When we send our children away to boarding school believing they will get a better education, what are we setting them up for? Can an education away from the parental home be truly supportive in developing us as fully rounded human beings? School is not the only part of our education – our living environment makes a difference too.
So, how was life at boarding school? I can remember the good bits and tend to forget the bad bits, but I do recall that I was terrified of the nun who looked after us, and even more terrified of the Mother Superior. I survived by being a ‘good girl,’ always looking for acknowledgement from the teachers and nuns that I was ‘OK.’
I was born overseas in Baghdad, Iraq, and when I was 6 years old, a few months before my 7th birthday, my parents sent me to a Catholic boarding school run by nuns in the UK. There were three of us, so I was not completely alone as I had my two sisters there, but when my own daughter was seven and we were enjoying lots of hugs together, it made me wonder what had I missed by spending so many of my younger years away from my parents.
Baghdad is 3,000 miles from London and in the 1950s that meant three plane hops, so we only travelled back home for the summer holidays. I only saw my parents for 8 weeks in each year until I was 12, when they returned to England to live. After that I lived at home and attended the same school as a day student until I left at 18.
I don’t think we were ever a particularly close family but there was a great ex-pat social life in Baghdad and my parents would attend loads of parties. During the day we spent most of our time at a club that had lawns, an outdoor restaurant, a climbing frame and three swimming pools. We had some fun times, but my mother was always chatting to her friends and we played with ours. Dad was at work.
Once we were all together in our house in England, we were still distant.
As a family we would eat together but I don’t remember them as particularly momentous occasions — the radio was usually on, and then we kids would wash up together then go outside and play with our neighbourhood friends. There were times when my parents would argue and my mother was always convinced she was right. My father would give up and go outside to smoke his pipe. I used to argue with my middle sister with whom I shared a room, so our life together was not particularly harmonious.
Moreover, my parents were not really huggy people, whereas I love hugs. When I first went to the boarding school I do remember the Italian maids, who were always up for a hug and, as I was one of the youngest and probably cute at that age, I had loads of attention from them. Despite that, and because of the lack of physical affection in my own family, I grew up feeling like an alien, distant from all humanity. I felt unlovable and instead of being open and friendly with everyone, I created a hard shell of mistrust and a spikiness that stopped anyone from feeling my true vulnerability, including me.
The combination of the separation from my parents, boarding school and the Catholic upbringing, left me with a few emotional scars, such as feeling unworthy, constantly guilty that I might be doing something wrong, needing to be good and wanting to do everything right.
At school we were encouraged to compare and compete, with everyone being streamed into class groups according to academic ability. In the senior school, we were also split up into four houses that competed in sports and we’d get house-points for good behaviour, so comparison and competition was encouraged in all aspects of my schooling.
The attitude of competition stayed with me as an adult: in sport playing squash, and with friends, comparing what jobs we were doing and how much we were earning. At work I would measure myself against more experienced colleagues and put myself down for not performing as well as them. Both comparison and competition leave me feeling very tired, so it is something I have recently been learning to observe and let go of.
Thanks to the many presentations of Serge Benhayon and healing sessions with Esoteric Practitioners trained by Universal Medicine, I am also learning to let go of the hard shell of protection that I developed in my body and to let people in. I am getting lots of hugs from fellow students, which is lovely, but I still find myself being distant at times, and I find it hard to express my love in words. If someone expresses their love and appreciation of me, I often find it hard to accept, not really believing it to be true.
I now know that it is important to appreciate who I truly am, to feel how tender I can be, moving gently, being calmer inside, connecting deeply with people, making good eye contact and speaking from my heart instead of my head. These days I don’t need so many acknowledgements from anyone outside of myself. I don’t need to try to be good or right because I can enjoy simply being me.
When families do not freely express their love for one another, it does not provide a great foundation for us in the future. My experience was compounded by being separated from everything I knew and sent to a Catholic boarding school. It gave me a good education, but I have realised that what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?
It is 60 years since that first day at boarding school and the scars are only now truly beginning to heal. It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.
What I bring is more than my brain’s intelligence and what I know; I bring a warmth, love, tenderness, and caring for all humanity that was never taught at school, or even in the Catholic Church.
Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’. Instead of that approach, I am now learning to appreciate the amazing woman I truly am and, as I let go of the hardness, I am appreciating the absolute fragility and delicateness that is my natural and true way of being.
It has been a long journey that has highlighted to me the importance of loving all our children in full right from the start, spending time with them, expressing our love and appreciation to them, and encouraging them to be loving and open without fear so that no matter where they are, they can enjoy being beautiful, tender, expressive beings.
If that loving service can be offered in every family, every school, every boarding school, and in every religion, then perhaps we as a humanity can be secure in the knowledge that our children will be fully ‘educated’.
Published with permission of my family.
By Carmel Reid, Ocean Shores, Australia
Further Reading:
The true foundations of education – our future
Education, Schools & Teaching Our Kids: ‘Quality of Presence’ in the Classroom
The True Purpose of Education – One Size Fits All or Evolution?
764 Comments
‘What value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” Uhm how about nada, zilch, zero, nothing?
“The combination of the separation from my parents, boarding school and the Catholic upbringing, left me with a few emotional scars, such as feeling unworthy, constantly guilty that I might be doing something wrong, needing to be good and wanting to do everything right”, that’s one helluva load to bear BUT we all lug similar loads around with us constantly, we just have different flavours of loads. These flavours dictate our alignment to a particular form of energy, which in turn ensures that we stay ensnared to the same energetic source. Our loads lighten and then eventually disappear altogether once we switch our alignment and the way that we switch our alignment is by changing the way that we move, ‘move’ meaning the way that we ‘think/speak/move/feel’.
“Can an education away from the parental home be truly supportive in developing us as fully rounded human beings?” Carmel your question has raised another question in me and that is “if we stay at home are we able to be supported in developing as fully rounded human beings if in truth our parents are able and willing to send us away?
“what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” Formal teaching has lost the true meaning of ‘education’. Learning to understand the world from how it feels and to discern truth is rarely on the ‘education’ curriculum.
I find it fascinating that we all have different stories to tell of our childhood but there is a common thread that runs through them which unites us. And this is we were not met as children and our parents were not met and so it goes on this perpetual deep angst of not being seen for the delicate and sensitive beings we all are. And so we grow up hard as nails with abusive behaviours towards ourselves and others to sully another generation. Finally there is a different choice to be had one where we can reconnect back to our delicate sensitivity and find that it is actually so worth reconnecting back to as it is absolutely fascinating what can be felt so much so that you naturally want to explore more, what more can be sensed and felt which opens up a Pandora’s box of endless possibilities. Sensitivity is not being a sissy or weak it’s the complete opposite it’s to be strong and all-knowing to me it’s the new black.
“I have realised that what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” I couldn’t agree more Carmel, you have made an incredible point here. Love should be the main subject in school, alongside self care, and promoting harmony and equality, not competition and comparison.
Acknowledging we are more than human is what appreciation is all about as you have shared Carmel, and adding to what you have shared with deep-humble-appreciative-ness that to appreciate ones essence with True authority with the ensuing conformation deepens our purpose in life.
‘School is not the only part of our education – our living environment makes a difference too.’ We certainly under value the education we receive outside of school lessons, but if we were honest we would realise that this can often impact us far more. In fact this is far more real, and if honoured can counter the hurts we receive in our system. It can feel within the system that academia is all that counts, but this is incredibly far from the truth.
Anyone would think our education system as it is is set up to keep people controlled, dulled and incapable of knowing who they truly are?
A boarding school has the potential to really nourish and support the children, if the children are brought up to know true community and to know all others as family there this can then be a good foundation from which they can grow.
It is lovely to now feel the warmth, love, and tenderness in you, and likewise in other people, ‘I now know that it is important to appreciate who I truly am, to feel how tender I can be, moving gently, being calmer inside, connecting deeply with people, making good eye contact and speaking from my heart instead of my head.’
Great that you clocked the negative impact of comparison and competition on your body, and so knew choosing comparison and competition was not a loving choice, ‘Both comparison and competition leave me feeling very tired, so it is something I have recently been learning to observe and let go of.’
Carmel, I can very much relate to this; ‘feeling unworthy, constantly guilty that I might be doing something wrong, needing to be good and wanting to do everything right’. This makes me realise that this is not only boarding school that can make us feel like this, but also education in general and life in general.
