<p>In my view, Parents built an invisible stress environment for kids. Asia culture believed only good education and professional jobs (doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc ) lead to a good life. If a kid show a sign that he/she has talent in academy/music/sport. Asia parent is willing to sacrify anything else (vacation, job) to support them. Later on peer pressure add in this stress environment. too.</p>
<p>Ask yourself which parent you want to be for the story below.
A old chinese story about a mother moved three times for her kid because bad communities. She finally settled down a house nearby a school so her kid get affluence by hearing/seeing teacher,students reading and study.
Will you do that for your kids ?</p>
<p>I grew up from a country that military service is required after hs/college graduated. It really opened my world that is totally different from the environment my parent tried to put me in. Particularly I was a boot camp sergeant and special force sergeant. I see different kind of young teenages.
Will you expect your kids stay in special force to learn how to survive ?</p>
<p>To me, I admitted I built a stress env for my kids. but I believed I know what is the limit for my kids just like a sergeant know when to call stop pushing.</p>
<p>^^This is not an Asian thing. Look who is on the waitlists of the “prestigious” NYC kindergarten up to super competitive prep schools. Many Asians you know, who may be educated professionals, happen to be the ambitious and agressive type, but they are not the ones to “blame” for the super competitive game played by a small fraction of the population in this country (or do they have such power?)</p>
<p>DAndrew, I saw your question about “nurturing,” but I wasn’t certain how to respond. I think the word, “nurturing,” means different things to different people. I’d bet that every parent posting on this site looked for a nurturing kindergarten and elementary school. By middle school and high school, though, “nurturing” isn’t the adjective that leaps to mind.</p>
<p>Not looking for “nurturing” may be a fault. I love the Tony Jarvis quote I’ve heard. Forgive my paraphrasing, but it runs something like, “There’s only two things the school can promise your son. He will be known, and he will be loved.” The school in question was Roxbury Latin, which is known to be a superb school.</p>
<p>Well, I used that term because it has been used often in the discussions about “boarding schools and fit”. Somehow, it seems that an idea is in the development that the big name schools are “swim or sink”/not nurturing while there is another group of schools that are more “nurturing”. I started trying to find out how schools are different in that respect. Since I posted that question, I’ve got limited input, which only confirms that the majority of the “academics oriented” boarding schools (to distinguish from the “therapeutic schools” or schools significantly lack of acadmic rigor) take pretty much the same approach. That approach is that the school builds/provides multiple layers/channels/means of support systems but no holding hands, that students need to make their fair share of mistakes/trials & errors to figure out what they want to do, where their limits are, etc. and that if they want help they must ask for help (unless they fall into a certain warning zone). Did I miss anything?</p>
<p>@DA: Interesting to contrast the stress path vs. the nurturing path. Over the course of our search this year, we’ve definitely felt a better “fit” from the smaller schools. Perhaps because they feel like they might offer more of a nurturing environment due to size? Perhaps unsurprisingly, we’ve also favored schools where chapel is built into the schedule (sometimes twice a week!), not an optional thing.</p>
<p>My husband and I have this stress vs. nurture discussion all the time, mostly because he’s still hankering after Groton, which he says does the best job of “community building.” He loved the single grade dorms and that all seniors were made proctors (or whatever G. calls proctors) I (note: me, not my son) mourned the absence of mandatory chapel when he decided to matriculate at Exeter; every other school he applied to had it.</p>
<p>However, now that he’s there, I’ve been surprised by two things. First, I’m hard pressed to see the difference between mandatory chapel and equally mandatory assembly (haven’t been personally to either of them, mind you–just going by what’s been described to me and snippets of videos). I’ve been really impressed by the caliber of speakers at assembly, and the recurring theme of non sibi in action.</p>
<p>I’ve also come to appreciate the mixed level dorm system–where kids live in the same dorm for four years. I think it HAS to be more nurturing than putting all the freshman together. My kid asks those older guys for help a lot–and they always seem willing to help him–they’ve read essays, helped with math, given advice about sports and e.c.'s…
