Each state of the United States has hundreds of different schools.
These schools include public and private institutions of varying size and
culture. For many, going to one school is a gift. I am fortunate enough
to have attended 2 schools in different parts of the country. Fairfield
College Prep in Connecticut was my school of choice for my freshman and
sophomore years. Jesuit College Prep turned out to be my final High School
for my remaining 2 years. Although Fairfield College Prep and Jesuit
College Prep seem similar in many ways, they are really very different.
Fairfield Prep and Jesuit Prep are both Jesuit affiliated schools.
Several Jesuit teachers are spread out amongst classes taught at each
school. These Jesuit influences, of both schools, follow the main goal to
teach the students and attempt to make learning interesting, while keeping
a Christian attitude in all that they teach. Both schools are private
institutions, which the Jesuit community leads. This Jesuit community in
each school requires a strict dress code of a tie, shirt, slacks, and nice
shoes. This dress code is active for all the 800 student bodies of each
school. Both student bodies consist only of boys ranging from about 14-18
years of age.
However, the environment of each school are very different. Jesuit
Prep provides a warm learning environment by vividly decorating each wall
throughout the school with paintings and works of art to share culture with
the student body. Fairfield Prep students must look at the usual drab
colors of an off-white based paint that showers the walls of each main
building. Each building of Fairfield contains hundreds of lockers, each
with a lock protecting each locker. Fairfield’s padlock security scheme
does not exist within the Jesuit Prep community, as each locker is bare
with no locks or locking devices anywhere in sight.
As the environments are different, the overall attitude of both schools
is different, too. Fairfield Prep encourages a strict follow-the-teacher
approach to teaching where the students must learn all from the teacher and
expressions of their ideas are discouraged. Jesuit stresses an open
atmosphere that encourages a cooperative atmosphere where the students
learn with the teachers and the students are able to discuss classwork, or
even socially with the teachers after school. This open atmosphere leads
to more personal freedom for the students, as they pursue their own
thoughts and ideas at Jesuit Prep. These thoughts and ideas encouraged at
Jesuit Prep are challenged in more difficult courses taken by all the
students. The curriculum of Jesuit Prep requires students to study and
read more literature books and novels.
These differences of Jesuit Prep and Fairfield Prep show that two
schools which seem very much alike, are really very different. Many
private schools across Texas and Connecticut share similar properties, yet
they each have their own distinguishing features. The United States has
many schools, but none of them are exactly the same as another. Any
school, no matter where it is located, has it’s own unique background,
which truly makes the experience of learning at more than one school, a
gift.
