Even though I have only ever gone to a private school and never have attended a public school, I know that the two dynamics are completely different. My everyday normal was probably something that kids who went to public school would see as weird and out of their normal.
- Wearing a uniform to school every day
Wearing a uniform every day to school was definitely something that I know for a fact public school kids considered odd. For me though, wearing a uniform was very normal and it was something I was used to because I have worn one all my life.
I also did hate the uniform and I was always embarrassed when I had to go somewhere after school where everyone always stared and looked at me. The uniform was also not suitable for colder weather. You could wear the required sweater, but the girls always had to wear a skirt, so when it got cold, we were freezing.
The boys were required to wear ties and it could become confining and overall stuffy to wear the required clothing. If at any time you were caught out of uniform or if you did not have your sweater, tie, black shoes (that were not sneakers), etc. then you got written up for it or yelled at. The uniform rule was strict, and it had to be followed.
2. A run-down school
When you are told that somebody went to a PRIVATE Catholic school you probably think of a nice building with expensive amenities and an overall wonderful learning curriculum. My school was the complete opposite of all of that.
The school’s actual building was so run down that ceiling tiles would fall out, the heating system never worked in the winter, the school was overall messy because the cleaning staff never actually did their jobs, the cafeteria food was awful and the school was extremely small.
To give a little insight into how small my school actually was, I graduated with 11 other kids. And one of the grades in my school for a while only had 4 kids in their class. My school had Montessori-12th grade in one building
My school went through a lot of downs for a while. Every year I was always trying to prepare myself to not return after summer because my school was always on the verge of shutting down because of the lack of funding.
As for the education, it was not very good. In my school, you were typically considered to be a grade ahead because my school did an IB curriculum and by your senior year you had to already have all the “typical” high school credits and classes out of the way so that you would only have to focus on the IB.
A lot of teachers would constantly leave my school and new ones would come in. I would not have cared much about this, except for the fact that the new teachers had no idea how to teach the required IB curriculum to students. So, a lot of the time we had to fend for, and teach, ourselves.
It was hard and extremely stressful for a lot of kids. We had to pay a lot of extra money to come to this private school and we were never really taught anything by the actual teachers.
3. Accepting???
My school was a fairly diverse school and different kids from different places came to my school. There was also some diversity among different beliefs and religions too. Even though my school was a Catholic school, they still accepted anyone from any religious background and respected that religion.
Somehow even though my school seemed accepting of a lot of different things I felt like I could not be myself fully there. I am not straight, and I was not through most of my middle and high school days. I still felt that I would be judged and criticized if I came out at my school.
Everybody knew everybody and a lot of the kids that went to my school I have known for a very long time. Even little things were gossiped about in my school because it was small and not a lot happened. When something did happen it became a lot bigger than it should have been.
I was scared of being who I really was, and I did not want to tell anybody for fear of kids judging me, scared of teachers not accepting me, and scared of having an overall bad coming out experience if I did.
My school was definitely not your typical private school. There were a lot of issues with it, and even though there were issues I still am the person that I am today because of it. I learned a lot and became who I am, which I am proud of. Sometimes I do wish that I had a regular middle and high school experience and that I went to a public school, but maybe I would be worse off if I did.