A recent sexual assault incident at an elite prep school, St. Paul’s School of Concord, New Hampshire, has shed light on traditions at the school. “Senior salute” is the ritual where some senior students ask younger students to do things for them or with them.
I am the product of a boarding school that was similar in many ways to St. Paul’s. I would like to explain some things about boarding school, specifically the social and sexual relationships that occur there.
Boarding school is a place where the age variation between the youngest and oldest classes can reach a seven-year difference. I have been to school with 12-year-olds and 19-year-olds. All boarding schools separate the boys from the girls in the dorms, usually by putting them in separate houses or dorms all together. But, it is possible that a 12-year-old girl is in the same dorm as a 19-year-old senior girl.
Growing up in a dorm can be a very loving and nurturing experience. You are living with other friends and becoming close to your dorm parents, but unfortunately it can also be a very harsh one too. Younger girls look up to the older girls, and the same goes for the boys. So it makes sense why traditions, like the senior salute, last through generations.
Sexual relationships in boarding school are not healthy. We were constantly told to have healthy relationships, but we were scolded for kissing in the dining hall, and a few steps down the walk outside in health services they give out condoms. There are strict dorm visitation rules, usually involving a door propped open and “three feet on the floor.” Students who decide to be sexually active are forced to hide in the woods, behind staircases and in empty classrooms after hours. I respect that faculty do not want sexual activity in dorm rooms, but the fact that most schools avoid talking about healthy relationships and sex all together makes students feel like sex is this thing that they desire, but it is not OK to do.
There is so much pressure on everyone at boarding school to fit in: socially, academically, athletically and sexually. Everyone knows everyone; class sizes are fewer than ten students, even the teachers are up on the 4-1-1. Traditions are another part of boarding school life that students want to fit in with, to look back at when they are alumni and laugh and reminisce about.
I am not condoning anything that happened between the two students from St. Paul’s School. I am just simply explaining the unbelievable pressure students are exposed to and how something like this could have happened. I hope other boarding schools can learn something from this incident and start teaching students to be open about their relationships and rather talk about some the consequences sexual activities can bring along with it. In my own personal experience, I never in my three years at boarding school had a talk with any faculty member about personal health or sex. It was kind of like they closed their eyes while they gave us condoms and hoped for the best.
Schools provide amazing nurses at health services that will talk to a student about these things when requested by another adult or themselves, but a lot of students felt ashamed of even thinking, let alone talking about sex. I hope, moving forward, schools will discuss and teach more, and rather than scolding they can encourage communication between students and teachers.
High school is already so hard, so much change comes along with it and being told that those feelings you have need to be repressed is just as difficult and confusing as an Advanced Spanish test.
