Even reformers suspicious of excessive decentralization, who prefer standards to be set outside individual schools, find the independent school story applicable. External examinations of the right sort can legitimize and make accountable schools' work with critical constituencies such as knowledgeable parents and college-admission officers. But to tell only this one story would miss the larger point that independent schools can inform thinking about school improvement in less well-known ways. The latter aim celebrates reflective intellectual life, which lies at the heart of all school encounters with the liberal arts. Interests of mind suggests activity broadly concerned with ideas voluntarily engaged in mainly for the pleasure and satisfaction of the activity itself.
Activity can mean goal-directed projects, such as solving a problem or puzzle.
But it may equally mean activity with no tangible end product except the enjoyment of the activity. All too often, in observing independent schools over two decades, I came upon evidence that this sort of educational objective was weakly valued and nurtured. Here's but one example. A small group of juniors loudly argued in their school cafeteria about the causes of the Civil War. Some other juniors wandered by, observed the raging debate, and proclaimed their puzzlement.