<p>[YouTube</a> - Society and AP (Part 1 of 2)](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>And there’s another interesting video, but I can’t post it in this post. I’ll post it in the next one.</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling](<a href=“Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling - YouTube”>Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling - YouTube)</p>
<p>Here’s the video.</p>
<p>Grinzing, I’ve been thinking about your question and since I took this week off and have lots of time, here’s my ridiculously long answer. At least to me, a small school has the benefit of being more “nurturing” than a large one for some of the reasons below. </p>
<p>On what the word “nurturing” means to me. I don’t equate it to “individualized attention.” That has a therapeutic tone to my ears. IMO, a “nurturing” boarding school is especially well suited to (a) increasing the awareness of each student by the WHOLE community (faculty and other students), (b) a proactive atmosphere of inclusion in all areas - even if you’re a neophyte – sports, arts, clubs etc, (c) increased likelihood that each student has material success in new areas of interest (a function of fewer students). Basically, a nurturing boarding school has both “the will and the way” to expose each student to multiple opportunities AND the desire, the need even, to get each child involved and successful.</p>
<p>Here are some benefits that we felt could not be replicated at a larger institution. Thacher is a school of 240 in Ojai, California that my son attended all four years. </p>
<p>• Formal Dinner. Four times a week, students are in coat and tie (yes, even in SoCal) at oval tables of 10. Students are assigned to different tables on a weekly rotating basis. By the end of the year, every student has eaten with every faculty member at least once and with virtually every student in every class, freshman through seniors. The benefit: each child becomes known by the whole community and you would be shocked at how effective this simple device is to uncover the talents and interests of the students. Quieter kids, especially, make unexpected connections and are proactively drawn into the community.</p>
<p>• Camping trips. Twice a year, the entire school breaks into groups for camping trips. These are “week-long camping trips, called Extra-Day Trips or EDTs, that the entire community enjoys each fall and spring. In faculty-led groups of six to twelve, students head off to such varied destinations as the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Yosemite National Park, the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, the Los Padres National Forest, the Lost Coast, and Joshua Tree National Park to climb, backpack, horse camp, kayak and canoe.” These rigorous trips also mix different students and faculty together. The trips produce powerful learning and nurturing experiences for each student. Each kid is both supported and supports others in spectacular, often challenging environments. Whenever you see a student or a faculty member around campus that you’ve been camping with, you have shared a personal connection that is tough to beat.</p>
<p>• Sports. A school of 240 has only a handful of great athletes in every sport. The “nurturing” advantage is that someone who is not a star athlete or has never even played a particular sport before has a reasonable chance to make it to the varsity level. Students must do something physical every trimester (unless you apply for an independent project), whether it’s riding horses or playing a sport. Take a kid like mine, an average athlete at best, but someone who loved riding, baseball and football. At Thacher, he worked his butt off and played varsity in both sports. The athletic talents he did (does) have were brought to their highest possible level as a result and he had some of the most exceptional experiences of his life. He would not have played on the Varsity (or even the JV) squad at an Exeter.</p>
<p>• Specialization and generalization. For me, this is a profound difference between big school and small school. At an Exeter, for example, (large school standard bearer for this post!) there is massive specialization, typical of any large environment. There are not three superb instrumentalists at Exeter, there are three superb Oboe players! There are not five world-class mathematicians, there are five world class experts on Chebychev’s methods of numerical approximation. There are not six great football players, there are 25! The thrill for every Exeter student is the chance to be exposed to peers who are the very best in their field of interest. The thrill and benefit of the small school is that any student has a statistically significant opportunity to swim with the bigger fish instead of just watching from the outside. </p>
<p>In no way do I say one sized environment is superior to another. My son never had the chance to meet hundreds of peer-luminaries in every conceivable discipline as he would have at an Exeter – which is a loss for him since it would have been incredibly exciting. But on the plus side, he did have the chance to excel in many different activities, even those that were new to him or not in his wheelhouse. And as a result of the dinners, the camping and the sports, for example, he became known by the whole community, including expert horsemen who made him a great rider, advanced campers who taught him incredible wilderness skills, varsity athletes who pushed him to go well beyond what he thought he could do, writers and historians who discovered and encouraged his love for Latin American literature and political science, and the dozens and dozens of kids and faculty who became a second family. These sorts of outcomes are what I think of as small school, nurturing advantages.</p>
<p>@ThacherParent: Well stated. You should take more weeks off! :-)</p>
<p>Thank you Th-P. You are really lucky to have found such a good fit for your son. The intangibles you mention can really make a difference, and we hope to look closer with S #2. My take away is perhaps look for school that is more proactive and committed to a close knit atmosphere. S’s school has family nights 2x per week, for instance, but it is dreaded rather than embraced. Camping/offsites are voluntary, not integrated. Sports/Music/Other ECs emphasize excelling, and so kids who are not top, back out. And so, the opportunity exists for a nurturing environment at S’s BS, but only some kids really experience it and others, remain largely untouched (like my first S).</p>
<p>Although I don’t think what ThacherParent’s observations are exclusively for smaller schools (again, size is not the critical factor - on that note, btw, grinzing, aren’t your first son attending a small school currently?), I do think that when it comes to extracurricular activities (or academics for that matter), schools like Andover and Exeter can get competitive. They are bigger schools, and to make things “worse” they are arguably schools with the highest concentration of talented and movtivated students. Capable and driven to be outstanding, they either over-stretch themselves by involving in too much or drop out of activities where they think they are not “good at”. This can work against some kids, who may benefit from a smaller or less competitive school.</p>
<p>My S’s school is small-medium (500 altogether) but we haven’t found it to be nurturing. Very perfunctory, in fact, and kids are expected to jump in, show initiative, forge their own way. Culture is competitive and driven. In retrospect, we should have picked up on some of the clues that the school did not stress community and nurturing, but we couldn’t imagine any place would expect/leave so much to a 14 yr old. Look closely, parents.</p>
<p>Grinzing, any chance you could PM me your son’s school? This is exactly what we are trying to avoid, and I think ThacherParent’s comments (on fit/“nurture”) are valid for more than one school if you are aware as a parent that this is the kind of environment you’re looking to place your kid in. I learned the hard way at a HADES, don’t want the repeat for my child…</p>
<p>PrepintheSouth, I am VERY interested to know about your experience at the HADES you attended. We don’t usually have an alum with “negative” outlook on their prep school coming on this board. Please do share how your experience was like, and how you think that experience have affected your life both when you were there and out of it. I am sure we can gain some valuable insights from your reflection. Thanks.</p>
<p>A great thread; I’ve enjoyed reading the back & forth, wish I had jumped in earlier. I saw and enjoyed the movie. It made me notice symptoms of the race in many students today: 7th graders taking the SAT, 9th graders doing college visits, family never eats together, overbooked kids, grown up worries in a child’s heart and mind. This film will never convince everyone of its points, but it doesn’t attempt to - I think it’s a one-family-at-a-time thing. A good point of view to consider when planning priorities.</p>
<p>snarlatron is an amazing username. That is all.</p>