The Cult of Boarding Schools

Grab your trusty #2 and find the desk with your name tag on it, because class is in session this week at Sounds Like a Cult! Our /pedagogically inclined/ episodes are always RIPE with juicy insight, and today’s topic is no different. Be it Hogwarts or Pacific Coast Academy, boarding schools have long shrouded themselves in an air of mystery and exclusivity that has most recently led to a culture-wide obsession with the Dark Academia genre. But is this intrigue secretly supporting a sinister institution? What culty rituals and traditions lie behind the plaid and ivy? Let’s find out! Amanda and Chelsea are thrilled to be joined by the wonderful Ceara O’Sullivan from the Petty Crimes podcast to discover what lurks within boarding schools' hallowed (culty) halls.

[@lauralarosa.]

I love this podcast ordinarily but this episode was so awkward to listen to. It felt very much like this was Amanda's show and that Chelsea was just someone in the background. It was disappointing that Chelsea's point about the roots of these institutions concerning Indigenous children being rooted in colonisation was completely brushed over by Amanda as I feel like this was such an important theme that could have underpinned a much richer discussion throughout. As a listener, I wanted to hear more from Chelsea and I wanted to feel like she was an equal co-host, but I felt like her perspective was cut off and dominated over, and more than once. As a First Nations woman from Australia, I felt deeply uncomfortable and frustrated sitting through this.

[@aricurtis1365]

“The cult of colonialism,” as Chelsea put it, is a perfect way to describe it. I find that white people are okay with the broad strokes of systemic oppression but uncomfortable with the details.