Reprint from the 'Linda Christas Faculty Comments' web blog:
http://lindachristascf.blogspot.com/
To: LaTracy Renner
From: Dwight Hanover, Student Counselor, Linda Christas
This is in response to your e-mail to me asking for input regarding what I
as a Linda Christas counselor have noticed in the LC methods that make a
difference in terms of the kinds of issues I am asked to address with
parents and students.
I have to say that one thing that impressed me when I first came over from
a tax sup****ted school (and continues to impress) about Linda Christas
students and their parents is their thoughtful level of interaction with
each other and with the School. That is, when working in other schools,
students and adults seemed to be leading relatively frantic lives (I am
generalizing here), and on average were challenged to sit still or follow
any conversation through to deeper levels of meaning. This was so I
believe, not because they were incapable (I believe genius is as common as
sand in the United States). It was so in my view because American
education and society generally have made it a point to purposefully
choreograph settings that are both aurally and visually chaotic, which
leave no time for individuals to do much but attempt to cope.
There was really never a time when the students I worked with at the
public school had the option of solitude that is necessary to follow
through with ideas. A person needs to take as long as is required to reach
the intellectual mountaintop they are climbing toward.
As a consequence of the chaos in the public system, I frankly didn't see
many, if any, students reaching far in the name of personal intellectual
or emotional growth.
This need for quiet and solitude was clearly present in the lives of all
of history's great citizens, scientists, artists and inventors.
Albert Einstein confined himself for weeks in his study alone while
formulating his theories of relativity, and his good wife ran "do not
disturb" interference for "the good doctor."
Thomas Edison was known for his diligence working alone on some of his
greatest inventions, with food being brought to him that lay untouched.
The Wright brothers refused to partake of the instruction being offered by
the state, preferring to work alone and follow their private inspirations.
Happily their parents were fully sup****tive of their personal preferences
in terms of education.
Great thinkers like Emmanuel Kant, Rene Descartes, and Arthur
Schopenhauer; great authors (my opinion) George Sand, Robert Browning,
Dylan Thomas et al, frankly stated during their lives that societal noise
was contrary to the evolution of spirit. Sand and Browning worked alone
during the night when human cacophony had subsided in order to be able to
produce their greatest work. Dylan Thomas was terribly dysfunctional when
not alone writing his poetry.
More and more, we as a Nation are being forced to im****t talent. (For
example, Microsoft is lobbying Congress to substantially expand their
ability to im****t intellectually depthful people…. the sixty to
seventy thousand foreign nationals per year that are currently recruited
for businesses like Microsoft are not sufficient to fill the need of
American companies.)
Most of our high school and college graduates in the United States are
several years behind the accomplishments of foreign nationals of the same
age. (As an aside, it would be unconscionable for many Asian families to
have their young spend any time at all working for minimum wage during
high school. Their philosophy is that education comes first and foremost,
and hanging out with friends at the mall, and spending all of their money
there is not on the agenda. As a result, American businesses can't wait
for these Asian kids to graduate from high school and college. They know
twice as much as the typical American graduate, have better attitudes, and
are scrambling for American jobs that are above menial level.)
Linda Christas encourages solitude in its students. There is no frenetic
skipping from one location to another at arbitrary time intervals on cue.
Linda Christas students have an ability to not only contemplate a problem,
but to follow it through once the path to solution has been discovered.
They never have to drop everything at a predetermined time because the
next teacher is waiting. In other words, Linda Christas allows a student
to follow thought into the depths or the heavens for that matter.
Intellectuality aside, I believe as a counselor that without a place for
an individual to find quiet and solitude during time reserved for personal
growth, the result is a student forced to be continually on the surface of
things.
The students I counseled at public schools were generally and habitually
frantic about their lives, entertainment addicted, and discouraged from
feeling or expressing interest in anything unless the experience was
heavily laden with sensory inputs.
The kinds of conversations I have with Linda Christas students are
amazingly different. Sometimes I have the feeling that I am talking with a
person five-hundred years old who has spent his/her entire life on the top
of a mountain meditating, when in actuality I am speaking with a
fifteen-year-old about his or her insights regarding a literary
masterpiece or a critique that he/she has written regarding a perceived
social problem.
Linda Christas students generally have a great sense of humor as well, and
an ability to play in a healthy way. I think that true humor and play come
from seeing various levels of meaning in things, and having the ability to
laugh at oneself for imperfections and play happily even though the
performance may be less than professional level.
In the other schools where I counseled, humor tended to be cruel and aimed
at others. Play took on the blood-s****t tone of the parents involved.
It's almost as though Linda Christas has brought a version of Greek
Humanism to modern day America. Only this time, unlike in ancient Greece,
both male and female students can share in the gift of maximum op****tunity
for self-actualization.
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