The girls I knew in the Catholic co-ed school I went to in 9th and 10th grade were far from sheltered. The boys I knew in the all-boys Jesuit high school I attended for 11th and 12th grade, some where sheltered and some weren’t.
When I was in parochial school (K-8 years), this was less common than in the college prep school I attended in high school. There was a smaller social group and the school culture didn’t really make drug use and heavy drinking a very popular activity in middle school. However, I did end up encountering a lot of stuff I didn’t see before due to being exposed to a different social set: when I was in parochial school, I wasn’t part of the “cool” kids who were more experienced and more interested in drug use. When I went to college prep school, I had almost immediate exposure to kids who either used to or continued to use drugs and have these “epic parties” you speak of. I remember attending a birthday party for a 15 year old and not only being surprised at no chaperones present, but the sheer amount of drug use I encountered at the party; it was my first time seeing cocaine, and I ran into a few people I knew from my middle school years who assumed more about my experience than was true based on my presence at the party.
I received no sex education whatsoever while in private school. In the first school, I doubt they covered it, but if they did, it was in high school. In the school I attended for high school, sex ed was covered in 8th grade-- I essentially missed school-based sex education due to conflicting ideas about where in the curriculum to place that type of information. I was aware of the biology, mechanics and issues within sex ed well before I was in high school, mostly due to my own curiosity, so it wasn’t much of an issue. I started out behind a lot of the kids I went to high school with on the “sexual experience” track, but caught up for the most part by the end of high school.
There’s a lot of variation within different school systems and cultures, and some schools are known for being party-oriented among the students, while others are much stricter when it comes to behavioral control. I remember one parochial school in the area when I was a student that had some bizarre rules, including a signed behavioral contract that included restrictions on the music students were allowed to listen to and the concerts/activities they were allowed to attend. It was an insane environment based on religious fervor, paranoia/fear of outsiders, and strict control over students.
I’m sheltered, yes. And the more I hear about life in the “real world”, the more thankful I am for it.
I went to public school, and I’m just as shocked and reeling at nashiitashii’s story as I assume you are. That’s crazy talk!
I attended Reformed Christian private school my whole school career. My husband attended until high school when he switched to the local public school, which is considered quite a good school.
The main difference I see in our area is not so much that kids act differently - kids go through the same struggles pretty much anywhere, but the way the schools react is different. My private school was much more strict about fighting, drugs, and attendance and had a much more difficult grading scale/ class requirements. I still saw fighting, went to parties where there was drinking, drugs, etc., girls in my class still got pregnant. But my school was more strict about expectations and these were seen as aberrations rather than the expected norm. I got factual sex ed starting in 5th grade and was taught evolution and standard science and all that, and also taking a world religions course was required.
My husband’s high school was very lax about attendance and when we compared homework it was pretty laughable how easy his was compared to mine. If I was shocked about anything when I hung out with his friends it was just how much they were able to get away with at their school.
We will be sending our kids to private school. Our oldest is just finishing kindergarten and he has already been kissed by a girl 
His teacher, the girl’s parents and I are all aware of their special friendship and we think it is sweet. They have strict policies on things like bullying but they are not ‘zero tolerance’ - there is room for interpretation. The school he attends teaches discernment and allows kids to question their faith and all that. I am sure there are other religious based schools where things are very different. I don’t think you can lump private schools together any more than public schools or charter schools or homeschooling.
I attended Catholic school for 12 years and somehow was neither the kinky slutfest whorey type or the Holier than thou type either. Those were the two big groups, with a dash of GEE WHIZ cheerleader types, who annoyed me more than the sluts and Future Nuns. There were the stoners, jocks, sportos, motorheads and all the other groups that were mentioned in Ferris Bueller that made it an interesting mix, and we even hada few jews and a few chaldeans ( catholic arabs, they own all the party stores in Michigan.) but the big three were sluts, UberVirgins and Cheerleaders. I floated between all the groups because frankly most teenage girls mystified me then and I had huge self esteem issues and depression ( lots of death issues in my family.) and all I was told to do was “go to church and pray.” Well, fuck, that helps.THANKS!"