Roll on the day when we all realize that bringing up children includes teaching them how to love, take care of and value the preciousness they already are, and knowing how to express that with love and honouring of themselves and everyone else equally – and that this is how we relate to children and one another whether at school or at home.
Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’. And when we get older and start to work the same culture is found in the workplace we can always do better and so it goes on and on until we start to see and feel there is so much more than our achievements, that we are already everything and deserve love from each other without any conditions.
To be in the proximity of loved ones and feel their love in their movements seem to be two different things. Even when you were around your parents, they were not there so to speak. It makes me realize yet again how important loving presence is with and amongst each other. A look in the eye, a warm hug, all ways to acknowledge that we see, feel and love each other.
I start with the question of how can we get a better education by sending our children away… and there is the rub. Define education. Is it learning things out of textbooks, how to fit in, how to perform? That is the current model and with the increasing levels of dis-ease don’t think its working so well. Or is it about knowing ourselves inside and out, and having the confidence and presence to simply express that? Its certainly worth a try
There are aspects of education that are not taught in any school, such as our ancient origins, reincarnation, energy, only a false image of God which bears no resemblance to Truth, all those academic subjects that are tested to the limit and often bear little resemblance to what we need in the workplace. Some schools make an effort to teach team working and leadership but the emphasis is on doing well not the quality of our being.
We currently educate ourselves and our kids without understanding how life truly works and so how can we possibly have true education if we don’t understand the basics about life?
Education can bring a lot to a person, if we educate our children the way it was done by Pythagoras life would be very, very different right now. We would be much more aware, decent human beings. There is greed, there is selfishness, everybody looks out for themselves, not truly caring about another person. It is crucial that teachers live and are an example of what it is to live with integrity, respect, practice self-care and consideration for others for this is how children learn and bring those habits in their own lives.
Recently, and incredibly wise and intelligent woman posed the possibility to me, that true parenting is in offering a child an education in establishing standards. As it is these standards which could potentially stay with that child forever, and which could potentially support them throughout their life. Standards which are about love, respect, connection, intimacy and tender care. These are things which essentially cannot be taught anywhere else, and yet they are the fundamental building blocks for life, and ultimately society as it is what we live at home that we bring out to the world. So, what happens when a child does not have this kind of education and is sent to boarding school? And what kind of a society does this create?
There are no standards that are attainable in the current education system as they are always peaked at levels that don’t support the student to appreciate what they have to offer within. When we set standards that come from the outer we are far from heading in the direction of true education for all.
I watch my three year old niece and she is just a bundle of joy, she naturally knows God because like all young children she knows him in her heart.
Soon she will be going to school and whole new life awaits, I would love to see schools that did not foster comparison and competition for it does nothing to enhance the love that is already so naturally there.
So many people I have listened to, especially in my parent’s generation who have spoken about the way boarding school had left them feeling have spoken about some type of trauma experience. When we are love, and come from love and don’t have this reflected back to us, whether from a cold boarding school environment or from parents who don’t demonstrate their love openly can be very hurtful.
Wow, 60 years of wounds and I love that you share it has been deliberate healing that has helped you not time. We build coping mechanisms to deal with things that happen to us in our youth and the simple things like letting our children know how much we love and appreciate them can fall by the wayside.
Comparison and competition is such a drain on our body systems because we are striving to beat another rather than work to a common goal. I did not appreciate the value of that till I stopped being competitive myself and realised what amazing things we could achieve as a team.
Comparison is an insidious evil, I still catch myself comparing and it effectively squashes me as I think that what someone else presents is going to be far better than anything I can present and it stops me in my tracks. Almost a deliberate plot to prevent my full expression and I get sucked right in.
So sad that at such a young age we are encouraged to compare and compete, as a society we are a long way of grasping the fact of how deeply harming this is to oneself and to one’s community.
“what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” A school report that said’ he/she is open and loving with all’ should be the required qualification for the university of life.
When we send kids away to school are we saying that we want someone else to bring them up? That is the key question for me.. and whether that is because one thinks the school will do a better job, or life is too busy, or a myriad of other reasons… no matter which way you look at it its a lost opportunity on a grand scale.
