I’m thinking of writing an article about what life is really like in exclusive boarding schools (think: The Facts of Life or Dead Poets Society) vs. how it’s portrayed in the media.
If you met someone who went to an exclusive boarding school, what would you ask them? So far, I’ve got:
[ul]
[li]Is/was bullying (by peers, by teachers) a problem, or does the media play it up for drama?[/li][li]How was the food?[/li][li]Overall, was it a positive experience or a negative one?[/li][/ul]
If you have any other suggestions for questions, I’d love to hear them!
And, if you actually boarded at (or attended as a day student) an exclusive, Old Money boarding school, and are willing to talk about your experiences, please let me know so we can exchange contact info! You can be anonymous, of course.
Sex is a big issue that has come up in the media. To what extent did sexual coercion between students and other students and faculty/staff members and students occur?
A friend from college previously attended Choate Rosemary Hall. And he was rather… normal in that he wasn’t snobbish about being from a well off family. He was a engineer geek. Perhaps that was unusual for someone who had attended such a school.
I asked him the same sorts of questions that I asked of anyone. Pepperoni or sausage with mushrooms?, if going in together to buy a pizza for dinner. Type of music listened to? Planned major? Whether he was going back home for the long Thanksgiving break? Just routine normal stuff.
OK… made me Google him. Seems he took a turn in his course of study and became a dentist. Go figure.
a) You get to help a freelance writer build up his portfolio.
b) You get to help this kid who grew up poorish in the Midwest understand a little more about a part of life that very few Americans are ever exposed to, apart from in the media (which undoubtedly fictionalizes things).
c) You get to be featured in a listicle in either Cracked or Buzzfeed.
d) You get to tell your story.
e) You get to pimp your school (if that’s important to you).
f) You get to point out the things your school could have done better (if that’s important to you).
g) You can be as vague and anonymous (“SD” went to an unnamed Old-Money Boarding School on the East Coast) or as specific (Dr. Sunny Daze, DDS, went to Saint Albans Academy In Poughkeepsie) as you’d like.
Is there a difference between and Exclusive Boarding School and any other kind of boarding school? I’m not being snarky - just curious.
My niece went to a girls’ boarding school for high school. I don’t know why my sister felt like she needed to send her daughter there, but not my kid, not my business. The weird thing is, the school was maybe 20 miles from her home, so homesickness was never an issue. I’ve never talked to her about her experiences there - it just didn’t occur to me. Plus my mother kept me overly informed of her goings-on.
I know class sizes were very small - her graduating class was about 20. Two of the students were daughters of a celebrity. There were also several foreign students; I suspect because of the proximity of Baltimore to DC, they were diplomats’ kids. As far as I know, there was no hanky-panky between students and teachers.
Interestingly enough, at least to me, my niece now teaches there. It’s almost as if she was afraid to leave the cocoon after attending a small, private college. On the other hand, it’s a good deal. The pay isn’t that great, but she and her husband have a house on campus and all she has to pay for is internet access.
I know people who’ve been to UK boarding schools - pupils, parents of pupils, and teachers - and can answer all three of the questions in your OP. Different schools treated bullying differently. Most schools had decent food. And some people liked and valued their time at school and others did not.
I appreciate that that’s not very helpful, but there is no one monolithic experience.
Do you think it was good or bad to leave home before college? Were you close to your parents when you were little? Was it a wrench to leave them, or just sort of fine?
Did you feel loved despite being away from your parents?
Did going off to college feel like a rite of passage,or was going off to a different school just sort of “meh” having already done it for years? If not, what would you say became your equivalent moment of independence?
Been there, done that. We hired a summer intern, 17-yo guy whose dad owned things like airlines. I asked him what it’s like to be a fabulously wealthy teenager. He said “Most of the kids I go to school with are from richer families than mine.” He was a nice kid, I enjoyed working with him.
I also worked with another guy whose dad owned an NFL team and some cable channels, and wanted the boy to learn the business from the bottom up. Also a very cool, down-to-earth guy, who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty on the job and did his share of the heavy lifting… I think I asked him “Which do you like better, your Jag or your Porsche?”
I came in here to suggest asking something about that book (A Separate Peace, for those who remarkably made it through all of high school without having to read it). Is it part of the assigned reading anymore, or has it fallen by the wayside? If the interviewees have read it, did it resonate at all?
Another possible question - do students agree on an inter-school pecking order of any sort? I went to a private day school and our school peer group, for such things as choral meets and debate tournaments, were boarding schools like Choate, Phillips-Andover, Exeter, etc. I will never forget being lined up in the alto section of the all-school choral performance listening to the Choate Rosemary girls behind me sniping about how day schools were inferior (this would have been in 1975, so quite possibly wholly unlike the current situation).
This is my thought too. My observation and personal experience is that there is little difference. When children are placed together in an institution it is less like a family and more like the army.
This was a boys school. In my 5th form year (grade 11?) we lived in barrack dormitories with canvas shutters. No heating and a bit crisp in winter but snow was rare and it was a lot of fun. This was in the early 1970s.
The boarding hostel was straight out of the British system for the Colonies. Australia, New Zealand etc. Seniority, prefects, punishment, bullying, detentions, really just like the army. The Masters (teachers living there) knew very little of what actually went on. The girls school, just down the road, was similar but kinder.
Some boys absolutely thrived - sport was everything. Most got along. And there were those who were utterly miserable, possibly changed for life.
Read Tom Browns Schooldays and The Loom Of Youth. A Separate Peace appears to be unknown outside the US and gets excellent reviews.
And for a smile, look around for Michael Palin’s parody “Tomkinson’s Schooldays”.
I think that a lot of people assume that a kid at a boarding school might come from a pretty dysfunctional background; after all, most parents don’t send they’re children away. Do you think that’s true of a lot of the students?