you can't go home again (and do you really want to, anyway?)

I went to a very small private school here in Wilmington from 4th grade through 12th grade. There were roughly 50 kids in my class, a large percentage of whom attended Tower Hill from pre-kindergarten through graduation (suffice it to say, most of us knew each other pretty well by the end of senior year). It was kind of a weird experience for me. My father was really the driving force behind my attendance at the school, wanting what he perceived to be the best education for his kids, and also, I think, trying to fit in to the world of Wilmington lawyers, as an outsider from a working class family in Western New York. My mother, on the other hand, was very uncomfortable with the school and what it stood for (also from a working class family in Western New York, and a social worker to boot). She railed against the elitism mightily, and was a frequent caller to the school, registering her complaints without compunction. And they both were right, in their own way. It was (and is) a great school, with incredible teachers and unbelievable resources. But, it was (and is) homogeneous and elitist. Example 1: there were no African-American kids in my class; Example 2: many people were quite rich. While my family was certainly comfortably upper-middle class, we never went skiing in the Alps over spring break. I know -- boo hoo for me. (I am bummed that I could not make a link work here that I felt illuminated my point perfectly about the continued homogeneity and elitism. In a recent TH publication, there was a very well-intentioned student piece about how the Spanish Culture Club invited a member of the grounds crew to come and speak about the Mexican experience. Wow.)

In spite of the weird family dichotomy, I would say that overall, my experience at Tower Hill was overwhelmingly positive. I liked most of the kids I went to school with, I was challenged academically, and in general, I had fun. That being said, even if I could afford it, I would probably not send my daughter there -- because of the same elitism that made my mom bristle (the apple does not fall far from the tree). And I think that the biggest drawback to my secondary school education was that it kept my horizons very narrow. When it came time to look at colleges, I wanted to go somewhere small where I felt like I could get to know people (and I think subconsciously, I wanted the people at college to be similar to the ones I grew up with). In fact, the idea of a big college in a big city absolutely freaked me out. I ended up applying to 5 small liberal arts colleges in the northeast -- all pretty interchangeable, I think. I ended up at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, largely because the Director of Admissions at Tower Hill had just come from Trinity, so there was a definite push for attendance there, and also because the campus was really pretty when I visited (and again, subconsciously, because a number of kids I knew were going there).

Trinity only has about 2,000 students -- really tiny for a college. Despite the fact that it is downtown Hartford, which has an overwhelmingly minority population, it draws the vast majority of its students from just the kind of elite, un-diverse schools that I myself attended. And when I got there, this was ok, or at least comfortable. But over time, I began to find it incredibly stifling. Again, the educational experience was great -- I had some wonderful (read "liberal") professors who really opened my eyes much more to the world around me. I made a few good friends, drank a lot of beer, and had a decent time. But overall, the four years there left me deeply unsatisfied.

This has been on my mind a lot lately. My 15-year reunion is coming up (which is in itself an answer to the title of my last post), and while I have absolutely no intention of going, the alumni mail has been coming fast and furious. Then, Richard, Lucy and I took a trip to Connecticut last weekend to visit my cousin, Sarah, who lives about an hour outside of Hartford. When we planned the trip to CT, I had no plans to visit Trinity. But Sunday, Sarah had to work, and the weather was beautiful (in fact, I always associate clear fall weather with Trinity), so we decided to make the trip. And I have to say, the campus is still stunning, and being there was much less uncomfortable than I had expected it to be. It was actually kind of fun showing Richard and Lucy around (Richard loved the library, and Lucy loved the cannons). But then, in the car, on the ride back, I read the weekly student paper. And quickly remembered what I didn't like about the school. The article that pushed me over the edge was an opinion piece about why the school needs to bring back the "drunk bus" because the shuttle that they are using now does not allow alcohol on board, so many students would rather risk their lives to walk across campus than pour out their beers. Now maybe, if I were still in the 18-22 demographic, I would feel a sense of outrage about the tragic potential waste of beer, and would be able to ignore the implicit elitism that surrounds any talk of crime on campus. But probably not. And one look at the "campus safety" blotter would surely dispel most fears about "townies," since all reported incidents involved drunk students. The whole thing just pissed me off, and took me back 15 years much more viscerally than the trip to campus itself.

Ack. This blog has gotten much more strident and self-important than I ever intended. And now I have missed "30 Rock." But I have gotten some very deep and insightful points out into the blogosphere, and I've really made you think, right? You're welcome. (I promise my next post will be short, and maybe even amusing, to reward you for slogging through this one, if you got this far.)