In teaching history, there should be extensive discussion of personalities who benefited mankind through independence of character and judgment.

--Albert Einstein, when asked what schools should emphasize.

To fully actualize their creative and intellectual potential and to remain competitive in tomorrow's workforce, students must go beyond the rote learning taught in today's grade schools. Imagination, creativity, critical thinking, motivation, and expertise are all required skills in the next generation of leaders. The memorization-based learning utilized today fails to impart these skills, therefore a new educational paradigm is necessary.

Our vision is of an educational system that operates on student interest rather than coercion. Several key themes differentiate our approach from mainstream education:

• A “Great Thinkers” course which meets at the end of each day, presenting talks and student-operated demonstrations from the life and work of historical figures (for instance, students may learn about the circumstances behind the composition of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata one day and may then try to play portions of it on a piano). Demonstrations should be accessible and serve to illustrate that even these great works and ideas lie within a student's reach. Each class concludes with a list of open student-accessible challenges (a list of ideas, not assignments) related to the figure's work.
• Embracing and fostering of students' individual passions: students may elect to pursue projects which interest them (which may be optionally related to or inspired by the challenges presented to them in the Great Thinkers course) and may demonstrate progress on these projects in lieu of completing traditional assignments. This transfers the choice - and the source of motivation - from teacher to student. It is highly likely that most students will opt to choose a project that interests them over a traditional assignment, but this also provides a fallback for the few students who simply cannot take the initiative.
• As historical figures should become role models for students, so too should teachers: the ability to inspire students and to set a positive example will be a prerequisite for faculty employment. In return for this additional demand and in order to retain the very best faculty, compensation will be merit-based and considerable.
• As in our Project Polymath concept, students will be encouraged in the classroom to make connections between diverse bodies of knowledge and to synthesize ideas across disciplinary boundaries, with an emphasis on practical acquisition and use of the resulting insights and skills. This defines our program as an interdisciplinary enrichment program, but one which caters towards both the gifted and mainstream populations.
• Identification of both talented students and those needing extra help, providing both with the resources they require to succeed (neither population will thrive in a normal classroom, and both may benefit from further accommodations even within our framework). Because the program is an enrichment program by nature, the acceleration and enrichment strategies for gifted education are identical.
• A flexible system of advancement in which students are grouped by ability rather than age (similar to the system used in Montessori schools) and may advance as they become more proficient. This ensures that students always work at a level which is challenging but not overwhelming for them.
• Stimulation of group discussions of ideas (abstract), cases (concrete), and project results (personal experiences) between students. Time for dialogue as well as monologue.
• Critical examination of norms and promotion of a self-determined value system via discussion of “tough issues” in which several norms conflict; e.g., a discussion on whether to use animals in medical research.