Thursday, June 12, 2008

The Last Day of School

That relentless rhythm of the school year has finally wound itself round to summer...tomorrow is the last day of school. The students decided to largely forgo their classes to catch up on work, to fool around, swim in the creek, and plan for the next day's party.
It has been a long year filled with marvels. A transition year, really. Over the next few weeks I will lay out some of what we accomplished and some of what we plan for next year.

One of the odder things about the education biz is the question of how you evaluate what you are doing. Can we fairly judge a school on how a bunch of 18 year olds conduct themselves? I think not. For me, the test of our school will be these kids as they approach the age of 30...are they happy, learning new things, are they pushing themselves and taking chances?

What about the handful of kids who don't graduate or moved on to other schools? Many of them keep coming back to visit. Why?

We plant seeds, and seeds take time. Maybe what a student learns at TAS just isn't relevant to the conditions of her life until much later, then suddenly, here it is.

Sometimes a seed is dormant for a long, long time. Like this one. 2000 years old, and now it is sprouting. And I thought I was a late bloomer.

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