It looks obvious

A friend of mine asked me to use this blog as an opportunity the tell a positive story, the story about the school choice they made. Here is her story: 

Apparently, New Jersey has one of the best public school systems in the country.  That was somewhat comforting since my husband and I had moved to the state from New York City a few years before and now had a child rapidly approaching school age.  Also, I must admit there was the anticipated satisfaction of getting something in return for the outrageous property taxes we had been paying – a full half of which went to our local elementary school.  We then did next what most New Jersey parents do who are obsessed with getting the best education for their children.  We went to an “open house” at the public school.

The first impression we experienced, somewhat bizarrely, was the “institutional” smell of the place, which brought back a flood of memories from adolescence.  What is it about public schools, prisons and hospitals that they all have this smell, generating a feeling of capture and control?  This thing that makes you invariably yearn to escape?  Perhaps it is the fact that though they are designed for human beings, there is the distinct alienating air of inhumanity about them.  I digress.  Be that as it may, after about five minutes my husband and I both realized this was not going particularly well, but we were putting on a brave face. Then we all filed into the large gymnasium to hear presentations by the principal and faculty we were looking forward to reassurance.

The first thing the principal spoke about is how the school is fulfilling numerous policies of the NJ Department of Education.  Their priorities were quite obvious and, to me, horrifying.  We went home afloat in the sea of diffuse anxiety and vague helplessness—how can we send our child to a place that is there for children in name only, that does not care about their individuality, their humanity, and puts bureaucratic barriers between possibly well-meaning teachers and their students?  We began to look at private schools and came across a web site of a small school near Princeton—finding it felt like finding firm ground in the midst of a morass.  The name of the school was Princeton Latin Academy.
            If I had to encapsulate in one word my feelings toward my 6-year old son’s school, Princeton Latin Academy (PLA), I would have to say:  Gratitude.  I am grateful that there is a place where the educational goal is for the children to become aware of their own uniqueness and humanity and thus to value individual freedom as a supreme virtue.  Princeton Latin Academy truly values each child as an individual, but this does not mean that children are pandered to—such pandering would deprive them of growth and development, stunt them, or encourage the kind of growth that one may expect of fertilized weeds.

The means by which Francesco Perrulli, PLA founder and headmaster, reaches for and nurtures what is best in each child’s soul is Classical Education that immerses children in the rich world of mythology, music, art, science, and language.  The children are empowered by being taught English and Math in a manner that produces long-lasting, confident mastery.  Consistent with its mission, PLA certainly marches to the beat of its own drum, and I have to admit that I have wondered, as I walked into the late-afternoon organized chaos of the school:  “Is my child learning as much as he ought to?  This all seems a bit loose-goosy.”  The answer is YES, both on the superficial level of, in the 1st grade, obtaining 2nd or 3rd grade test scores on a widely used standardized test, and on the deeper level of character formation.  It is the latter that I will now address.

Princeton Latin Academy is not there to impose external structures and mold the child into an obedient little drone.  PLA’s goal appears to me to be to create internal structure and discipline:  the intellectual and spiritual backbone that will ensure that children will continue to demand and expect a lot of themselves.  It will also ensure that they have empathy for others as they realize our relatedness in universal humanity.  This solid internal structure (one may call it character) will allow the children, as they reach adulthood, to be aware of who they are and to be reflective and critical about fulfilling expectations placed on them by society, lest they tarnish what was so carefully built during their formative years.  This, to me, is the definition of freedom.

Perhaps a perfect embodiment of the school’s goals and methods is the yearly opera production.  It is based on a work of literature chosen by the headmaster; some examples include Tom Sawyer, Vanity Fair, Daniel Deronda, Ramayana, and Don Quixote.  It is the children who create the opera, with the help and guidance of the teachers.  The children write the libretto and, together with the music teacher, choose music for the opera.  The whole school (including six and seven-year olds) participates in every aspect of putting together a three-hour long performance.  The PLA operas are always beautiful externalizations of the children’s inner development and, at their best, are works of art.