like that until maybe the early 90’s. They did away with absolute seniority, academics are now more important than sport (except maaaaybe rugby. :D) The senior dining rooms (where juniors used to serve the seniors meals) is the school museum now.

11

Interesting replies… thank you. :slight_smile:

I’m curious that no one so far has said that they missed or regretted missing their family’s daily activities… breakfast together, home after school, hanging out with parents and sibs, being around the neighborhood. No one has said they felt they lost something irreplaceable by not being home day in and day out with the family.

I can really see what Gleena said

How good that your soon is doing well there! I believe this element of predictable routine, expectations, and tiring PHYSICAL activity is not as present in family life as it was in past generations. These three things are good for adults AND children, and that includes single adults (like me) and families.

More stories? Any girls?

12

I attended a boarding school in grades 9-12 in the '70s. It was the best thing that could have happened to me. The county school system I would have attended was horrible. I went there for half a year in the 8th grade and learned to skip school and smoke weed. They were teaching material I had learned in the 6th grade, so I was bored. I made good grades even with skipping school; I’d already had the material. When my mother went to the administration, their solution was to advance me another grade. I would have graduated from high school at 16, and Mom didn’t think starting college at 16 was a good idea.

13

I went to a boarding school for grades 10 and 12 - early 1970s. It was (and is) an elite all girls school with high academic standards: some of my classmates went on to be engineers, doctors, lawyers, university professors and other professional callings. I was sent because I’d found the joys of skipping class and hanging out with the bad boys, smoking dope.

It was a very good experience for me. Smaller classes, more interesting curriculum, and I made lifelong friends.

The school is in southern Ontario, Canada. There were about 250 students who boarded and only 10 or so day students at that time.

14

My brother did. It was a religious Christian school and my dad paid for it. He wanted 1) a superior academic education and 2) was pretty big into Christianity at the time. (Now my brother, 22, is an atheist.)

He hated it. They shrugged legitimate complaints, told my mother not to “listen” if he calls home complaining in the first few weeks (alarm bells!) or ever, and the PE teacher and room parent completely ignored his asthma. They pretty much said he was being a disobedient baby. My mom actually did listen to him and drove out to pick him up. The memory is foggy, but I had to listen to her rant for days about how evil the school was.

I don’t even think it lasted that long since I don’t remember a period of time where my brother was really gone. I felt so sorry for him I didn’t even snicker and say, “I told you so.”

He ended up homeschooling for most of high school.

I wanted to go to this one, but my dad refused to pay for it. I’m still pissed. (My dad also thought that girls didn’t need to go to college. Grr.)

15

Like Hedda, I was in a PA Quaker Boarding school - but in the early 80’s rather than later. It was a unique experience and many of my classmates went on to do lots of weird & good things with their lives (bike manufacturer, trapeeze artist, brain surgeon).

The odd thing is that I ended up back in my hometown of Philly and made friends with the geeks who I would have known had I stayed in the Philadelphia Public school system.

16

*If so, what was it like? Also, what country, what era (decade), what age(s) were you, and for how long did you attend? *

I’ve attended a tiny Quaker boarding school in the middle of nowhere, Iowa. (Graduating class of 12.), sophomore through senior years of high school, in the late 90s. The place was dual-gender, with separate dorms for girls and guys. We had a school farm, which was incredibly neat, but were also required to sign up for “crew”, or work duties on school grounds. (Basically, once a day, you had to go clean one of the building with a few other students, or fix/clean up for one of the communal meals, or a few other things.)

A good experience or not, and please elaborate some on whether it had a good effect on your life or a damaging one?
It was a wonderful experience, and sure beat sticking around at home. I think it did get me somewhat turned-off of the hard sciences (the school itself was a college prep with focus on liberal arts), but it was rather useful as far as getting a grounding in the fine arts. (Not every high school would have a painting class where you had to stretch your own canvas, or options for ceramics and blowing glass.)
The place also had an option for independent studies, and some of the ones 've written proposals for and subsequently took included knife throwing, a study in wild eatable plants of the region, and a collaborative comic book drawing thingie.
There was a lot of paper writing involved (junior/senior papers, 10 and 20 pages with proper research/citations), and I think that helped me out in the long term with college education, as well.

17

I taught at a private boarding school in Switzerland - TASIS.

The kids loved that school - it was/is quite pricey, but a truly magical location and has unbelievably high standards. Student who graduate from this prep school usually go on to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Oxford, etc. Those kids study hard to stay in that school - if they don’t keep up the grades, they are booted out (there is a waiting list to get in), but they also have small classes and instructors who will hover over you to make sure you are keeping up with the class work.

The school has students from all over the world, so it is a great mix of cultures and nationalities. They spend a lot of time traveling on study programs - they even close the school down for a week and take everyone skiing to St. Moritz in the winter.

So, although I never “attended” such a school, after having worked there, I certainly would have loved every minute of it. As far as being homesick - well, they do have breaks and those parents often have their own private jets, so the kids can get home for the holidays.

18

You didn’t happen to teach Kim Jong Un, did you? :cool:

19

Ha! I have to admit, when I first heard he went to Switzerland as a kid and studied there, I was curious where exactly - I found he went to a school in a different part of Switzerland.

There have been many prominent people go to school there, but I will refrain from name dropping as many might want to keep that private.

One student who went there was Matthew Shepard. The actor, Billy Zane, also went to school there. It is public knowledge and in their bios that they went to school there, so no big deal to mention them.

However, like most pricey boarding schools, there are also lots of kids from prominent business and political families who go there.

20

Not really the same thing but I used to go away to sleepaway summer camp to 8-9 weeks at a time. Starting when I was 7 and continued for the next 11 years (well when I was 17 & 18 I worked there).

I can’t ever remember missing my family nor can I ever remember a time when I actively wished to “hang out” with my parents or brother. If I could summarize my thoughts at the time: Family is who you spend time with when everyone you like better is busy. I mean, my brother’s favorite hobby at the time was locking me in the basement and shutting off the lights. I don’t think I spent 10 seconds of my summer missing him or wishing I could have more of those fun times. Maybe I was just self centered. It didn’t occur to me until years and years later that it might be upsetting to my mother, how little I needed her, or even wanted her, from a young age. It’s absolutely nothing against my mother, it’s really just my own personality.

I think I would have enjoyed boarding school, and I was once in a recruiting group for Andover (as a scholarship student, to be clear), but I never seriously considered it. I wanted to go to a highly selective public high school and was accepted. If I had been rejected maybe it would have been different.