<p>Following a now deleted link to the Phillipian website a few days ago, I came across what I as a parent would consider an equally troubling incident.</p>
<p>For a school that we've heard admits "nice kids", the behavior alleged in this op-ed seems to point otherwise.</p>
<p>Hopefully I've earned enough cred on these boards to avoid this thread getting pulled. I'm posting in the hopes of starting a thoughtful discussion would love to hear from current Andover parents and students.</p>
<p>Maybe it was just the student body trying to give the new head of school a few grey hairs. For students and parents considering the school, I certainly think a review of the current roster of Phillipian articles is warranted.</p>
<p>No, I doubt that the students who posted the lists gave any thought to the administration at all. The “lists,” for those of you who haven’t read the article, “evaluated people based on their physical appearances, rated personal relationships between students and made predictions about the sexual orientation of community members.” No, this had nothing to do with the adults in the community - this was about teenagers bullying and attempting to assert their dominance over other teenagers, with deliberation and cruelty.</p>
<p>It’s disappointing, but not surprising. Given the difficulty of gaining admission to Andover, I have little doubt that many of these students believe they are the “best of the best,” a view which, in many cases, has likely been enforced by family and friends. Unfortunately, that kind of arrogance rarely has a good outcome.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that this represents the majority of Andover students, but there are doubtless some members of the community who feel this way . . . and one or more of those felt a need to prove his/her/their superiority by posting the “lists.”</p>
<p>Haven’t boarding schools historically been known for bullying? </p>
<p>What action(s) did the institution take on this particular matter?</p>
<p>Such an infraction should not be tolerated and hopefully the incident was investigated and the offenders were punished; otherwise, the kids know they can get away with such aggressive displays of dominance and it will continue. Yes, mean kids will be mean kids and being away from a family structure might well exasperate the worst tendencies in many adolescents to harass certain segments of society but one would have hoped that the best of the best nice kids would have been above such hideous behavior. So, I guess this is not so surprising to me.</p>
<p>This happened at my school last year, which is an elite independent school in Washington. To give you perspective, the Microsoft CEO’s kids go here and the tuition is outrageous.
There were list with “couple ratings” and “honest truths” posted in the cafeteria made by students on a particular bus. The school knew what was happening, but didn’t take any action. Why? There was no “evidence.” (One particularly strange student ate the lists.) But a bigger reason is that these schools don’t want you to know about the bad stuff that happens in the school just as much as the offending students don’t. For some prestigious schools, all that matters is reputation.
That said, as a student I knew it was just someone trying for power. And I would hope Andover students had the common sense to shake it off. There are bullies. It is a fact of life. But you cannot let the best of you. Its a life experience.</p>
<p>I despise this sort of Lord of the Flies behavior. I know that Andover and Exeter have mostly wonderful, kind students. But these schools particularly, where so much is made of their greatness (rightly or wrongly), are greenhouses for entitled, self-important kids. Personally, I think it partially relates to the values of the schools, values which seem less about turning out good human beings and more about producing high scoring, high achieving kids with sharp elbows.</p>
<p>Since this episode happened last year, I think it can safely be said that it was not intended to give the new headmaster gray hairs as Barbara Chase was still head-of-school. </p>
<p>I think it is a fact that people (not just teens) are capable of poor judgement and error so something like this could happen anywhere. The real question (as someone said earlier) is how was it handled?</p>
<p>In the case of Andover, the school handled it swiftly. Meetings were held immediately with students to discuss community values and condemn these hurtful actions. A note was sent home to parents presumably to inform them but I suspect also to precipitate a conversation about it between each student and their parents. And, as you can see from the article in the Phillipian, the students themselves were quick to condemn the actions of a few. The lists were allegedly posted by 1st year students so they were the youngest and newest members of the Andover community. I am guessing that given the way it was handled by the school, the perpetrators learned a quick lesson in tolerance and hopefully will not demonstrate such poor judgement in the future. </p>
<p>FWIW, things way worse happened at boarding schools in my day and the schools’ responses were usually non-existent to tepid. However, as observed with similar incidents at other boarding schools in the past few years the responses have been swift and strong (for example: the handling by Choate of the Facebook incident). So my answer is yes, kids will be kids. But my question is: will a school handle it well?</p>
