Visited Beauvoir - was completely underwhelmed

[Anonymous]

PP, if you are happy with the strawberries that you get in Washington in December, then hey, who am I to insult your taste? But you can't possibly think (I hope) that they taste like beautiful, perfect, fresh-picked May/ June strawberries that come from a farm less than 50 miles away, as opposed to being shipped to you all the way from California or some other remote site. Just because we "can" do this... because we have all of this wonderful technology... doesn't mean that the strawberries that you get are up to quality standards.

How did we get so far off topic?

[Anonymous]

P.S. The true fruits of December are citrus fruits. These, you might have noticed, pack, ship and travel much better than do delicate strawberries.

[Anonymous]

Are you pp's trying to hurt OP or the subsequent posts that might have upset you?

[Anonymous]

After the tour I felt overwhelmed with sadness.

Sadness, knowing that the odds were very much against my DC getting in.

Sadess, thinking that if all the children had such a lovely place to go to school, the world would be a much better place.

[Anonymous]

And people wonder why there is such a mystique surrounding Beauvoir.

Come on, PP, aren't you being a bit dramatic? Your DC will survive not going to a school as lovely as Beauvoir, as will the vast majority of equally-deserving children in this city.

[Anonymous]

About the arts of children looking alike, I think I have an answer: the art teacher often finishes for the children. One day I saw it personally when I picked up my DC in a preschool in MC.

[Anonymous]

I told my son's preschool teacher that I didn't care one bit if he didn't want to do the arts and craft activity offered that day. When he does decide to do one, I know it means something to him. She said that I was in the minority since most other parents comment at pick-up if there ISN'T an art project coming home w/ the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:About the arts of children looking alike, I think I have an answer: the art teacher often finishes for the children. One day I saw it personally when I picked up my DC in a preschool in MC.

LOL!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, maybe you should think about comparing the DC private schools to the DC publics. This might be why so many make a big deal of the big 4. In MC and FC, the publics look a lot like the privates so there is little oooh and aaah as you see in DC.

My Bethesda public looks nothing like the privates.

[Anonymous]

Was not really referring to aesthetics, but academics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
How did we get so far off topic?

We're not off topic at all. The OP prompted a discussion about whether statements like "I was underwhelmed by Beauvoir" are primarily subjective. Some PPs used restaurants and food as a parallel, which prompted others to come back and argue that it is in fact possible to make objective statements about food: for example, that a summer tomato picked from your garden is better than a December tomato picked several days ago and shipped to you from California.

There are at least two observations that can be made on this score. First, the fact that most people would agree with a statement doesn't mean it isn't subjective. Second, the objections that the OP had about Beavoir can, I think, be distilled to a sense of uniformity--be it in the kids' artwork, in the appearance of the mothers, or in the classroom (is there a slavish devotion to the curriculum map that prevents a more flexible teaching approach?)--that he or she found unsettling. To my mind, these concerns are much more similar to "there was too much tarragon in the sauce" or "the waitstaff was a bit overbearing" than they are to "the shellfish were spoiled" or "there was lipstick on my wineglass." In other words, they were all statements where it would not be unnatural to include the words "To my taste," at the outset. Either the scallaps were spoiled or they weren't. But at what point is there objectively too much tarragon?

[Anonymous]

PP, this is excellent. Thank you.

Are you a lawyer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP, this is excellent. Thank you.

Are you a lawyer?

I hope you meant that in a nice way!

In any case, no, I'm not.

[Anonymous]

OP did you decide to visit Beauvoir again?

[Anonymous]

In defense of Beauvoir art: our daughters loved art and loved the art teachers. They did a great job. In PK & K it was more about enthusiasm, I think. In 1st-3rd, they would look at several examples (e.g. of Impressionism or a self-portrait), and be guided through technique ideas before they tried it themselves. They learned tricks - real ones, like the eyes go halfway down the face, and the ears end where the mouth is. The tasks were broken into smaller pieces, which helped. (But it might be why you felt there was a uniformity to some of it.) I have to say the kids were surprised at the quality of their own work. It's been a lasting contribution: they loved art at Beauvoir enough to request birthday parties with the art teacher, and they still draw for fun. We couldn't have provided that level of instruction (or enthusiasm), so Beauvoir gets the credit. As for those curriculum maps: in the Spring, the art projects are linked to Global Studies, so they are related to the continent/country/region the child is studying (clay elephants for Thailand, sled dogs for Alaska).