Independent schools know how to increase the academic performance of average students through a combination of personal attention and strong work expectations. But they have no comparable success in instilling a love of learning in students who are not especially talented academically. So they try another tack. They commit themselves to providing opportunities where virtually any worthwhile interest can be discovered. Intellectual pursuits become only one of many school offerings.
Schools assume that every student has the potential to do something well.
The job of the school is to help students find that something. It is no accident that they have been heavily influenced by Howard Gardner's ideas about multiple intelligences. Instead of seeing his ideas as diminishing intellectual values, they regard them as liberation from narrow educational ambitions. They validate a broader curriculum and teaching style in which every student can find success. If privileged parents insist that prep schools help all their children discover something they are good at, it is not hard to imagine the same impulse soon present in all parents.