<p>Sonoratoo: Thanks for the clarification that this was an incident that happened last year. I misread (or simply missed that) that point and assumed that it was this fall.</p>
<p>While I agree that how a school handles things like this is important, what I think is equally important is the culture that a school fosters…the fact that even a small number of student would think this was an acceptable and perhaps even amusing exercise says something. At least to me.</p>
<hr>
<p>I think I thought this was a Fall 2012 issue because of the opening sentence: For many of us, the last week has felt like something out of “Mean Girls.” I failed to check the date of the article, which was last April. Again, my oversight.</p>
<p>having recently dropped my son off for his prep year at Exeter i certainly never felt that there was an emphasis on achievement vs being a good human being. </p>
<p>The founding words of the school say </p>
<p>“Above all, it is expected that the attention of instructors to the disposition of the minds and morals of the youth under their charge will exceed every other care; well considering that though goodness without knowledge is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous, and that both united form the noblest character, and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind.”</p>
<p>I certainly found that all the conversations i had with faculty and administrators at Exeter, and all their non verbal communication indicated a genuine concern with balancing these two needs. </p>
<p>While i certainly can not claim extensive actual (or parental) experience, i find no basis to support or agree with your fairly blanket assertion, which i take a a bit of a condemnation.</p>
<p>Can you give us more substance to support your comment.</p>
<p>I certainly agree that there is or are examples of kids (and adults) not living up to the institution’s expectations, i would not think that this is unique to this situation, and that we need to look at the larger perspective.</p>
<p>Sevendad- unfortunately, this kind of mean behavior among teenagers happens everywhere these days, including your local public school, and probably even your St. Andrews. As Sonoratoo pointed out, what is important is how the school handles it and uses the incident as a teachable moment. As a side note, I was very impressed by the quality of the Andover students’ writing, and also by how much freedom they are given in the content of the newspaper!</p>
<p>I agree with the previous two posters. This kind of behavior can be found anywhere there are young people. I am a teacher myself and I live near a huge city with hundreds of middle and high schools. This kind of thing happens in our local private day schools and the wealthy public districts. However, the less-wealthy local districts have similar, if not worse, problems with bullying…it just manifests differently. </p>
<p>How a school handles the situation should be the point of discussion.</p>
<p>I also just dropped a daughter at Exeter and I was quite confident that the school will NOT tolerate bullying of any kind. As far as academic achievement vs. human values…I feel that Exeter is doing an commendable job to foster and balance both. Much more so than our local schools are able to. However, it is my job as a parent to reinforce the values that we have been teaching our daughter since birth. </p>
<p>If kids behave in an entitled, arrogant, and cruel manner then we should not look to blame any one school…rather, there are some parents at fault somewhere (or the kid is a sociopath). And they probably wont last long at any respectable private school. </p>
<p>I worry much more for the kids in public schools who are either bullies themselves or are the victims of bullying because public schools have limited power to truly punish the offenders, or to protect the victims.</p>
<p>@baystateresident: I too was struck by the freedom of expression/coverage granted to the students in the Phillipian, as well as the quality of the writing. And yes, of course, I do know that no school is immune to this sort of thing…even our beloved SAS. I hope that noone is interpreting my starting of this thread as some sort of indictment of Andover to the exclusion of any other BS.</p>
<p>I guess one thing that prompted me to start this thread (as I noted to another parent via PM) is that Andover is one of the most sought after admissions on this forum (if you can judge by the number of students who requested to be “chanced”). I was trying to point out to the many prospective students and their parents that even at these “dream” schools, things are not all unicorns and rainbows.</p>
<p>Additionally, Andover, by all reports (as well as its own press), prides itself on building a community of “nice” kids…so the irony of this op-ed (which again, I misinterpreted as being a Fall 2012 piece) struck me.</p>
<p>I think that a lot is being made of how the school (which could be any, across the spectrum) “reacts” or “responds” to the crisis that has already happened. Of course, that does count for something, and interested current parents or prospective parents and students would do well to take note of what was done afterward, primarily by locating sources like the one in the op.</p>
