Dauber Misrepresents Boarding Schools

Noah I. Dauber's "Let Boarding Schools Bow Out Gracefully" (opinion, Nov. 16) gives a distorted, unfounded and altogether ignorant account of modern boarding schools. While he criticizes David Hicks (the former rector of the boarding school I attended, St Paul's) for demonizing the self-interests of teenagers, Dauber himself portrays all boarding school students as conceited, arrogant, "fleece-wearing friends" from suburbia. Furthermore, Dauber confuses Hicks' view of boarding schools with the general purpose of those schools, and thus concludes erroneously that boarding schools will, in the near future, "bow out gracefully" as schools become more liberal and diverse.

Contrary to what Mr. Hicks implies in the American Scholar, boarding schools do not exist as holding grounds for uncooperative and malfunctioning adolescents. Dauber argues, "Sure, if adolescents are really awful, then maybe, just maybe, Hicks' beloved boarding schools have some reason for sticking around." But Dauber seems to believe that Hicks represents some common view of boarding schools' purpose. Make no mistake: Hicks is alone in his quest for a reactionary schools; it should be noted that after four years of battling students, faculty and the trustees, Mr. Hicks realized he could not bring St. Paul's back to the 1950s.

Hicks resigned under pressure and without implementing his vision -- or re-vision -- for St. Paul's School. His resignation hasn't spelled doom for boarding schools; rather, his failure is an affirmation that St. Paul's rejects Dauber's snob image and seeks to grow and diversify. In fact, during all the turmoil that surrounded Hicks' rectorship, the school remained popular and applications flowed in in growing numbers.

Dauber seems to think that arrogance and education are unique to boarding school history. Has he forgotten that at one time Harvard University was only for the wealthy, Protestant, white, upper-class Massachusetts elite? Indeed, for most of Harvard's history, from its founding through the the 1950s, the "spoiled teenagers from the suburbs" from Dauber's imaginary boarding school made up virtually all of Harvard's students.

Take a look at the pictures on the fifth floor of Lamont. They show Lamont first opening to accommodate Harvard's homogeneous white male coat-and-tie student body. Then, by Dauber's logic, we should have expected Harvard to indeed "bow out gracefully" around the 1960s, as diversity began to prove itself increasingly important in education.

But of course, Harvard still exists today for the same reasons that boarding schools do: These schools have evolved to reach out to include a students from a broader array of backgrounds, thus including those students once excluded by the schools' narrow, "elite" status.

Wealthy "suburbanites" attend boarding schools just as they attend Harvard; sure, they make up a large portion of the student body, but to characterize either Harvard or boarding school as exclusively for "preppies" would be a misrepresentation. Boarding schools today take students from all over the world with all kinds of talents, interests and backgrounds. And truth be told, if you are white, rich, from Massachusetts and going to private school, you represent ever thing that Mr. Hicks and Harvard are trying to minimize in their admissions -- the last thing they want is a uniform student body of "Muffys and Buffys," wearing pink sweaters tied around their waists, waiting for their daddies to take them to the club. That image is as taboo today as the multiculturalism image was in the early 1950s.

Boarding schools will survive precisely because they have moved away from that 1950s image. No longer a scene from "Dead Poets' Society," boarding schools today provide opportunities for some students that never existed before. They are reaching out to attract disadvantaged students to their schools. Boarding schools absolutely should not "bow out gracefully." In fact, boarding schools in the future will provide the best environments to address many of the problems that plague campuses across the country today. Both boarding schools and colleges face a new challenge -- finding a balance between the tradition that defines them and the progressivism that dominates them. And this is a challenge that boarding schools may well meet better than colleges.

Dauber claims that boarding schools today are "racing to keep up with teenagers' wishes." While boarding schools are changing, they're not pandering to greedy teenagers; they're changing as education changes, by diversifying, moving into the computer age, taking advantage of new technologies in the classroom, and addressing contemporary issues.

However, boarding schools are not so apt as colleges to fall victim to the pervasive liberalism that defines our campus today. At college, liberalism seeks to define people by their race, culture or sexual orientation. The emphasis is on our differences; the goal is their separation. A small boarding school like St. Paul's tries to act as a family, where differences are recognized, appreciated and applauded, but a profound sense of what we have in common overrides our differences. At St. Paul's, a student is subjected to the "St. Paul's experience" above and beyond a "black experience" or a "gay experience." I'm not claiming that those experiences don't exist, just that they are overshadowed by a stronger, common experience.

Dauber writes, "If American boarding schools are falling apart, we need not waste our tears on them." This assessment is all too common; just last night a friend wanted to know about my "posh boarding school."

Unfortunately, not only do these people have a skewed view of boarding school, but they also fail to see that boarding schools have the potential to solve some of today's toughest campus issues. The small, intimate boarding school community lends itself to really getting to know other students for the people they are -- not for the superficial and stereotypical liberal lable-of-the-day. I think Dauber may be surprised to learn that boarding school exposed me to a greater diversity of people and ideas than I ever would have gotten at home in "suburbia." --Noble M. Hansen III '00