Product Description
Although New England boarding schools have been educating America’s elite for four generations, they, along with their privileged students, rarely have been the subject of study. Living in a senior boys’ dorm at a co-ed school, Sarah Chase was able to witness the inner workings of student culture and the dynamics of their peer groups. In an environment of ivy-covered buildings, institutional goals of excellence and aspirations to Ivy League colleges, the boys and gi… More >>
Perfectly Prep: Gender Extremes at a New England Prep School
Tags: aspirations, boarding schools, co ed, ed school, elite, England, Extremes, four generations, Gender, inner workings, institutional goals, ivy league colleges, new england, new england prep school, peer groups, Perfectly, Prep, sarah chase, school, student culture
#1 by Camilla Alexander on May 3, 2010 - 11:32 am
Hi,
I am a happy graduate from Pomfret School in Pomfret CT where Perfectly Prep is based. The school is a very elite mix of wealthy New Englanders, local day students, and a few other international students, usually on scholarships. I must say, it was a rough four years. I am a California native and was an alumni having a couple elderly familiy members from the East Coast attending decades before. I was lucky to get in, and was unprepared for private school in every way.
Four years of coats and ties and Saturday classes, sports and stress later, and I was spit out on the shores of college. I had failed to make the grade at Pomfret, and was lucky to pass as my teachers (that hardly noticed me) would attest.
I found the school impersonal, cold and generally not helpful to an individual who had no private school prep, and came from failing public schools. That being said, for many of my peers it was a fun crucible of learning and playing that kept them safe and away from parents. It was a steppingstone to a great education.
Looking back, I am glad I had the chance to attend. It was a good school and is becoming better as it integrates a more artistic and balanced style of education. I would happily send my kids.
The book does not treat the school, or the schools lifestyle, kindly. And being that the author is a faculty or faculty wife (and dorm parent) there, I admire her for speaking the truth. Reading it reminded me of my time there and to someone who struggled, this is an invaluable resource for healing and understanding what went on. It should also be required reading for parents contemplating private schools, or any schools for their children.
Nikolai Kirkham, class of 1990.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by Marco Antonio Abarca on May 3, 2010 - 1:27 pm
As the wife of a faculty member, Sarah Chase was well placed to do anthropological field work in a New England boarding school. There are countless ethnographies written about the world’s poorest and most marginalized communities. However, a study about privileged teenage elites and the institutions that educate them is a real rarity. Using her unique access, Chase decided to focus on prep school gender roles and relationships between the sexes.
The best ethnographers are at heart more novelist than note takers. Chase’s book is at its best when it describes the rituals of prep school life. She opens up a hidden world by filling us in on the mundane but interesting details of everyday life. Her book loses focus when she leaves the individual and focuses on how the “group” perceives its situation. Ethnographies like novels are best when the narrative is advanced through actions and individual detail.
In the broadest sense, Chase’s analysis of how teenagers react to the great freedoms and restrictions that are inherent in the prep school experience rings true. Upon finishing the book, my only reservation is that Chase credits too much the macho boasts of insecure teenage boys. She would be surprised at the depth of inteior lives of even the most loutish of her informants.
Sarah Chase is now a faculty member at the boarding school where she did her field research. One can only hope that one day, she will go back to this same well and provide us with a more nuanced portrait. Prep school as seen through the eys of teachers and administrators might be very interesting.
Rating: 4 / 5
#3 by Prep School Mom on May 3, 2010 - 4:00 pm
My son graduated a few years ago from a New England prep school very much like ‘Bolton Academy’. I feel that his father and I have a close and open relationship with him and talked nearly every day to him. We knew he was under a lot of stress while there, but honestly, after reading the book, we never imagined it to be as grueling as it really was. My son also has read the book and says it is ‘dead on’ with what it was like to live there. Some of the stuff written is very shocking for a parent to read and I do wonder if I had known then what I know now, would I have paid all that money for him to go to prep school? And, if he had it to do over again, would he? The answer to both questions would have to be ‘yes’. He is an amazingly mature and independent person with admirable character and integrity doing exceptionally well in a great college. He attributes much of his success to prep school. So, if you’re a parent trying to make the important decision on whether to send your child off to prep school, I would highly recommend that you, and your child, read this book and have an open conversation about it before you decide.
Rating: 4 / 5
#4 by Christine Golemb on May 3, 2010 - 4:49 pm
Sarah Chase does a great job adressing issues us parents would just as soon didn’t exist. Her writing style is very easy reading and you do not need to be an academic to enjoy it. Although my children attend a prep school in California, many of the issues the teenagers face are the same.
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by R. S. Blain on May 3, 2010 - 5:38 pm
Sarah Chase provides a working vocabulary for us to discuss this sector of our society (affluent New England boarding school communities) and, at the same time, offers another arena in which to discuss the ways the stresses and pulls of adolescence affect boys and girls differently. She delivers on her promise to separate, skillfully and fairly, the issues that confront boys and the issues that confront girls with keen perception and careful research. Her prose is smooth and accessible, and she makes her points without judgement or animus. Bravo!
I can’t help wondering if the co-authors of RESTLESS VIRGINS wish they could have read PERFECTLY PREP as part of their research on the adolescent behavior that caught their imagination.
Rating: 5 / 5