School portraits / Student life, 2025–2026
A reputation for coffee will not feed anyone
Commonwealth's Jake, class of 2026, on teasing, grapefruit and the shared work of Hancock.
Jake, class of 2026, was a senior at Commonwealth, in Boston, when he talked with the school in October 2025. His friends, he said, call him pretentious because he likes coffee. I sympathize. Show one sign of taste and people start picturing a linen napkin.
His counterargument is grapefruit. He cuts it open and eats it the way you would an orange, then told his friends that the spoon users were the fancy ones. I’d call that a win.
Commonwealth has a place where a reputation for taste must meet a stove. Twice a year, the whole school leaves Boston for a lakeside camp known as Hancock. Student cooks plan what everyone will eat.
I like that the planning comes first. A parent might assume camp dinner simply appears, like weather. Here it begins as a student's job, before anyone boards a bus.
Jake says he feels closest to the community at Hancock when the weather turns rough, or when a kitchen crew can see a hard meal ahead. What he names is the part where they get through it side by side.
The school's own description of the camp adds that students and teachers chat easily while they share the labor of keeping the weekend going. I imagine a parent finding that reassuring. The adult nearby is another pair of hands, not an examiner.
At the stove, I suspect, nobody is asking who seems most refined. The only question is whether supper is closer to ready than it was ten minutes ago.