Miscellaneous Life Ramblings

Today was a gnarly photo of an infected bug bite and she asked if she should go to the health center. I said yes and she said she thinks she’ll put some neosporin on it and wait a few days. :roll_eyes:

This has not been our experience at Groton - kid emails teachers all the time on the weekends or late at night and they are happy to talk. I think there is a lot more equity in expectation and experience at Groton, partly by design and partly just because of the kind of kids they let in. Teachers seem happy and helpful (maybe the ones who are not are kept in the basement :joy::joy:).

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Thanks for your replies….here is my last “two cents” on the topic and then I will stick to golf topics:

As a parent, I am sensing that the COVID pandemic brought many issues to the surface. The future came at us faster. I believe that many members of the faculty/staff at our BS re-evaluated the cost-benefit of being there. There were risks to their families and themselves being in the quarantine “bubble”. They made many personal sacrifices. It will be interesting to see how the future of BS will change (or not). I am not sure if younger people want to have that lifestyle or fill the multiple roles required by most boarding schools. I believe the schools may have to move toward hiring more people to be dorm parents, coaches, Deanns, and not ask so much of their teachers.

At a recent thing our HoS, responding to this question, said that turnover was higher than usual but more or less in line with that experienced by peer institutions (or at least those sharing data). They didn’t specify how much higher than usual. They also said they were examining the motivations and reasons for the turnover to the extent possible, but it didn’t sound like we were going to get a follow up report or anything like that.

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:white_check_mark: Really agree with you. Actually, young people are often open to this before they get married or settle down, but they aren’t experienced teachers. It’s the experienced teachers who also have families that need a break from both coaching duties and Dorm supervision - so hard to do both of those, raise a family, and teach well, IMO.

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It’s certainly an “all in” lifestyle, especially for those who are coupled up, and still more so for those who also have kids of their own.

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They filmed an admissions video in my dorm today…except the double they used was specifically redecorated for just that day (nicer blankets, paintings on the walls)…and the students they filmed inside the room didn’t actually live in that double. (The guys who actually did got kicked out into the common room, sadly enough).

Just a reminder that everything you see about these schools online is incredibly carefully picked out and modified to cultivate a certain image, whether it’s real or fake.

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Wow, I had no idea that they’d go that far. It’s definitely not something I would do, other than picking a nice-looking room and tidying things up a little.

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I’m surprised they didn’t hire models.

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Interestingly, the school refers to them as “student actors”……

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Brutal.

That’s simply awful.

Surprised they didn’t also show a proctor-actor serving them s’mores and hot chocolate and a teacher-actor with their arm wrapped around their shoulders helping them with their homework.

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I believe that any action a school takes tells about their administration’s culture, character, and their priorities. I’m not sure if this is a standard marketing approach among the boarding schools, but it is simply horrible. They obviously don’t care or prioritize about the feelings of the students kicked out of their own room.

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Touché!

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I’m stunned anyone is surprised or offended by this. I doubt very much anyone was “kicked out” of their room. Instead, their room was selected for a temporary makeover while they were expected to be occupying a different space temporarily. An honor, really. :wink:

Would anyone really expect any school not to carefully craft what image it projects and what goes into its marketing materials? That’s just naive. I find nothing to see here.

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What school was this? No need to hire actors at Deerfield - gotta look good - they take care of that during the admissions process :star_struck:

:rofl:

Replacing the actual dorm residents with student “actors”?

Ugh.

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Calling all TV producers out there in CC Land -

I have a Netflix series idea: Real Students of HADES :wink:

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That was my thought, too - boarding school students are not just top students, they tend to be perfect human specimens, too!

I don’t think it is a big deal or surprising that they took a room for a couple of hours for marketing material. If they did it for tours, that would be different.

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