Category: Boarding School Life

On the outside looking in

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Ever feel like you’re on the outside looking in?

 

This is the first time since 2004 that I haven’t been a part of an opening of school and a new academic year, and it’s weird. In some ways, I imagine it is what it feels like to go through detox or to lose a limb—feeling things that aren’t there anymore.

The anxiety is ramping up. Butterflies are fluttering in my stomach. I am trying as hard as I can to make use of every available free second I have. I find myself still dreading the changing of the leaves, and the prospect of the crazy opening of school schedule with endless faculty meetings in which everyone is glued to either their phones or laptops, the faculty party in which everyone asks what I did this summer (I worked, dammit!), and the arrival of students excited to see their friends again after the summer break.

My body seems to still be anticipating exhausting travel to sometimes awful and sometimes awe-inspiring but mostly mundane corners of the globe. Shouldn’t I be spending much more time on Delta’s and Marriott’s website? Shouldn’t I be calling my travel agent? Shouldn’t I be calling my counterparts at other schools trying to coordinate some crazy trip around the world?

And yet, none of that is coming for me this year. I’m watching others go through it—friends and past colleagues—and I keep asking myself, “Will I miss it?”

Will I wake up in the middle of some October night wondering where I am as I have done many times each fall?

Will I wake up one morning and momentarily panicked, wondering if I’m supposed to be on a plane, headed to some unknown country?

Will I scan my brain wondering how to say, “Thank you” in the native language while ordering my latte at the coffee shop down the street?

“Will I miss it?”

No. No, I don’t believe I will. But old habits and rhythms take time to run their course.

 

So You Want to Work at a Boarding School

This started off as a rant against those who talk about how busy they are and turned into a here’s my week at a glance.  Life at a boarding school isn’t for everyone. It’s a demanding lifestyle, and I use the word lifestyle deliberately.   Technically, I’m on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week when students are present.   I live with the people with which I spend all day working.   I eat three meals a day with them.

It’s an incredibly rewarding place to live and work though.  That concert on Tuesday night?  Well, we got the boy dressed up in his pj’s and he and I went and listened to the music for an hour giving mom a much-needed break.  Where else to you get to bring your three-year old to hear music in his pj’s?

Life here is busy though, and you have to get involved and be engaged in the community.  Otherwise, why work at a boarding school?  There are day schools if you’re looking to shut things down at 5p.m. each night.

Here’s my typical week:

Sunday:
7p.m. Dorm duty starts.
11:00 p.m. Check in wraps up and I’m back in my apartment for a drink then off to bed.

Monday:
8 a.m. Chapel then a full work day until 4:30 p.m. unless I decided to duck off early at 3:30 to go out on a bike ride with the cycling club.
6:15 p.m. All school sit-down dinner.
7:15 p.m. Stop in a the arts performance and then off to a prep meeting for tomorrow night’s meeting.
8:30 p.m. back home in time to say good night to the boy.

Tuesday:
8:00 a.m. Chapel and then another full workday
7:15 p.m. Meeting with our fourth formers
9 p.m. Back home.  Missed bed time tonight.

Wednesday:
8:30 a.m. No Chapel today, but I do have a meeting to debrief last night’s meeting.  After that right into a full work day.
2:30 p.m. If there are home games, I’ll walk around campus and catch a few minutes of each.
7:15 p.m. Dorm duty and study hall.
11:00 p.m. Back home and ready to crash.

Thursday:
8:00 a.m. Chapel and then a full work day.
7:30 p.m. Dinner with alumni at some college within driving distance of campus.  This may turn into an overnight if I’m visiting a school more than 2 and a half hours away.
Midnight:  Hopefully I’m back home.

Friday:
8:00 a.m. Chapel then a full workday.  Maybe skipping out at 3:30 p.m. for a bike ride.
5:00 pm. Finally, a night off.  That is assuming none of my dorm residents need a ride to the grocery store or CVS or something like that.

Saturday:
I’m lucky in that I don’t have any official duties on Saturdays with the exception of two weekend duty nights a term.  You can usually catch me at the local playgrounds or games on campus as I try to spend as much time as possible with the boy.

With great demands come great rewards

Now there are times, especially at the beginning of the year and end, when my wife will complain that there needs to be a support group for spouses os faculty that work here.  There are indeed times when it gets claustrophobic and by the end of the year you are running on fumes.

The saving grace for me is that I pretty much live where I work, and I can bring the boy to things like arts performances, games and sit-down dinner.  Without that piece, forget it.  I came to a boarding school to raise a family in a unique environment, raise my kids in a communal and intellectual setting, and most importantly, be a part of their childhood.

The boarding school life has been all that so far, and as I suspected when I was visiting schools like this as and admission rep., it has been a wonderful place to raise (and grow) a family.