It was like living in a bubble.
Sex Education was a joke. The Anti Abortion flicks (very bad quality) scarred me for years. Is it any wonder that I became ProChoice and an Athiest from all that spoonfed brainwashing?
The extra hour we spent on Fridays having church in the gym would have been better spent in debate or science or chemistry or algebra or something that actually pertains to the real world. Going to church twice a week for twelve years grows thin. None of the kids, except the holy roller types, enjoyed it.
I hated it and it did not prepare me at all for THE REAL WORLD in how to deal with the herd. ( Academically, it was and is an excellent edumacation. Even in science
( exept the sex part) But the religion classes I barely passed every semester. I just.didn’t.care.)
When I graduated and entered the Real World, I must have acted like some Asberger kid at a rock concert. I didn’t understand why people were such* fucking assholes* and not following the rules and taking care of their own mess.ok, I’m still this way and I married into it as well and my kids are carrying this anal retentive torch as well. Parties scared the crap out of me. I wasn’t prepared for meeting OTHER PEOPLE other than the ASSHOLES in my own school that I had gone to school with for 12-13 years. I needed a drip of Prozac for the sudden OMFG! social anxiety issues that hit me like a cement truck and it took years to overcome that. Wooooooo. Talk about Fucked up.
Now, with my own version of Cognitive Behavior Therapy I am like a wingless chicken, I am virtually unflappable.
I went to a Lutheran elementary school from preschool to the end of 6th grade. The only girl besides me who was in my grade level for most of that period (kindergarten through sixth grade) and I both had plenty of exposure to real life through our parents, but the girls a year younger than us seemed really sheltered- totally grossed out during the “you will get your period” video (which we weren’t shown as a combined 5th/6th grade class until after my 6th-grade classmate and I were regularly getting our periods) and much less inclined to read books that were well above their grade level not in terms of sentence difficulty but subject matter.
On a more positive side, we never had a problem with bullies. I got lucky and never encountered real bullies in public middle school or high school, either (one boy was sort of a jerk, but he died from complications of paint-balling accident on the last day of freshmen year) but other friends who were in public school did get bullied. I’m way glad to miss it.
The weirdest thing to compare: The day the Kosovo war (at least that’s what I think it was; my memory is a bit unclear but the date line up) began versus 9/11. When the bombing or whatever it was started in Kosovo in 1990, the principal stopped our class and brought in a television for us to watch the news coverage and talk about it- this was in a room of 10 to 12 year olds. By 9/11/2001, I was at public middle school. This was on the west coast, so all of the planes had been crashed before our school day started. None of the teachers set up televisions for the continuing coverage, and they discouraged us from talking about it and tried to get through classes normally.
Well, yeah, of course - I’m surprised there’s a question here, because that’s part of the point of sending your kid(s) to a private, especially religious, school. Yes, the education is supposed to be better, but part of what you’re paying for with that $300-2,000+/month in tuition+related expenses is to send your kids to school with a better class of kids.
HAH! That’s a good line; I might have to steal it sometime. Glad to hear you are doing well.
A friend of mine went to a catholic college and said the amount of guys experiementing with guys was amazingly mindblowing. The girls, not so much. Before graduation, everyone went back to their assigned gender roles except one guy.
Just a thought.
( I don’t know where she went to for school and she is still very sheltered in many ways.)
Oh GUGs…gay until graduation…That’s amazing. You always hear about chicks at all women’s colleges being like that, but I never realized there was a simlair gay until gradutation thing.
