She became an Armed Robber!!
A true story was told me “close to home”, of Nene(real name withheld), a Boarding school graduate of a prestigious school in the country.
Most of her school mates if not all, are in high standing positions in their different fields, minus Nene.
She was a clearly troubled child. A handful of teachers and principals alike.
Apparently one day she threatened the Vice Principal that if he didn’t give her an exit card, she would steal.
The story has it that Nene came away with that exit card just as she said she would( mind you, exit cards had been banned for that season and not one other girl was granted one).
Then she came last in class constantly for 6 years.
The child was daring as hell, feared no one and evidently got a thrill from mischief. Constantly!
For SSCE, we heard she made paper airplanes with nos 1-50 written right across and flew the airplanes to people she hoped would pen down the answers for her, and fly the airplanes back, hopefully.
No one paid her mind (at least that’s what we heard).
She did it with such dexterity apparently, that no examiner found her out.
Clearly, crime was “sport” for this child.
Add that to the fact that she was a bit of a ‘loner’ too.
Forward to many years later, she got into University somehow to study Law, and just as people were elated for her turn in the right direction, News came that she’d been caught in armed robbery and the pictures were arraigned in the Newspapers.
My take;
Her parents saw it coming and ignored it.
They left it to the school.
What was a child like that doing in boarding school??!!
She obviously needed close supervision and though the school was excellent for most of us, that sort of setting wasn’t for a highly inquisitive, highly impressionable, highly daring child, like Nene.
It depends on each child, bearing in mind, so and so factors.
All other things being equal like facilities, I’ll have to ask questions like;
• What is the child’s preferred learning style since his style may be more enabled at home than at a boarding school.
• Does the child have any pending incidence of emotional trauma, for which he/she still needs close counsel and may yet need to be weaned properly off his/her parents; in other words, child isn’t yet emotionally ready for the separation(different strokes for different folks).
• What’s the system for resident ‘pastora’l care? Does the school even care beyond their four walls, and academics ?
• How poised is the school in question, to receive its new intakes? What’s their programme of induction, policies for childcare cum pseudo parenting, etc. How comfortable and settled will the child be? How will the boarding experience improve child’s learning?
• How about ‘hidden curriculum’, that is, those habits and things students learn by default from their mates, that isn’t necessarily part of the curriculum? What’s the school’s tolerance level for bad behaviour for instance and their policy for discipline? What is allowed and what isn’t?
God bless and good luck with your choices.