At Parent’s Week-End, watching the way they greeted my son and asked him about specific stuff going on in his day made me downright weepy. I’m glad that being a proctor is a privilege, not a duty…those guys take their job seriously.</p>
<p>Of course I only know one kid in one dorm…my point is that I’ve been surprised both by the sources of stress and the sources of nurture this year.</p>
<ol>
<li>Years ago I dumped - on short notice - a lucrative job paying six figures to pursue my passion in life. I had noticed that the Benz became just a temperamental car a week after I bought it, and the big house was just another “needy child” in terms of maintenance. I had the trappings but not a fulfilling life. It took a long time to reverse the idea that having an educational pedigree meant rising through the ranks of a top company. Interestingly enough, it was only after I dumped societal expectations and began doing what I loved that I got recognized with an award from my university. I’ve been teaching my daughters the idea that we are born with aptitudes and passions that should be nurtured. And if done properly we can create ways to sustain ourselves that equate to a previous poster’s formula for “good stress.” So I went from cursing every morning when I brushed my teeth and put on a suit, to loving my daily routine. I was in such a better mood that my daughters started asking their father when he was going to quit his job. (smile). Two years later, he dumped his employer, found his bliss and the quality of life got better on less income.</li>
</ol>
<p>So we tell our D’s that school is about education, not about job pursuit and dog eat dog politics. It’s about experimenting, and exploring and finding their niche.</p>
<ol>
<li>In many ancient societies children apprentice and learn a trade by working within the family. In the US, we don’t emphasize that as much. My plumber came by. He had recently disbanded his company as being too much stress. He loved being a plumber (and he’s really smart) but becoming a manager was like death by a thousand employee issues/complaints. His wife is homeschooling their son and he is teaching him the plumbing trade so his son can become licensed one day and have a way to support himself in or outside of college. They are both happier in the “space” they created. Their older children are equally smart and successful for having the same nurturing.</li>
</ol>
<p>So having watched how distressed the economy has become I realized that many students are banking on someone employing them rather than looking for innovative ways to employ themselves (and perhaps others.) That we set unrealistic expectations around test scores (not everyone can be top 1%) and definitions of success. We block the opportunities for the students to discover what their “spark” is. We don’t allow that to be nurtured so they can be self-sustaining productive citizens.</p>
<p>We insist you can’t be an engineer AND a poet AND a (fill in the blanks). We point square pegs to round holes and yell “conform.”</p>
<p>It isn’t always about financial wealth, but personal growth and success.</p>
<p>How does one find their bliss if the only measuring stick is the number on the top of a standardized exam? Maybe the yardstick we measure by is the wrong one and we are doomed to “get what we measure.”</p>
<p>Wow, I’m signing up for a plumbing course today and get on a time machine and travel back in time to become the member of an ancient society. That will be awesome cool to live among cavemen and women. Oh, Einstein where are you when we really need you. :D</p>
<ol>
<li>Inane and obnoxious comment by Pulsar</li>
<li>Followed by stupid green smile icon with big teeth</li>
<li>Desire to know Pulsar in person so that I could insert real teeth down real throat </li>
<li>Anger at myself for being juvenile</li>
</ol>
<p>It’s not about becoming a Luddite, it’s about refusing to get caught up in a system which will not ultimately result in greater well being.</p>
<p>Many years ago my husband was recruited by a company opening a new office in our city. DH was already making good money in the same field and the new job meant increased travel, but the company was offering a huge leap in salary (almost triple). We were invited to a dinner meant to close the deal at the house of the branch manager. The house was enormous and gorgeous-our dream home, and I found myself picturing it as mine. As we looked around at the bare walls and the boxes in the dining room we asked how long they’d been in the house. Close to a year. They’d been so busy with work they’d never properly unpacked. We were only the second guests they’d had in their home in a year. DH turned down the job.</p>
<p>While I understand you were being sarcastic, sarcasm usually comes from a point of view. As this is an open forum, my response was meant for other readers as well.</p>
