The Risk-Reward Equation What’s in Store When You Move from Home to School
D
uring the first days at School, the phone calls home may be poignant. In fact, the challenges that students may talk about in adjusting to life at School are ultimately woven into the successes that they themselves describe.
A community needs structure Life at home is flexible and yields to the family’s style, the ebb and flow of a limited number of people as they meet their own needs. At School, life is organized to support a community—to cultivate awareness, responsibility, and a sense of connection to others. Routines like the blue card system that tracks whereabouts, and sit-down dinner at 6 p.m., and study hall, are not “take it or leave it” options. The rules of this new road are unfamiliar. Dorm faculty and older students provide plenty of help in getting used to life in a big house with lots of friends. Once the routines are a part of daily life, students like the predictability, the consistency, even the security that a well-known structure can provide. Limiting the number of questions you need to deal with in a single day allows a certain comfort.
The connection with adults is intense Living at Milton means developing close relationships with a number of adults. For most teenagers, these close and mutually respectful associations with adults outside of their families are not part of their past experience. We expect students to sit at the dinner table with faculty, to express
Dean of Students Bridget Johnson and Associate Dean André Heard ’93 keep tabs on the transition of new boarding students.
themselves thoughtfully and honestly, to respect people different from themselves, to consider others’ feelings. These are challenging expectations; they can feel overwhelming at first. Upperclassmen, though, point to the many close adult friends and mentors they have, vastly different people who care about them and intersect with their lives in different ways, as one of the most compelling aspects of their Milton education.
With so much to share, friendships are deep and enduring
new members to understand what makes the house work. The older students in particular are focused on bringing the new students under the umbrella, communicating the values—spoken and unspoken. They’re actively involved—running study hall and managing lights out. From the top down they send messages that lead, and that perpetuate a culture they honor. When you live in a single house for all your Milton years, a lot of growth can happen. Students love their dorms. When new students become older students, and then graduates, they love their houses, too.
Houses are steeped in their own culture. Both the adults in a house and the boys or girls who have “grown up” at Milton in that house, are eager for
Milton Magazine
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