A private school can be more sheltered in the sense of “you’re less likely to see fistfights, ‘idjit’ is considered serious namecalling…” but no, it didn’t prevent one of my youngest brother’s classmates from declaring that she was going to marry him, he was going to make a lot of money, she would spend it all, and now she was going to kiss him to proclaim their engagement. They were in the 3-4yo class and so long as nobody got kissed against his will (bro defended the virginity of his face very succesfully, and more than once), nobody had a problem with it. The declarations of undying intent to marry lasted until they were in 5th grade.
The parents in the OP sound like they don’t want their kids to watch the National Geographic channel (because, you know, they might see some savage’s tits or bum), Discovery (…nothin’ but mammals, let’s do it like they do…) or see a dog sniffing another one’s butt. That ain’t sheltered, that’s bunkered.
After all the revelations worldwide and over a great length of time I’d hardly expect kids going to a school where there are Catholic priests to be very “sheltered”.
From some things yes, from other things no.
I went to a couple of the top public (ie., private) schools in England, which are all sectarian, though not really; transitioning to state schools in Florida was a huge culture shock.
It’s not like I didn’t know what sex was- I just didn’t know any girls who wanted to have it (until I got to Florida, where all of them seemed to).
Honestly, though, I took far more drugs in England than anyone at my large urban high school in Florida did, and I was one of the goody-goody kids (top academic stream, Oxbridge track, etc.)
You have an English accent? Um, hell yeah.
I strongly doubt that had anything to do with the religious vs. public nature of the schools.
Was that because it was a religious school or because it was part and parcel of a community that was pretty insular anyway?
I did then, and yes, that was part of it. 
Green Bean:
Because it was a school (and, of course, household, which sent me to that type of school) that taught the tenets of a religion that dictates that single men and women should not socialize with one another at all (except for dating with marriage as the ultimate goal). Boys and girls go to separate-sex schools, dress modestly when in public, and don’t so much as touch one another until married (and that INCLUDES when in the above-mentioned dating phase).
The community I grew up in is in a bustling, multi-ethnic neighborhood, not like, say, Kiryas Joel or New Square (those are Hasidic communities in Rockland and Orange County, New York, for those of you not familiar with my local geography), but as children we certainly didn’t socialize with the non-Jews (of either sex). By the time we were college-age or employment-age and genuinely in a mixed environment with non-Yeshiva people, the “no socializing with the opposite sex” was pretty well ingrained in our mindset.
A modern parochial is unlikely to have clerics (or even nuns) of any kind hanging around. Teaching & administration are almost completely in the hands of the laity and most students won’t interact with a priest unless he’s visiting the school to conduct a mass or they take a field trip to a local church.
I went to a religious college my first couple of years and a regional state school to finish my degree. Vastly different mindsets, experiences, expectations.
I’d gone to a tiny high school and knew I wasn’t ready for the full-on college experience. I went in part to be sheltered. The scary kids were the ones who thought Biblical U **was **the real world.
For example: A lot of kids had been homeschooled or to private Christian schools their entire lives. (We had to take one girl shopping for her first pair of shorts --ever-- for phys ed). For the first time, these kids could decide on their own whether to go to church on Sunday or sleep in. Many chose to sleep in.
The catch was that students were not permitted to live off campus, and cooking was not allowed in the dorms. So some of the kids would roll out of bed around noon, get dressed up as though they had been to services, and go eat lunch in the cafeteria.
Some of the more uptight kids thought this was horrible. This was the height of hypocrisy. This was as bad as you could get – to dress up so people would not know that you had skipped church. Mostly I kept my mouth shut, but a few times these idiots would go on and on about it to me. I would come up with the most pitying look I could and say, “Oh, honey, it gets so much worse that this,” and walk off, shaking my head a little sadly.
Another weird way the two schools differed was the approach to alcohol. Most parties at Biblical U were dry, but I went to a few with alcohol. If you did not have a drink in your hand, the others felt that you were judging them by not drinking. I learned quickly to get a plastic cup and fill it with Sprite. At State School, the entire attitude was, “You’re not drinking? More for us!!” Never could get my parents to understand there was more pressure to drink at the Christian school. Go figure…