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The creation of The Washington Latin School is rooted in the belief that the primary deficiency in most underperforming schools is the lack of a definable and sustainable culture that inspires and ennobles parents, teachers and students. Simply put, too many schools underestimate and undermine the inherent dignity of the students they teach, the families they serve and the teachers they employ.
Any school that builds a strong literature-based curriculum around an appreciation of classical antiquity and the mastery of classical languages has already gone a long way in defining its institutional culture. Any school rooted in the pre-Socratic notion that the primary purpose of education is not the conveyance of information or knowledge, but the cultivation of wisdom and virtue, has taken a crucial step in determining the texture and tone of its common life.
Within such a culture, teachers are hired not only for their knowledge and skill, but also for the ways in which they model the scholar’s life and practice the Socratic methodology. Within such a culture, teachers must not only rise to the highest professional standards of our time; but also demonstrate their devotion to the timeless qualities of Truth, Beauty and Goodness. Within a liberal learning community like Latin there is an understanding that all individuals approach these varieties out of the richness of their own cultural contexts. Within such a school culture, there is an understanding of what Jacques Maritain meant when he said, “teaching is not a science, but an art.”
Needless to say, such a school is a “high-expectations” society wherein literature, art, science, music, sport, and public elocution are all understood as essential components in the formation of robust persons and able citizens. Indeed, it may be said that within such a culture, the primary task of the school is not education, but formation.
At Latin, standards of academic achievement are matched by standards of conduct and etiquette. All young gentlemen wear jackets and ties; all young women wear similarly modest attire. Over their business attire, teachers are cloaked in short, open Cambridge Master’s Gowns. The entire culture of the school reinforces the infinite promise of each student and the high responsibility that is theirs—to live a life of scholarship, sacrifice and service.
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