Every student enrolled in the Main Program chooses and plans an Independent Project to pursue for the year. It could be anything from sewing a quilt to mapping a neighborhood, from coding an app to translating Dante. Projects are self-directed and difficult or large enough to provide a year’s worth of work. We help students define their projects and, when appropriate, pair them with a local mentor with expertise or experience in their chosen activity. Students document their project as they go, and at the end of the year, we gather to hear presentations on what they’ve accomplished.
Good projects are specific. For example: I will map the woods near my house instead of I will learn how to draw maps. The goal of Independent Projects—indeed, the goal of the whole program—is to instill in a student a sense of agency: the knowledge that he can act, create, build, and learn without permission or assignment. Simon Sarris puts it well: “Agency is precious because the lucidities that purposeful work and responsibility bring are the real education. The secret of the world is that it is a very malleable place. We must be sure that people learn this and never forget the order: learning is naturally the consequence of doing.”