School Life

By Shari Bunks Geller, parent of Blair Academy alumni

I survey my son's room. High school graduation is just two weeks away. College is no longer on the horizon but our next step forward. I am looking to see what he will need to take with him and what he will leave behind. Looking around his room, I am keenly aware of how our world has expanded more than we could have imagined just four years ago when we applied Michael to high school. Boarding school was consciously not on our radar when we began our high school search.

At the start of his eighth-grade year, our son said he would like to apply to boarding school. My husband and I seriously discussed boarding school as an option. We both attended good public schools growing up. We had decided against our public high school as an option for our four children and were committed to sending them to an independent day school. While neither my husband nor I came from families with a boarding school culture, we had many friends whose children attended boarding schools across the country. We have frequently cautioned that once a child visits a boarding school, all-day schools will pale in comparison. The facilities, the campus, and the notion of a different level of independence are alluring to a fourteen-year-old. Although our conversation was serious, we quickly agreed that we would not consider boarding school.

We investigated our local day schools. We toured,

Chances are that if you went off to boarding school for three or four years, May is a very special month. AP exams are over. IB work is complete. You probably have your college acceptances in hand. Finally, you can focus on graduation and leaving the school which has been your home away from home for these past several years.

You will most certainly receive graduation gifts to mark this very special occasion. With that in mind here are some suggestions which you might want to email to that favorite aunt or uncle. You know that mother and father will give you something special to commemorate your achievements. So I will leave the pens, watches, and pendants off this list. To make things even easier, copy and paste the suggestions below in an email to your favorite relatives and family friends.

A Tablet

There's a tablet for every budget. These lightweight, portable devices allow you to do just about anything your graduate needs to do. Watch movies? Listen to videos? Play a game? Shop? She can do all that and so much more. Best of all, she can store all of her sensitive files such as term papers, applications, etc., in the cloud. Tip: read the reviews of the models you are considering, unless, of course, your graduate has specified a particular brand and/or model.

This video offers a review of a poplar tablet.

A

One of the most important considerations in choosing a boarding school for your son or daughter is what goes on in the classroom and in the larger school community. In other words, what are they teaching, and how are they teaching it?

You must never assume that, just because a school enjoys a solid reputation, has been there forever, and looks wonderful on the surface, it will provide the kind of teaching you want and expect for your child. Doing your due diligence with respect to the curriculum and how it is taught has to be one of the most important parts of your school evaluation process.

This video compares what is taught in private schools with what is taught in public schools.

Here's how to proceed.

• Observe
• Question
• Research

Observe

When you visit the school for your admissions interview, try to do so while the school is in session. Summer visits are often more convenient for all of us, but you won't be able to observe any classes. Summer sessions do not usually offer a typical classroom experience. So you cannot judge the teaching or what is being taught by what you see during the summer. The teaching staff is frequently not the same as the faculty who teach during the year. Because it is summer, the whole atmosphere is much more relaxed.

When you visit the school and observe a class, is the class size small?

What If Things Go Wrong?

You are thinking about boarding school. But you've heard that the work is tough. Furthermore, they will expel you in a heartbeat if you are caught doing anything seriously wrong. Is this true? Is that the way boarding schools work? Let's look at the facts.

1. The academic work is difficult.

There's no escaping the truth about academics in private schools. Academics are the reason a private school exists in the first place. The academic standards are high. There is a lot of homework. There are a lot of subjects and a lot of ground to cover in every class. Sometimes, the lessons are hard to understand. Just remember, whenever you feel discouraged that you were admitted to the school because you thought you could do the academic work involved. The school-based its decision on your academic transcripts and admissions test scores.

MJ The Student Actuary offers some study tips for complex subjects.

The difference between taking on challenging work in a boarding school versus a public school is simply that nobody in the boarding school will let you sink. Why? Well, for one, the classes are small. For example, your teacher will know you have problems grasping a math concept. You will not be humiliated in front of your peers. If you don't believe me, read the codes of conduct for any boarding school and see just how seriously

We parents always worry about what goes on when we are not around to supervise our children. We all know that getting into mischief is part of growing up. Inevitably, it is going to happen. But we also want to know that there are well-known limits and accepted standards of behavior especially when we send our children off to boarding school. With that premise in mind, you and I are going to take a look at an issue that was much more commonplace years ago than it is now.

The following video outlines what hazing involves.

Hazing is a practice that used to be rampant in schools and organizations just about everywhere. It seemed to be part of our fraternal and educational culture. Fortunately, in these enlightened times in which blogging and instant messaging make it extremely difficult to keep bad news out of the public eye, hazing has all but disappeared in boarding schools. And that is a positive turn of events.

I asked Dr. Hank Nuwer, a nationally recognized authority on hazing, to weigh in on the subject. As Dr. Nuwer makes clear, boarding schools are indeed virtually free of hazing. That's because boarding schools insist on a high standard of supervision and community life designed to protect their students from any kind of harm. Most schools have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to hazing. It is one