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The educational philosophy on which the School’s mission is based is deeply rooted in the democratic idea central to the founding and subsequent development of the American Republic. It is the idea that has guided our “common schools” from colonial times.
Implicit in this democratic idea are two fundamental tenets. First, every young person has a right to access a formal academic or “classical” education. Second, the nation’s welfare depends upon making that right a reality.
John Adams of Massachusetts insisted on “education for every class and rank of people down to the lowest and the poorest.” Thomas Jefferson created a complete system of education for Virginia, asserting that, “the education of the common people is the surest security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.”
Throughout the nineteenth century, and well into the twentieth, the system of public schools that emerged helped make America a beacon of hope and opportunity for peoples from every culture and corner. Unlike the tribal and traditional societies from which they fled, the United States was an egalitarian engine and a material meritocracy. It was the one place on earth where aspiration and perspiration counted for more than ancestry and pedigree, and education was the key.
Inherent in our nation’s historic commitment to universal education is the belief that everyone can learn. That belief is central to the founding of Washington Latin. The School has no illusions about the significant barriers that many of its students have to overcome. The School has anticipated these challenges and is prepared to do whatever it takes to keep our nation’s promise to the next generation.
Based upon this historical understanding of the democratic mission of America’s schools and the real history of primary and secondary education in the United States, Washington Latin’s philosophy can be stated as follows:
Every young person in America has the right to access to a formal academic education—one that will prepare him or her for college and for “the real business of living.”
- The maintenance of liberal democratic institutions depends on this universal right to access a formal academic education.
- The study of Latin and Classical antiquity is an important part of a formal academic education and is critical for an understanding of Western civilization and the democratic tradition.
- The great end of education—what John Locke termed “the principling of youth”—is not merely training for employment; it is preparation for citizenship.
- A school culture in which all students are treated as scholars worthy of dignity and respect should be the first priority of every school. High standards of conduct and civility must be modeled by the faculty and staff, constantly communicated to every member of the community and consistently enforced.
- Sound pedagogy begins with the recognition that every subject has its grammar, its logic and its rhetoric.
- In a developmentally appropriate grammar school, (K-4) direct instruction, drill, memorization of facts and recitation are essential strategies for teaching and learning.
- In a prep school (5-8) the acquisition of facts becomes the foundation for intentional efforts to cultivate the student’s ability observe, listen, reflect and abstract. Specific modes of close reading, research and formal logic must be taught. The Socratic Method should be introduced.
- With furnished minds and polished skills of research and reason, high school students (9-12) are ready to master the "art" (or tekhne) of rhetoric. By graduation, their writings, public elocution, scientific invention and artistic creations should express—in a new voice—truth, beauty and goodness.
- Every classroom should, by its design, dignify the student, facilitate the pedagogy, and—whenever possible—express the unique personality and interests of the teacher.
- High standards are not undemocratic. Great schools set them, publish them and empower parents, teachers and students to meet them.
- Great schools avoid educational fads. They succeed by employing proven pedagogies and research-based approaches to teaching and learning.
- Great schools expend significant resources to attract and maintain a distinguished faculty. They invest in the constant professional development of each teacher and foster a culture where the faculty is invested in the school’s excellence.
- Parents bear the chief responsibility for the education of their children—and must be honored and involved. At the same time, parents do not govern the school.
- The entire community in which a school is set is a classroom. The school should learn from the whole town and the whole town should learn from the school.
- To attend a great school is a privilege—but not a privilege for the privileged.
- It is possible for a school to offer both excellence and access, but if the former is sacrificed in the name of the later, both are lost.
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