You went to Taft back in the early 2000s.
The interview was edited for length and clarity. James spoke to Giulia Heyward, a reporter who frequently covers education, about her experiences as a student - and whether she’d ever send a child of her own to boarding school. The school “has changed and improved significantly over the past 16 years,” a spokeswoman said.
Taft’s administration, which said it was “proud whenever a graduate authors a successful book,” is still contending with its history and practices, decades later. Over time, she was able to make friends with other students of color, who became her allies. It didn’t matter that her father also went to Taft, James couldn’t seem to fit in. She was the girl who never got a “crush can,” a school tradition, from an admirer. She was the girl who was all but ignored by her white roommate. When James first arrived as a freshman, she was determined to make friends with white students - but nothing really worked out. And in “Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School,” James gives readers a firsthand account of what it was like to stick out. She was a rarity: In 2003, James became the first Black legacy student at the Taft School, an elite preparatory academy in Connecticut. When some people meet Kendra James, they have a hard time believing she really went to boarding school.
0 kommentar(er)
