what is the biggest diffenerence between sidwell and gds?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gds is super liberal and talked about different family structure every year since pre-K. Is Sidwell similar or less liberal?

Not sure I understand your question or accept your premise(s). Are you asking about same-sex families? If so, then yes. My kid has been at Sidwell for several years, and the topic of same-sex families and gets raised often in books or assemblies or other discussions. But at least as far as I've noticed, it's raised in just a passing way - for example one of the characters will have two moms.

I don't recall an assembly or intentional discussion in the younger grades that is focused on explicitly forcing children to acknowledge that same-sex relations are just as valid as others (and quite frankly, I think that would be a pretty awkward and ineffective teaching approach). Is that the comparison point you're trying to drive ... whether there are elementary school assemblies designed to preach a particular viewpoint on same-sex relationships?

I'm not sure I follow whee you're going, so forgive me if I've missed your point.

Also, as an IMHO aside, if you think young children growing up in this area need education about the validity and normalcy of same-sex relationships, then I think you're maybe missing what's going on around us. My kids and their friend seem to accept same-sex relations with a shrug and a "whatever," as just another crayon in the box. I think our generation as parents imbues them with a lot more context and significance (both positive and negative) than our kids do.

You can't simply assume that just because something's around us, that the kids will as a matter of fact be OK with it. Nurtureshock and studies since then have shown that if we as parents and teachers don't talk about things like race *directly* and address concretely that racism is wrong, then young children actually may in fact harbor racist views. I think that the same may well be true for gay parents and relationships. Just because you think they're OK, it doesn't mean that your children fully accept or understand it if you haven't actually talked about it. Parenting culture is overwhelmingly heteronormative. This is what our kids pick up from the larger culture. If you and/or the school doesn't address the fact that families come in all sorts of configurations--and that this is OK--then your kids might not actually know what to make of same-sex relationships.

At GDS, there is an assembly every spring that celebrates all the different types of families that are found at GDS--most kids do have straight married parents, but also assembly also recognizes families with single parents, blended families, and same-sex families. It's extremely moving, actually, to see kids and families feel so welcomed in the school, given that the rest of the world can be so hostile to children and their parents in non-traditional family arrangements.

This is so moving. In our family, we encourage our children to pursue healthy sexual relationships (age appropriate!) across the full spectrum of gender, so they are not pigeon holed and also, so they don't have cisgender privilege or at least don't feel the power of it.

Oh dear god.

Different family, but we also allow our children to pick *their* gender each year. It's very freeing.

[Anonymous]

We are a conservative, religious, traditional (two parent household, father, mother) GDS family and many families at the school, though not necessarily political conservatives like us, are often religious and/or traditional in structure. In fact I find that the same-sex couples maintain what you would call a fairly traditional family structure as well, often with religious traditions practiced at home. GDS is a very welcoming school to everyone, an excellent attribute and life example for its students, in my opinion.

I observe that some degree of trolling takes place on these threads during the applications season to paint the school as an environment in which social issues and political correctness dominate the discourse 24/7, when the truth is that GDS is first and foremost an excellent school with students who excel in math, humanities, science, arts, languages, social sciences, athletics, and a number of outside endeavors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have had experience with parents at all of the Big 3 Schools, having had children at several and friends at all of them. In my opinion - which I will not extrapolate to be a generalization or negative commentary about any of these parent communities - the GDS parents I know and/or have interacted with tend to be some of the more approachable, friendly, and relaxed people I have met in my long time in Washington, DC. This has been true even of the parents who are among the power players in this town. I find the GDS parents I know to be a community of very little pretense or overt status competition, and a lot of camaraderie.

Why don't they act that way when posting on DCUM?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are a conservative, religious, traditional (two parent household, father, mother) GDS family and many families at the school, though not necessarily political conservatives like us, are often religious and/or traditional in structure. In fact I find that the same-sex couples maintain what you would call a fairly traditional family structure as well, often with religious traditions practiced at home. GDS is a very welcoming school to everyone, an excellent attribute and life example for its students, in my opinion.