The level of responsibility that goes with parenting is often sold as ‘too hard’ or ‘too challenging’. What is on offer is the growth of one another when we bring it back to basics.
“what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” children need the tender loving care of their parents, so that as part of their learning they can know what love is, and then bring loving care for themselves and others all as precious human beings.
I have spoken with so many who say they will raise their children this or that way cause their parents did not give them this or that and out of reaction they want to do it differently. In this frame of mind few realise that in this reaction we are offering our children naught in love and true care.
I was observing the news that said small refugee children in America were being separated from their parents and remembered that, when my daughter was small I learned how important the first five years of a child’s life are, and felt guilty that I had gone back to work when my children were so small (4-6 months old). Apart from families where there is abuse, we do not really understand the importance of the close family relationship and how much it supports children with confidence later in life.
I was teaching once in a school in England where incredibly wealthy people sent the kids… And they sent them away at the age of three!
Whilst I may have got a ‘good’ academic education at boarding school I certainly did not learn about expressing in a loving way and everyone being celebrated for the amazing people they were. Education has become very narrowly defined by what pupils achieve rather than how well rounded they are as people. I certainly feel that 7 years spent at boarding school took many years to recover from and let go of the many layers of protection that I had build up in my efforts to never reveal my vulnerability for fear that someone would take advantage of it.
‘Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’.’ We buy into this idea that there is something that we need to correct even, that ‘they’ know better’ and that the answers all lie outside ourselves when in truth we have all the answers we will ever need right inside our bodies. We can begin to lose trust in ourselves from a very early age and then we cannot trust anyone else either. It’s awesome though that it doesn’t have to always be this way and that at any age we can turn the tide and reconnect to ourselves and all the wisdom and loveliness that we are.
“Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder” This is super sad Carmel and unfortunately so true, when we are taught we are already everything and super amazing we are supporting young people to grow in knowing of who they are what else is there to achieve when you know without doubt that God lives within you.
Yes we can let go of all our striving to achieve x, y or z in order to be seen as being successful etc and in that there is space to evolve as we are not constrained by worrying about what others think of us etc which is so draining.
I remember that – always trying, trying, trying and its a pattern that has carried on into adult life. Better to learn that we are already enough… that would be a much more healthy education.
“what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” Education has failed if it stops us from being and sharing the love that we are.
It is beautiful you point out the importance of love in our upbringing and everywhere in life really. It prevents us from loathing ourselves and it supports us to know who we are and feel confident in that. It is also great to know this is never too late and any time in our lives we can start this by loving ourselves, through self-care and self-love.
We could learn a thing or two from children if we stopped and appreciated how they are naturally. Instead, we do not see the value of them and see them as having childish ways and at times an inconvenience.
The one thing I noticed was the lack of love when I grew up and doing that in a confined environment like a boarding school may be much worse.
When we are children we can feel intensely that something is not right but many of us think is it us who are wrong. There is of course nothing ‘wrong’ just parents who don’t know any better, who have perhaps not felt love themselves and so it goes on from generation to love-less generation. Thank God for Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine who has shown so many of us that the love is still there inside all of us and all we have to do is reconnect and allow it to be felt.
“If someone expresses their love and appreciation of me, I often find it hard to accept, not really believing it to be true.” These situations have really had me rattled recently, not because of the appreciation but from the non accepting that I am worth appreciating. Yet my mind will claim that I am not lovely but that doesn’t make sense to the rest of me.
The boarding school experience might seem extreme but to me it’s just a clear and accurate picture of how our current education system works. We push away children from their natural warmth as if this is a necessary part of growing up – it is not. Thank you Carmel for this beautiful blog.
You make a great point Joseph, just as birds push their young out of the nest, some parents think that’s how we should be with our children to toughen them up for life. Yes they need support and encouragement to stand on their own two feet, but not before they are ready and always with love.
Yes, doing that at age 6, as some do, seems to be in most cases a bad mistake.
We certainly miss a huge gap in education when we make it all about the mental. Your experience highlights how we have a society where it has become about the best knowledge rather than supporting children to have a much more holistic form of education. It also shows up what we can support our kids with – where we can encourage them to share how they feel and not hold back and not hold on.