Growing up in a private school bubble…

This weekend I was “sexiled”. This isn’t a word that I can take credit for creating, but I heard it and it’s perfect. My roommate’s boyfriend came in town. And trust me I wanted to be out of our dorm this weekend as much as she wanted me gone. There was no way I was going to be the eternal third wheel from Thursday to Sunday. So I left. Orginally I wanted to just drive home, but my parents, of all people, dissuaded me. I guess they didn’t want me home that badly after all… Well according to them they were nervous about the five and a half hour trek through the mountains I would have to make in my car, by myself. So I couldn’t make the journey all the way back to Columbus, Ohio.

I ended up seeking shelter at my classmate’s dorm at Elon University, near Greensboro, North Carolina. Amanda and I had been friends from before high school and the drive was only about three hours, so it was the perfect escape. I wish it would have been a little bit closer, but she was my closest victim. It was really nice to see a familiar face for the first time in a month. Not one person I’ve ever met goes to Virginia Tech, so I’d been floating around. I’ve met a lot of cool people and I totally have a group of friends that I love to hang out with, but I miss being around people that I can share connections with. It’s kind of sad when I can’t turn to someone and be like, “Oh my gosh! This is the Virginia Tech version of Mr. Rabe,” which any of my classmates would have understood last year.

The question I’ve gotten asked most, once people know a little bit about me is if I enjoyed going to a small private school. If and when I was asked this question in eighth and ninth grade I would have rolled my eyes and groaned about how much I hated it, but now I realize how special it was. I started going to school at Wellington when I was in first grade, and stayed in the same building, with the same fifty-ish kids. There were only 800 kids in my school age PreK through 12^th. Some of my classmates left to go play football (a sport Wellington didn’t have) or any other sport that they were good at. Other students were added, usually because they had just moved to Columbus, or their parents thought Wellington could correct some attitude problems.

There are three other private schools in the Columbus area that weren’t religiously affiliated. There was an all girls school, CSG, an all guys school, Saint Charles, and the school that bred military school equivalent students, Columbus Academy. Wellington was the sloppy, happy, small version of all of these schools. It lacked funding, old money, and a good administration, but some how it molded great people. All the private schools were in competition to see who was smarter, and we would probably lose if we were tested analytically. Our ACT/SAT score averages looked like the other private schools’ PSAT scores.

We weren’t stupid or unintelligent we were just taught and tested on material in a very literary way. We always wrote papers, we nearly never took tests, and if we did take tests they were short answer. So this whole idea about not getting partial credit and there being only one right answer is startling for me. The introduction to scan-trons was a little intimidating, to say the least. But, instead of acing the SAT, something that most Wellington students seem to struggle with, we can carry on a conversation with any stranger we met. Definitions are scarier than length requirements. If it’s one thing that I learned which I can put to use here, it’s my ability to type like there’s no tomorrow. We were required to write a one-hundred twenty page novel, in my AP English class, last year, as an on-going background assignment, with other papers, projects, and books layered on top of it.

Most of us participated in community service like it was our job. We enjoyed helping out anyone with anything we could. Since we were in the same building as preschoolers, with their parents, our manners and awareness of the people around us, is out of control. We tried to get involved in as many things as we could, especially since we were able to (there were no try-outs for sports teams and tons of roles to fill in the school plays). And we could gain the respect and trust of any adult, sometimes like we were their own age. I was good friends, (and now Facebook friends) with a lot of my teachers. My eighth grade Spanish teacher text each other weekly. The school was great at creating strong bonds amongst us.

Wellington’s favorite thing to say was “we our a family and a community.” When I was little I didn’t believe or understand this, I just laughed at the idea condescendingly with the rest of my middle school peers to be cool, but now I seriously agree. The other day one of my classmates needed a place to stay at Virginia Tech, texted me at 4:30PM asking if he could spend the night, and by 9:00PM he was in my dorm with a pillow. We weren’t even close friends back at home, but we have a sibling relationship, without the bickering. If I ever needed anything at anytime in my life I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable asking someone who went to Wellington, no matter if we liked each other or not. There’s a mutual understanding and respect that we all share for each other.

The other thing it demanded of us, even if we weren’t aware of it, was to respect any type of person. We were around nerdy people, flirty people, gamers, chess club freaks, book worms, athletes, artists, and anime lovers. There were so few of us in our grade we had to be friends with all of them. We couldn’t just decide that we didn’t like any one type of person, because it would instantly cut out five people we could hang out with. Our options were limited. Because of this though we learned to appreciate any and every type of person. We now give everyone a chance, because we know from experience that we were friends with people that on paper we shouldn’t have been.

There are a few disadvantages I have found so far, now that I’m out of the “bubble”, as we liked to call it. One of them is the whole analytical testing problem, which I mentioned earlier. Another one is typically being completely judged as a rich snob or a preppy nerd, anytime you mention to people you went to private school. And for some reason Wellington was really bad at teaching handwriting and spelling, which are now both common skills I am inept in. Overall though it hasn’t hindered me as much as I thought it would. I was completely convinced that I would go into anaphylactic shock as soon as I was placed in a class size that was more than five times the size of my entire school. I was also under the impression that I would not be able to make friends with people that I didn’t grow up with or be able to trust anyone.

So far, I’ve kind of loved the total anonymity I had on campus the first few weeks here. I could do absolutely anything I wanted and I could completely start over, with no prior strings to my old life. That had the potential to be really awesome, if I wasn’t too lazy to create a new identity. Since being here I’ve just been searching for people who share characteristics of me and my friends back home. I can’t decide if this is a good thing or not…. I don’t know if I should take advantage of this opportunity to look for a different type of person in case I could get a long with them, or if I should stay true to my old identity.

I loved going to school at a small private school, even though it has to be clarified that it wasn’t a learning boot camp. We were inspired so much that we legitimately loved to learn and now have relationships that will completely last my entire life. I learned how to live my academic life a different way then is typically taught, and if that means I have to work a little harder now to get adapted to the “real educational world”, I’m completely okay with that. I adore the school bubble I was brought up in!

Here! send your kids to Wellington! move to Columbus, Ohio! look at the sweet website:

http://www.wellington.org/web/default.aspx