There's a lot to be done. But I remain undaunted. I am willing to do whatever it takes to establish this model of excellence in the Lake Worth community. Are we returning to an "old-style" of education? Well, yes. In a way. We are going to reintroduce the rigor, the in-depth study of history and the high standards that were hallmarks of public education in America until around the 1940s.
But what is old will be new again.
I just came across this lovely poem by T.S. Eliot, which applies to this return to a classical education:
We shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
I went out exploring. In college I read Jonathan Kozol, Lawrence Cremin and Diane Ravitch, went to Russia and taught in a school there, worked in Washington, worked in New York, where I taught New York City public school children and witnessed Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ambitious effort to break up large, failing schools and support charter schools. I had a child, read everything I could find time to read about Maria Montessori and her profound observations about early childhood, about Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf schools and about the Reggio Emila method. I thought about homeschooling, and unschooling, and sometimes thought, "Wouldn't it be better to just take my child abroad?" But in the end I ended up at "The Well-Trained Mind" and fell in love with classical education. I believe it to be the absolute best educational model, and the best curriculum to produce broad-thinking, well-read, rational and courageous adults who are prepared to carry out the American experiment in self-government.
