We want each of our students to earn their hero’s journey. We want them to be worthy of great work and great happiness. We want them to have deep understanding across the domains of human knowledge and industry, integrated into their mental architecture in a way that blossoms into wisdom and facilitates action in the world. We want them to build fundamental skills (like writing, rhetoric, logical thinking, and mathematical reasoning) through persistent, patient repetition. We want them to develop in themselves the will to stay the course when circumstances demand it, and to adapt decisively when life requires a novel approach. We want them to internalize a sense of pride and self-worth: confidence that sustained effort leads to results. We want all of those ingredients to add up to a character and person capable of loving deeply, and of pursuing a range of chosen individual values, across the arc of decades, through all the seasons of life.

A fully lived life includes a long-range, meaningful purpose (usually a career) that unites particular talents and interests and provides an anchor for the breadth of human values: love, family, friendship, art, culture, physical vitality, hobbies, and interests. Such a life is marked by self-awareness across time, intentionality and planning, resilience and adaptation, and a continuous striving that is experienced as natural and self-reinforcing.