|
Do Linden girls have a social life &
fun?
The short answer is: yes. Linden can be
great fun. However, first and most importantly, Linden is
a girl-centred school with an academic focus that provides
each girl with an excellent education and helps develop her
full potential. But its mission and values also make Linden
a place where girls can play as well as learn. Most important,
they can be themselves, whether that means being serious or
silly, without being afraid of social repercussions from judgemental
teachers or peers.
A fully-rounded education requires that
girls have the chance to develop as social beings. They need
to acquire skills to get along with others, solve problems
in groups, find mentors, be mentors and bond with buddies.
There are not many schools in which girls
in every grade mingle freely; the primary and junior grades
can be friends with high school girls. This year's Grade 11's
invited younger high school students to share concert tickets
they'd been given as thanks for a charitable project, and
accompanied the younger girls at the event. The Grade 9's
and Grade 12's share a study hall and keep up a lively email
correspondence.
Intriguingly, one graduating student recently
observed that had she gone to a large high school, she would
have hung around with a half-dozen people just like herself,
and would never have come to know anybody who did not fit
in with that group. Whereas at Linden, she has no choice but
to get to know everybody in her class. "We are all completely
different, but we have learned to get along," she said.
"I never would have had an experience like this at any
other school."
Linden also organizes events that enable
the girls to meet students from other schools. Linden hosts
a Science Olympics in which teams of boys and girls from a
variety of Toronto's independent schools come to Linden for
a day of games. The school takes part in co-ed sports events
such as track and field meets, and academic ones such as public
speaking contests. The older classes host dances and invite
students from other independent schools; in most cases, those
schools reciprocate.
Moreover, most Linden girls have a network
of friends who attend other schools. When they are invited
to events at other schools, Linden students frequently take
classmates along with them. The girls seem to have as many
invitations as they want in the senior grades. Some have boyfriends,
but others are quite forthright about their priorities, and
say that they meet plenty of boys but right now, their education
and personal interests -- sports, music, theatre -- are more
important than dating.
Parents worry that small classes might encourage
cliques and exclusion of certain students. In fact, at Linden,
the opposite appears to be true. The girls are encouraged
to be welcoming and accepting; it is part of the school's
culture and it is actively -- and skillfully -- reinforced
by the teachers, guidance counsellors and co-principals.
Cliques do develop; children can be cruel.
Unlike schools that turn a blind eye to the subtle forms of
bullying common among adolescent girls, however, Linden has
its eyes wide open. It specializes in girls' developmental
issues, so teachers are fully prepared for their range of
good and bad behaviour. Any display or report of cruelty,
exclusion or teasing is met with early and decisive intervention.
Trained guidance staff keep an eye peeled for problems, and
maintain an open door policy for anyone who wishes to seek
help or talk.
This is augmented by Linden's "families",
the multi-aged groups to which each student is assigned when
she joins the school, and with which she remains until she
leaves. These family groupings give each girl a wider range
of social contact, and provide older friends and mentors who
tend to act as another source of social contact and support.
|