I observe that some degree of trolling takes place on these threads during the applications season to paint the school as an environment in which social issues and political correctness dominate the discourse 24/7, when the truth is that GDS is first and foremost an excellent school with students who excel in math, humanities, science, arts, languages, social sciences, athletics, and a number of outside endeavors.

Cisgender privilege- conforming gay families to her “superior” heteronorm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have had experience with parents at all of the Big 3 Schools, having had children at several and friends at all of them. In my opinion - which I will not extrapolate to be a generalization or negative commentary about any of these parent communities - the GDS parents I know and/or have interacted with tend to be some of the more approachable, friendly, and relaxed people I have met in my long time in Washington, DC. This has been true even of the parents who are among the power players in this town. I find the GDS parents I know to be a community of very little pretense or overt status competition, and a lot of camaraderie.

Why don't they act that way when posting on DCUM?

In my experience the posters from ANY school on these threads are not really representative of the general parent population at those schools. I love DCUM, but take what you read here with a grain of salt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a conservative, religious, traditional (two parent household, father, mother) GDS family and many families at the school, though not necessarily political conservatives like us, are often religious and/or traditional in structure. In fact I find that the same-sex couples maintain what you would call a fairly traditional family structure as well, often with religious traditions practiced at home. GDS is a very welcoming school to everyone, an excellent attribute and life example for its students, in my opinion.

I observe that some degree of trolling takes place on these threads during the applications season to paint the school as an environment in which social issues and political correctness dominate the discourse 24/7, when the truth is that GDS is first and foremost an excellent school with students who excel in math, humanities, science, arts, languages, social sciences, athletics, and a number of outside endeavors.

Cisgender privilege- conforming gay families to her “superior” heteronorm.

More of said trolling. It is so distasteful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have had experience with parents at all of the Big 3 Schools, having had children at several and friends at all of them. In my opinion - which I will not extrapolate to be a generalization or negative commentary about any of these parent communities - the GDS parents I know and/or have interacted with tend to be some of the more approachable, friendly, and relaxed people I have met in my long time in Washington, DC. This has been true even of the parents who are among the power players in this town. I find the GDS parents I know to be a community of very little pretense or overt status competition, and a lot of camaraderie.

Why don't they act that way when posting on DCUM?

In my experience the posters from ANY school on these threads are not really representative of the general parent population at those schools. I love DCUM, but take what you read here with a grain of salt.

Meaning the GDS parents who post here are more competitive and combative than the norm you see at the school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a conservative, religious, traditional (two parent household, father, mother) GDS family and many families at the school, though not necessarily political conservatives like us, are often religious and/or traditional in structure. In fact I find that the same-sex couples maintain what you would call a fairly traditional family structure as well, often with religious traditions practiced at home. GDS is a very welcoming school to everyone, an excellent attribute and life example for its students, in my opinion.

I observe that some degree of trolling takes place on these threads during the applications season to paint the school as an environment in which social issues and political correctness dominate the discourse 24/7, when the truth is that GDS is first and foremost an excellent school with students who excel in math, humanities, science, arts, languages, social sciences, athletics, and a number of outside endeavors.

Cisgender privilege- conforming gay families to her “superior” heteronorm.

More of said trolling. It is so distasteful.

As is your hate speech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have had experience with parents at all of the Big 3 Schools, having had children at several and friends at all of them. In my opinion - which I will not extrapolate to be a generalization or negative commentary about any of these parent communities - the GDS parents I know and/or have interacted with tend to be some of the more approachable, friendly, and relaxed people I have met in my long time in Washington, DC. This has been true even of the parents who are among the power players in this town. I find the GDS parents I know to be a community of very little pretense or overt status competition, and a lot of camaraderie.

Why don't they act that way when posting on DCUM?

In my experience the posters from ANY school on these threads are not really representative of the general parent population at those schools. I love DCUM, but take what you read here with a grain of salt.

Meaning the GDS parents who post here are more competitive and combative than the norm you see at the school?

