My Boarding School Experience

Zan suggested that I write about my experience going to a boarding school, so here goes. :) First, a little background . . . my parents strongly believed that we should have a Christian education. So for K-2nd grade, I attended a local Christian school that used A Beka curriculum. Then for 3rd-8th grade, I attended another local Christian school (a very small one) that used the ACE curriculum. For highschool, my parents (and I) had long desired that I could attend Dublin Christian Academy, a boarding school about 2 hours from home. The price wasn't cheap, but God provided the finances, and that's where I went for all 4 years of highschool.

There were definitely positives and negatives about my boarding school experience, but for me, the postitives ended up outweighing the negatives. Looking back on it, I don't think I was really mature enough to be away from home my freshman year, but even though that was my hardest year, it was good for me and I learned a lot. The next year, my sister came to DCA with me (she was a year behind me in school), and that made things MUCH easier, especially because she is my best friend, and we got to be roommates!

DCA is not a huge school, and the faculty and staff really care about the students, and many of them treat you like their own kids. My teachers there had a profound impact on my life. I also had some wonderful dorm supervisors who invested a lot of time and love into me and the other girls. I also should mention that the boarding part of the school is quite small--the majority of students are day students. They only take boarders for 7th-12th grade, but they have a lot of students from town for all the grades (K-12). It's really a unique place . . . I probably wouldn't usually think too highly of boarding schools in general, even Christian ones, but having gone to this one, all I can say is that it was a very good place and a good experience for me. I should also note that even though my sister and I boarded, we weren't "typical" in that we didn't come from far away, and were able to go home nearly every weekend. My parents and grandparents sacrificed a lot of their time, traveling there and back each weekend, and my mom wrote us nearly every day. Because of this, it wasn't like we were completely on our own, away from our parents' guidance and care. I don't know that I personally would want to send my teenager halfway across the world to go to school, even if was an excellent one. (Although I had friends that were in that situation, and most did just fine.) But for us, the situation worked out very well.

There's so much I could say . . . I don't know how to best organize this really! I guess I will list a few positives and negatives.

Positives:
*An excellent Christian education that well prepared me for college
*A comfortable, home-like environment with faculty and staff who really cared about me
*The opportunity to be part of the school choir for 2 years, getting to travel on choir tour to sing in other states
*Getting to build lasting friendships with roommates and others
*Learning how to get along with roommates and all of our various idiosyncrasies :)
*Having to get out of my comfort zone, even if I didn't always like it
*Having different jobs on campus each year, which helped me learn responsibility
*Gaining a greater appreciation of my home and family, just because I wasn't with them all the time
*Meeting friends from various parts of the world and getting to learn a little about different cultures

Negatives:
*Missing out on things happening at home and especially special events in our home church
*Not being able to get a hug from my mom or dad during a hard time (but there was always a willing sister, friend, or dorm supervisor to help with that)
*Dealing with interesting roommate situations from time to time--some more difficult than others (like waking up one morning to discover that one of my roommates was missing--she had run away)!
*I honestly can't think of anymore right now! I guess the positives definitely outweighed the negatives in my experience!

Did I miss my home and family? Of course! I LOVED coming home for the weekends and getting to sit in front of the woodstove and read or study, while my mom prepared a special supper. She always made the most yummy suppers on the weekends. One of my favorites was Chicken Pot Pie. I'll have to post her recipe for that sometime. I make it quite a bit myself now, and it's so delicious!! Mom would also usually send us back to school with a tin of homemade cookies, which we enjoyed sharing with our friends, as well. She would also spoil us by doing most of our laundry every weekend! Sometimes we did it at school, but most often we brought it home. I know now that we very much took that for granted--so a big thank you, Mom, for sacrificing your time to do that for us!! :)

I probably haven't hit on all the different aspects of my time at boarding school here, but this is all I can come up with so far. If anyone has any questions to ask, feel free--perhaps that will jog my memory as to something else I should have mentioned. :)