Why does a family decide to send their kid away to boarding school? I've asked this question to myself in the last three weeks at Phillips and I've kept my ear to the ground for sounds. I can think of about four reasons:
1. Parents want the very best education for their children and they think boarding schools provide it.
2. They want their kids to get into top Ivy League colleges, and boarding schools feed students into these schools.
3. Kids struggling with disciplinary issues at day school are recommended that a more strict or structured environment at boarding school would be better for them.
4. The parents are sick of parenting for whatever reason and want someone else to deal with their offspring. (Boarding school = day care for teenagers)
There's room for adding to or condensing this list, but it doesn't serve my purposes here. What I find most interesting is the commonality in all these reasons. In every case, parents who make this choice essentially agree that what can be learned from day school in tandem with parenting is inferior to a boarding school education. They forfeit their roles as real parents for ¾ of the year, with the expectation that the boarding school will play both teacher and parent in a more conducive environment than at home and day school together. This is no small sacrifice for a parent, and I suspect those that make it conscientiously feel the full weight of the duties they are transferring to the institution.
Schools like Phillips, then, take on the in loco parentis status in true fashion. This brings with it all sorts of serious legal responsibilities designed to protect the students and the institution. First of all, it means no student should die in the school's care. The school is required to guarantee the safety and security of its boarders, even to the point of knowing the students' exact location at any given time in case a parent calls to check in. Household rules start to look mild in comparison to boarding school rules.
Now, take this scenario in the context of school that is idealogically pluralistic and postmodern. How can the school in its “parenting” dimension address the character development of students? How can it guide kids in the formation of virtue when it at the same time espouses a view that truth and morality are ultimately relative to each person's culture? The idea of teaching students how to become good or orienting them towards the good life reeks of dogmatism.
When boarding schools lose sight of such objective principles in favor of relativism, it is conformity to the law (both federal and state) that effectively becomes the summum bonum of all action within the community. It is the full-stop answer for all questions ethical. Since the larger, more meaningful ethical issues permit of disagreement, schools fall back on the indisputability of their legal obligations to parents as the guiding principle for action. Things that might result in lawsuits are clearly things that ought not be allowed.
The majority of school and dorm rules, then, are in the long run more for the sake of the school's liability coverage than about the way they are shaping kids' souls. This just doesn't do justice to the immense' responsibility schools take on as stand-in parents. What good is it to care for the body to the detriment of the soul?
We need schools that will not shy away from the challenge of character formation.
Jesse and Mary both began teaching during the summer of 2009, Jesse at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, and Mary at Teleos Preparatory Academy in Phoenix, AZ. They met while working at a great books summer program together at the University of Dallas, which brought them together into the relationship they have now. Their shared love for liberal education, philosophy, and above all the pursuit of wisdom has led them through a plethora of ongoing conversations about these issues, and they've decided they need to keep track of them on paper. Here you will find their incipient reflections on education and the experience of teaching. Feel free to jump in on the discussion.
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I should clarify that I'm referring only to a certain kind of boarding school here, one that is pluralistic and postmodern in its leanings. There are plenty of others that steer clear of these problems.
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ReplyDeleteJ'aime la dernière phrase.
ReplyDeleteEst-ce que ces écoles ont besoin de plus de régulation, ou d'une autre sorte de régulation? Les règles, ou les méthodes, de la formation de caractère sont-elles des jugements que l'on peut écrire, ou ne sont-elles qu'une disposition d'esprit qu'il faut ne pas écrire?
(Corrigé. :))
"Do these schools have a need for more regulation, or another kind of regulation? The rules, or the methods, about the formation of character, are they judgments that one can write, or are they only a disposition of mind/soul that is not necessary to write?"
ReplyDeleteI think I agree, Pip, that there's something essential about character development that can't be put on paper. It has to be embodied by those in authority. It has to be lived so that others can imitate it. On the other hand, my hunch is that there is a way to articulate some of this on paper. At the least a school could address the bigger reason behind school rules, something about the development of virtue or goodness. I wonder if there might also be a way to set out some of the marks of good human action; it would encourage students towards what they can become rather than what they ought not do. The litigious approach fosters more rebellion, I guess, than growth.
I'd be interested to know the history of boarding schools. It wasn't all that long ago that you went to college at age 16 a la Jefferson. So, does parenting take longer? I suppose colleges used to teach you how to live, but it wasn't in the parenting sort of way.
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