Meaning that ALL PRIVATE SCHOOLS' parents who post here are more competitive and combative than the norm you are at ANY PRIVATE SCHOOL. Again, I love DCUM, but its posters (myself included) are not exactly a representative population of these private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a conservative, religious, traditional (two parent household, father, mother) GDS family and many families at the school, though not necessarily political conservatives like us, are often religious and/or traditional in structure. In fact I find that the same-sex couples maintain what you would call a fairly traditional family structure as well, often with religious traditions practiced at home. GDS is a very welcoming school to everyone, an excellent attribute and life example for its students, in my opinion.

I observe that some degree of trolling takes place on these threads during the applications season to paint the school as an environment in which social issues and political correctness dominate the discourse 24/7, when the truth is that GDS is first and foremost an excellent school with students who excel in math, humanities, science, arts, languages, social sciences, athletics, and a number of outside endeavors.

Cisgender privilege- conforming gay families to her “superior” heteronorm.

It is the superior norm. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, both here on DCUM and in real life, a number of GDS parents carry a chip on their shoulders and constantly look for ways to tell everyone around them how much better GDS is than other area schools. Parents I know from Sidwell exhibit more confidence. I'd like to think that difference is just one between parents, and is not reflected in the students too, but know more parents than students. As far as I can tell, GDS is a very good school, so I'm not sure why the GDS parents act that way.

It's DCUM so I'm fairly sure some GDS parent will attack me for expressing this opinion. But I'm pretty confident this difference I've observed over many years and many people is not my imagination.

To repeat, this is not a criticism of GDS, but rather an observation about how some GDS parents conduct themselves.

I completely agree with this.

[Anonymous]

One thing both schools have in common is having teachers arrested in the past year for sexual assault of a student. Feel free to discuss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, both here on DCUM and in real life, a number of GDS parents carry a chip on their shoulders and constantly look for ways to tell everyone around them how much better GDS is than other area schools. Parents I know from Sidwell exhibit more confidence. I'd like to think that difference is just one between parents, and is not reflected in the students too, but know more parents than students. As far as I can tell, GDS is a very good school, so I'm not sure why the GDS parents act that way.

It's DCUM so I'm fairly sure some GDS parent will attack me for expressing this opinion. But I'm pretty confident this difference I've observed over many years and many people is not my imagination.

To repeat, this is not a criticism of GDS, but rather an observation about how some GDS parents conduct themselves.

I completely agree with this.

Correct

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have had experience with parents at all of the Big 3 Schools, having had children at several and friends at all of them. In my opinion - which I will not extrapolate to be a generalization or negative commentary about any of these parent communities - the GDS parents I know and/or have interacted with tend to be some of the more approachable, friendly, and relaxed people I have met in my long time in Washington, DC. This has been true even of the parents who are among the power players in this town. I find the GDS parents I know to be a community of very little pretense or overt status competition, and a lot of camaraderie.

Posters have expressed different opinions on the parents, and outside of immersing oneself in a school's community it is difficult to get a representative sample from which to make generalizations or draw accurate conclusions. If we focus on the education, which is what is most important to the students, GDS, Sidwell, and NCS/STA all appear to be excellent schools with their respective share of strong teachers, talented students, rich program offerings, awards, and accolades. And of note the students at all of these schools appear to be a generally confident, happy, well-adjusted group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, both here on DCUM and in real life, a number of GDS parents carry a chip on their shoulders and constantly look for ways to tell everyone around them how much better GDS is than other area schools. Parents I know from Sidwell exhibit more confidence. I'd like to think that difference is just one between parents, and is not reflected in the students too, but know more parents than students. As far as I can tell, GDS is a very good school, so I'm not sure why the GDS parents act that way.

It's DCUM so I'm fairly sure some GDS parent will attack me for expressing this opinion. But I'm pretty confident this difference I've observed over many years and many people is not my imagination.

To repeat, this is not a criticism of GDS, but rather an observation about how some GDS parents conduct themselves.

I completely agree with this.

Correct

Definitely true. GDS parents are tying to convince someone of something. Probably themselves.