“We don’t talk about college” is the boast of VanDamme Academy, a small private school in southern California, writes Lisa VanDamme. Competing for a slot at an elite college kills the love of learning, she believes.
We talk about how fascinating it is to be able to orient yourself using the stars in the sky, or to tell time with a shadow; we talk about what is truly miraculous about the climactic scene in “The Miracle Worker,” or how beautiful a metaphor the rebirth of the secret garden is for the reawakened souls of the children; we talk about how crucial it is to understand how the world fell into the Dark Ages and how it was spectacularly reborn. We don’t talk about college.
Speakers in a variety of fields discuss “their path to and passion for their careers,” writes VanDamme. It’s rarely the result of a “grand plan.”
Thomas Edison once said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” People who find those careers-they-didn’t-plan still work hard chasing and fulfilling opportunities as they present themselves. We want to stress the importance of pursuing your values with passion and energy as a means to your career end, even though you might not know what that end will be.
“The goal of education is not résumé-building for college admission,” she writes. It’s not vocational training either.
The goal of education is, in the beautiful words of the very educated John Adams, “to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue.”
Her school has a no-homework policy, though students are expected to read at home. Children learn academics at school from their teachers and have time after school “to rest, play, spend time with family and pursue personal interests.”
