Would You Still Send Your Children to Boarding School?

Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

2178

Abstract

mptuous the meal. A few students used jam too. For the love of me, I could never reconcile those two tastes. That’s overkill if you ask me. There was an equally large turnout on the days of bread, butter, plus boiled egg. They served us butter that was most times not enough or lacked flavor or both. Days for soup and swallow meals had a fair turnout. The beef was the incentive. I doubt it was the soup quantity or taste. The dining room was scanty on bean’s day. Many students hated beans, and the swimming weevils didn’t help.</p><p id="cc36">Toilet: If you needed to ease yourself, or use a toilet, you needed to have at least a bucket of water on standby. You would present it to the toilet manager who might inspect the toilet bowl after flushing[depending on how busy he or she was]. Before you ask, the water supply wasn’t constant. So the culture was to fetch water whenever it ran from the taps and reserve it for bathing, flushing, laundry, and dishes. Few students had excess water at every point in time. Others had to get creative. There were those who saved their restroom activities for when they went to class. Some recycled their washing/rinsing water in the restrooms, as long as the toilet managers didn’t mind. Some got extra creative in styles I would rather not get into.</p><p id="dc02">Sleep: We had siesta time and light-outs. Students hardly observed siesta. I do not remember all the reasons for this. Light-outs were stricter. If you didn’t observe them, you might either punish yourself the next morning by waking up groggy or incur the wrath of the house/dorm captain. Other things could go wrong from wanting to use a clean bathroom ready for weekday inspection or get in other people’s way who were long awake before you.</p><p id="ca3a">Students loved visiting days, vacation days, and social nights. Visiting days were an opportunity to eat home-cooked meals and replenish supplies. Visits to the dining room also declined during this period. Few people needed the dining room when provisions and home meals were in excess. Social nights were nights to <i>get frisky</i>. Vacation days gave students the chance to <i>escape hell</i>.</p><p id

Options

="0112">Students disliked labor days and inspection days. Our school had lots of open grass space. The grasses were of varying lengths. On labor days, they assigned most of us to trim the grass. A sharp cutlass made the task a breeze. That’s if you had the physical strength and lacked weed allergies or any other health challenge. In that case, they could reassign you to a task not involving grass cutting.</p><p id="8820">On inspection days, students cleaned any part of the hostel he/she was assigned to. This ranged from courtyard cleaning to bathroom cleaning to dormitory cleaning to dustbin emptying to boxroom cleaning. I remember the task lists were as many and as varied as the students. Whatever your task was, you were to do it excellently cos it affected the score of a household. You also dressed your best and neatest. The preparation for this day took hours and ironically, inspection per space ended in minutes. If things went well or south, you would know soon after. Just keep your ears out for a summon by the house captain.</p><h2 id="e5b9">Final Thoughts</h2><p id="bd25">In those boarding school years, we learned a lot of adaptability skills and formed some lifelong relationships. This is undisputed. There is a school of thought that boarders were more rounded than day students. I can’t get into that argument now. I know that there are adaptability skills I picked up in boarding school that have stayed with me till now or become better.</p><div id="0f57" class="link-block"> <a href="https://kokoizuka.medium.com/membership"> <div> <div> <h2>Read every story from Aguocha Nkeonye Judith (and thousands of other writers on Medium)</h2> <div><h3>As a Medium member, a portion of your membership fee goes to writers you read, and you get full access to every story…</h3></div> <div><p>kokoizuka.medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*Vh_6o79827fL5Ej1)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Being at boarding school in the pre-internet era, especially a boarding school tucked away in the Oxfordshire countryside, was like being in a cocoon… — James Lovegrove

I spent most of my high school in a boarding school in a Metropolitan city. However, the school was sited on the outskirts of the city, perhaps for the sake of land space. I am not too sure about how the decision to be a boarder came about. I only remember that my school was a mixed school and funded by the federal government. There was a certain prestige and value associated with attending these schools. Most of these schools offered both boarding and day student options and most parents opted for the former.

I’ll be telling the story from a junior student’s perspective and what we did to make the best out of most situations. Let me start with the obvious:

Food: the school kitchen prepared all our meals. We had a few students’ favorites. For example, most students liked rice. Whether it was Jollof or white rice and stew, the dining room turnout would be significantly more than other days. It didn’t matter if the rice or stew was tasteless or the meat was pebble-sized, students would show up. Usually, the culture was to enhance flavor with butter, home spice, or Maggi sauce. Most students had home mixed spices. Usually, this was more accessible and cheaper than a bottle of Maggi sauce. If you did not opt for dining meals, the other options were;

Go hungry

Eat biscuits

Eat cereal

Use your boiling ring to cook up something,

Feign illness and go home. [GoodLuck]

Bread days also had a good turnout. The more butter you had, the more sumptuous the meal. A few students used jam too. For the love of me, I could never reconcile those two tastes. That’s overkill if you ask me. There was an equally large turnout on the days of bread, butter, plus boiled egg. They served us butter that was most times not enough or lacked flavor or both. Days for soup and swallow meals had a fair turnout. The beef was the incentive. I doubt it was the soup quantity or taste. The dining room was scanty on bean’s day. Many students hated beans, and the swimming weevils didn’t help.

Toilet: If you needed to ease yourself, or use a toilet, you needed to have at least a bucket of water on standby. You would present it to the toilet manager who might inspect the toilet bowl after flushing[depending on how busy he or she was]. Before you ask, the water supply wasn’t constant. So the culture was to fetch water whenever it ran from the taps and reserve it for bathing, flushing, laundry, and dishes. Few students had excess water at every point in time. Others had to get creative. There were those who saved their restroom activities for when they went to class. Some recycled their washing/rinsing water in the restrooms, as long as the toilet managers didn’t mind. Some got extra creative in styles I would rather not get into.

Sleep: We had siesta time and light-outs. Students hardly observed siesta. I do not remember all the reasons for this. Light-outs were stricter. If you didn’t observe them, you might either punish yourself the next morning by waking up groggy or incur the wrath of the house/dorm captain. Other things could go wrong from wanting to use a clean bathroom ready for weekday inspection or get in other people’s way who were long awake before you.

Students loved visiting days, vacation days, and social nights. Visiting days were an opportunity to eat home-cooked meals and replenish supplies. Visits to the dining room also declined during this period. Few people needed the dining room when provisions and home meals were in excess. Social nights were nights to get frisky. Vacation days gave students the chance to escape hell.

Students disliked labor days and inspection days. Our school had lots of open grass space. The grasses were of varying lengths. On labor days, they assigned most of us to trim the grass. A sharp cutlass made the task a breeze. That’s if you had the physical strength and lacked weed allergies or any other health challenge. In that case, they could reassign you to a task not involving grass cutting.

On inspection days, students cleaned any part of the hostel he/she was assigned to. This ranged from courtyard cleaning to bathroom cleaning to dormitory cleaning to dustbin emptying to boxroom cleaning. I remember the task lists were as many and as varied as the students. Whatever your task was, you were to do it excellently cos it affected the score of a household. You also dressed your best and neatest. The preparation for this day took hours and ironically, inspection per space ended in minutes. If things went well or south, you would know soon after. Just keep your ears out for a summon by the house captain.