2012 Spring, New England, USA

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The 3rd school we visited was the Taft School. The visit started in the cafeteria where we had breakfast with students and some faculties. The school has 4 or 5 dinner halls like the one in the picture, for the 500 or so students and the supporting faculties.

One thing we noticed was they there is no tray in the dinner hall. The idea is that if trays were available, people tend to take more food, end up wasting more food and eating too much (and getting fat.)

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Again, the school has a purpose built math & science building. This building was donated by the Hong Kong businessman Gordon Wu, in the name of his wife Lady Wu. I think all of Wu's 3 children attended Taft. Again, the classes we saw were all very small with 10 or less students.

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The library at the Taft School. This library still has physical paper books. It's very nice and comfy. Good to have very large endowment funds. Throughout the campus, there are many space where students can sit down quietly, read or do homework.

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The school mascot. The horns are shiny, because many people rub the horns for good luck, especially for sporting events.

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The school's sports facilities are just amazing - for 500+ students and faculties, they have 16 tennis courts, 8 squash courts (5 training one in the following picture plus 3 competition grade courts), 2 hockey rinks, 6 basketball courts (4 training one plus 2 NBA look-like courts,) etc... On the top floor are weight lifting room, next to the basketball court a rock climbing facility.

And the school also has a 18-hole golf course which I did not get the chance to see.

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Many of the school buildings are around this pond. Apparently this year the weather is too warm for the pond to be frozen enough to skate.

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The picture on top is the student activity room, the pictures at the bottom is the faculty room.

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In the hallways of the main building. The place was like a maze to me...

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In the theater (or was it one of the theaters?) a student photographer (on the right) was trying different angles and lighting effect with the subject on the left. Maybe one of the classes on photography?

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In this picture is the MAC (M-something Academic Center) - where students get extra support, like help on organization skills, study techniques, or help for students with ADD, etc... It looked like a den for some of the students.