Just back from a driving marathon to take our son to Hampshire College for a College Day visit. Aside from a 2.5 hour wait to cross the Geo. Wash. Bridge northbound on Sunday, one brief lost moment in the Bronx (missed the southbound turn to the Geo. Wash. Bridge), and a lovely rear-ender when a small truck piled into us as we were trying to leave Hadley (no one was hurt, thank goodness), it was uneventful.
Both Ian and I were impressed by Hampshire, for a number of reasons I would like to explore here at some point. We also both had some concerns, I more than he. Worth exploring those too, particularly because, so far as I can tell, Hampshire was founded on a very brave, far-seeing attempt at real school. The attempt continues, forty years later, and it was interesting to see some of the history of that attempt firsthand.
Then we got home, and a brochure had come from Deep Springs College–another of the brave real school attempts I’ve thought about over the years. I remember getting a version of that brochure when I was a senior. I had tried out for the Telluride Program and failed. (I was a semi-finalist and got an interview with Robert Davidoff, a young asst. prof. of history at UVA; it was the first time I’d talked at length to a college professor–and thereby hangs another tale.) Still, Deep Springs was fascinating to me, for reasons I have trouble explaining, even to myself. The current brochure is even more interesting than the one I received thirty-three years ago.
All of which brings me to today’s punch line, which has something to do with the pleasures and perils of growing up as a faculty kid. At least waggish Ian, who wrote and posted this note on a door in our house, has still managed to get to the comic side of all these questions.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on Hampshire. We visited it w/Mariah this past summer and had the best tour guide we had at any school, but decided it wasn’t the place for her. A fascinating experiment, but does it play too much into today’s narrow-casting worldview? We ended up–much to our surprise–liking Smith much better (not an option for your son, I know!).
Interesting. I’d never heard of Deep Springs until this year when the New Yorker ran a piece on it. Did you see it?
When I was a junior in high school I came close to dropping out and getting my GED. At the time, I had my heart set on St. John’s College. A different kind of alternative, altogether, from Deep Springs, of course. But still the “alternativeness” of it was very attractive to me.
The idea of schools that have been brave enough to explore alternativeness is still attractive. And yet, what little I know of them seems to suggest a kind of self-consciousness (and devotion to being alternative) that can be, in and of itself, sort of restricting (if not fully debilitating).
I’d be interested in hearing more about Hampshire. I’m not familiar with it at all.
This college http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/academic/main.shtml is a bit different. It was under “Great Books Colleges” Its out of Maryland.
Deep Spring? Ah-cowboy college!
This talk about alternative education reminds me of the stories I have heard about Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Which lasted from 1933 to 1957 and had an impressive role of thinkers and artists. I guess the new alternative might just be UMW 🙂
What’s really scary, though, is how much Ian’s handwriting is starting to look like yours!!!! :))
Walt was admitted to New College way back in ’64, which was the cutting edge alternative education experiment; he picked Navy instead. Wonder what would have happened???
Here’s a different kind of school http://www.cofo.edu/