<p>Encouraging to hear that even in the bigger schools, nurturing is woven into the fabric of the campus ways that might not be so obvious to the casual observer.</p>
<p>Seven, my d is at a school about 636 and I find it very much a tight community and extremely nurturing. But I believe that different situations are surely needed by different kids. </p>
<p>M d’s school is about 80-85% singles. Initially is was the only “downer” for me, but I asked why, the explanations made sense and I agreed. It wasnt until 3 weeks in that I realized that for my d it was the perfect set-up. She LOVES her privacy and values it, but the community requires the students to be involved with so many activities, house feeds, class feeds, house meeting, club meeting, etc. Seldom is my d alone but to sleep and study. </p>
<p>My d has found great solace with her proctors. I am amazed that my d says at times she will just go and lay on her proctors bed and read/study while her proctor works at her desk. They do no talking, just are in the same room (very typical in our household). They are together yet doing their own thing. I so thank that proctor. My d is learning from them, what early action is, what early decision is and what teacher to get for 3rd year history. They are truly the big sisters that she never had, yet so needed.</p>
<p>When my d just needs/wants to just talk, their are tons of people who offer and step up to the plate when needed. There are dorm parents and their spouses, the lady that cleans the uniforms and the guy who cleans the main building. My d says people care.</p>
<p>That was the nurturing that by d needed and she is getting it.</p>
<p>^Nicely put! However, I don’t think it has much to do with the size of the school. Honestly, I think that all the boarding schools including the infamously big Andover and Exeter, which are the size of small liberal arts colleges, are small communities. There is no significant difference in how these schools operate on the daily basis. Regardless what size the school is, dorms, classes, clubs, sports teams, orchastras… are more meaningful communities to the students. They make friends with and get help from peers as well as adults in these communties. On the other hand, they need to have a certain level of maturity and are bound to make mistakes along the way because these schools are not meant to be “nurturing” in a – traditional sense.</p>
<p>@DA: Remember that my observations are those of a prospective BS parent at this point, not an “insider”…</p>
<p>To take your question outside the realm of BS for a moment, given two public high schools, one with 1000 students and one with 250 which one might strike a third party observer as more likely to be nurturing, ceteris paribus? </p>
<p>I would vote for the smaller one. Smaller means more personal, more intimate, more charming. None of which are synonyms of “nurturing”, but factors that I think contribute to a nurturing environment. This is exactly the situation at two local public high schools in my area and the kids in my church youth group who attend the smaller one report that it’s more friendly *which I think is another factor in creating a nurturing environment. Note that I am not saying that large schools can’t be nurturing…I just feel that all other things being equal, a smaller school might be more nurturing.</p>
<p>Here’s the kicker though: After seeing your question, I asked my daughter the following on our drive home from errands today: “Given two different schools, a large one and a small one (I also explained the concept of ceteris paribus at this point), which do you think would offer a more nurturing environment?”</p>
<p>Her response went something like “Actually, I think the larger school might because you would have more people from whom to find a niche, a support group.” Shows how much I know…</p>
<p>We’ve got our last visit/interview this week. School size under 400.</p>
<p>@pulsar: Well that’s one way to put it maybe. But here’s an essay prompt for you: If you were running a boarding school, how would you keep all swim and none sink? (how do you get that smily face with big teeth again?)</p>
<p>@7D: I dont’ know how public schools of different sizes compare, but remember the bigger boarding schools are no different from smaller ones in class sizes, student faculty ratio etc. and have more course and extracurricular offerings. In other words, just because a school is bigger, doesn’t mean the students have to have less individual atttention or fewer opportunities. And “friendly” is a cultural thing rather than a size thing, at communities of this size level (300 - 1000) anyway. That said, you certainly CAN prefer smaller schools. Many people do. It’s a legitimate choice. (p.s. your daughter is incredible.)</p>
(how do you get that smily face with big teeth again?)</p>