In "The Code of Miss Porter's," Vanity Fair's Evgenia Peretz offers a rare glimpse of life inside America's most exclusive girls' boarding school. It is a story of girls' empowerment, but -- at least as this article tells it* -- it is a power premised on hierarchy, hazing, and projecting a ruthlessly "perfect girl" persona at all costs.
Head of School Kate Windsor apparently declined to view the behavior of the Oprichinki as bullying. This is unremarkable, as far as many schools go. Girls grow up in a world that largely depicts female aggression as comedy, and euphemizes their cruelty as a "rite of passage," developmental phase or "girls being girls" ("You can't sue a school for girl drama," an '07 alum told VF).
What's intriguing is that Windsor seems to have taken it one step further. She suggests that such behavior is appropriate training for life. As she marveled to Peretz, "We create these rites of passage where girls actually get anxious." She actually called the rituals "awesome," exercises that teach girls how to "prepare for the unknown."
Taking an approach to psychological aggression that is as outdated as the saddle shoe, Windsor draws the line of intervention at "physical harm." As anyone who has spent a few minutes with upper middle class girls knows, throwing a punch is the last way they'd try to take down a peer.
To be sure, Miss Porter's has not ignored bullying. I was an invited speaker there in 2003, and I was enchanted with the headstrong, bright young women, so much so that I hired one of their teachers to work at my summer Girls Leadership Institute. I found then-Head of School Burch Ford to be an exceptionally wise, devoted educator, clearly passionate about girls' leadership and sympathetic to targets of psychological aggression.
If her comments to Vanity Fair are to be believed, Ms. Windsor, by contrast, conflates her school's responsibility for dealing with bullying with the current regrettable trends in overparenting and overprotection. This is a dangerous misread. A school's commitment to the social-emotional welfare of its students does not, by definition, gut them of resilience. But if MPS leadership now sees aggression and intimidation as appropriate training for life, it would follow that enduring it as seen as a badge, rather than seeing its existence as an outrage.
The antidote to helicopter parenting is not a free-for-all in which only the fittest survive. Teaching girls to be tough can be accomplished in more humane ways, and certainly not at the expense of hurting or beating someone else. Resilience is not about being better than or stronger than; it is something found within the self in response to the daily stresses of life -- not stresses that are artificially designed.
When the aggressive dynamics of girls become the basis for how young women negotiate the world, a new, disturbing glass ceiling is created. In my new book,"The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence," I trace the migration of girls' social habits into their behavior in classrooms, extracurricular activities and athletic fields. For example, instead of resolving conflicts on sports teams directly, girls often import the silent treatment of their lunch tables onto the field, refusing to pass a teammate the ball when they are angry.
Sports fields and classrooms are training grounds for how girls will take on the world as young women. Aggression in the workplace and a willingness to win at any cost become the very behaviors that limit female potential. A school like Miss Porter's is at the forefront of girls' empowerment. Ms. Windsor should not be reinforcing this brand of leadership.
If this were a story about boys, we'd call the "rituals designed to produce anxiety and intimidate" hazing, pure and simple. Because we're talking about girls, the toughness Windsor is promoting falls under the ever-expanding umbrella of "girl power." The Oprichinki, according to an '07 Ancient, "don't inflict real pain, just the anticipatory fear of pain." That's not skill building or skin thickening. It's bullying.
* Admittedly, drawing conclusions about Miss Porter's from a magazine article feels like writing a movie review without seeing the movie.
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MPS is an amazing school. It is not perfect, but it is unfair to condemn a school based on the allegations of one young woman who cheated on a test and was punished. Note that Ms. Bass makes no allegations of being mistreated before her senior year when she got into trouble.
I should also confess that I am a teacher (not at MPS), and I have noticed a few things about students. The majority of cheaters are habitual cheaters. I would be willing to bet that Ms. Bass had cheated before. Also, it is amazing what comes crawling out of the woodwork when a student is punished. This year, at the school where I teach, I caught one of the top seniors cheating on a test and reported it. She was punished, and then she threatened a lawsuit. All of the sudden, we heard about all these terrible things that had been happening to her that the school did nothing to address. Funny, she had never reported anything before. Hmmm, she was even a very popular girl--Homecoming Queen, a school leader, but now she alleges that she has endured four years of abuse. My student reminds me of Ms. Bass and her allegations. Pass the salt, please.
Often that power is supported by a community of peers, or through collective voices engaged toward justice or standing up for one self. We have seen some of the most intimidating or angry girls become the greatest champions of justice and the leaders of caring, relational communities. Girls who often say they don't trust other girls have realized the problem isn't girls, it is a lack of safe and respectful environments where girls can learn to tell the truth to each other and listen to other's experiences.
Girls Circle is a model of support groups for girls ages 9 -18 that honors girls' real strengths and wisdom and encourages girls' power to be fully present, in respect and nonjudgment. Since 1994 this model has been embraced by girls and young women across schools, communities, child welfare, juvenile justice, faith-based programs, after school and other settings. This model brings girls out of isolation and away from aggressive tactics and into healthy relationships and healthy empowerment. Join us in creating these safe, respectful and powerful environments that engage girls' best capacities: www.girlscircle.com. We're a nonprofit organization promoting girls' resiliency.
bad as the CHEAP EXCUSE of boys being boys.
It is the JOB OF RESPONSIBLE ADULTS to
stop the hazing stupidities. Or else their school
SHOULD LOSE ACCREDITATION.
Nobody needs such a CORRUPT SCHOOL after all.
Teaching girls to imitate the traits in a male that were always looked down on. That's what it's come down to? To be a powerful woman young lady, you have to out frat the frat boys.
Grade Kate Windsor a D minus.