<p>But can schools build a culture and engineer an environment to minimize this sort of activity from happening in the first place? I think that they ought to try, as one of their primary goals. Such effort would then be manifestly evident to the interested outsider. You would first see it “at the top”, in how the leadership speaks or writes, and charges the rest of the administration of the school. And the students who are there should be able to confirm, in one way or another, that they are living with the results of such an institutional emphasis. Learning to live well with one another is explicitly the object of Pre-K and elementary schooling, and it should be so in high school as well.</p>
<p>Yes, Charger, agree. So many schools, especially many of the oldest and most prestigious, fail to “live” their mission statements. However poetic and noble the school’s original framing, without a constant and determined effort by its present leaders to celebrate and inculcate the founders’ principles, it’s all too easy for less noble behaviors take root.</p>
<p>I think I remember hearing stories of such stupid lists back in the Dark Ages when I entered college. It’s probably been happening since the birth of writing. On some archaeological site one will probably find ancient lists composed by teenagers. We don’t have perfect humans yet, and we never will.</p>
<p>I would worry about the welfare of the student or students who wrote the list. If a student’s fully engaged in a BS, he or she doesn’t have time to make up nasty lists. Posting such lists is close to begging to be kicked out. While the behavior is abhorrent, it’s also a call for help.</p>
<p>Yes, pity those pugnacious little punks ruining the lives of the meek, weak, and those who should have been fagging to their every whim in another time and place.</p>
<p>One more post for this . . . I can see that my last was really amplifying on 7Dad’s at #8, regarding “culture” as opposed to response, so credit due. </p>
<p>“Meanness” has degrees and kinds – and it is (sometimes far) more prevalent in both degree and kind at some schools rather than others because 1. kids are not going to try, and will revert to the “average” of meanness, unless 2. the school makes a concerted effort to raise expectations. Especially, look at the frequency and content of all-school assemblies and meetings, or chapels; look at small-group encounters or classes that are planned and sometimes described in curriculum guides. (Am sure that posters on walls extolling virtues are insufficient in high school, even if more effective in middle.) Kids respond to expectations and embrace the “culture” that they walk into. They respond to accountability for their actions. Larger schools (certainly more than 600 or so) need to work at it even more than smaller ones because their sheer size presents more likelihood and opportunity, imho.</p>
<p>Hmmm. Lets not forget those who build empires on mean listsExeter/Harvard grad Mark Zuckerberg got his start by creating a Hot or Not type site called FaceMash where he posted photos from Harvard’s female population for the universitys male community to rate. Granted, thats not the point of FaceBook, but I believe FaceMash was a form of cyber bullying and speaks to the character of its founder. I wonder if either Exeter or Harvard has second thoughts about this alum? Perhaps they should have kept him busier. ;)</p>
<p>And, of course, as others have mentioned, bad behavior is not limited to kids. This was in the news yesterday, although Andover dismissed the doctor last year: </p>
<p>It seems Andover was beset by more than one teachable moment last year but, in both cases, the school took swift and appropriate action. I dont see, practically, what the school could have done to prevent either incident. Unfortunately, such things are happening everywhere. You only hope that your school is living by the principles posted above the gates and being guided by those principles when faced with unexpected and unpredictable events.</p>
<p>Just to follow up on that, did the school have any awareness of what was happening? Do they do maintenance on all computers to make sure this doesn’t happen?</p>
<p>I think that was everyone needs to remember is that these students are only human. Like mentioned before, this happens everywhere in schools today. Personally, I’ve seen quite a few of these lists at my current school. I believe that the student(s) who made the list was being rash. </p>
<p>Keep in mind, Mark Zuckerberg created FaceMash while he was drunk.</p>
<p>People in NJ/greater NYC area might remember the Millburn HS “slut list” scandal of a few years ago. There was actually a tradition of senior girls writing this list (similar sounding to the Andover list) about a select group of freshman girls. It made local and national news. Millburn is one of the top public high schools in the state and the fact of the matter was that the administration had been aware of this list for years and not done much, beyond wrist slaps, about it until a few freshmen parents went public. The senior girls were athletes, popular and, I’m quite sure, considered nice girls by all the adults that knew them.</p>
<p>I think culture definitely plays a part. No one in the area was surprised about what happened at Millburn HS, it reflected a certain subset of the population. Andover seems to have handled the situation swiftly.</p>
<p>I can only imagine the distress of those kids who saw the list and their own names. As a parent, I doubt any reaction would be sufficient.</p>