Academy’s Community Guidelines
The Gateway Preparatory Academy is a
community, a community of scholars. By “scholars” we do not
mean a sub-species of subterranean herbivores which live exclusively in
the lower levels of libraries and come only rarely into contact with
terrestrial life. We mean simply a group of persons who are dedicated to
their own self-cultivation, and an ongoing discussion with others of what
they have learned along the way. That is all.
By “Community” we mean a number
of things which are implied or suggested by related cognate words such as,
communion, common, communal, and indeed the word “communicate”
itself---all of which are built upon the basic root notion of “a shared
duty,” or “a duty to come together and unite on the basis of a shared
obligation.”
Community in other words
implies a number of things all of which place shared formal limits
upon the individuals who make up that community. Freedom,
for example, is necessary in any company whose progress toward a common
goal requires the consent of the individuals involved in
it. And yet freedom, while necessary, is not a license to do as I
please. Another’s freedom, like respect, is something that
we honor out of something even more basic, a certain “obligation” (which
we inherit with our nature universally and absolutely) to do nothing that
will harm or unnecessarily limit the self-realization of one
another---which includes, incidentally, one’s own self!
This of course brings up the question of
differences concerning what it is that “harms or unnecessarily limits”
someone’s self-realization. Clearly there are differences and parents and
teachers come across them every day in relation to their charges*.
Indeed, it is precisely because of these differences that we have teachers
and schools at all! Therefore it should be clear to parents and their
children who are entering the Gateway Preparatory Academy that despite
differences of opinion, a certain trust is necessary if the
school is to operate smoothly and creatively: namely the trust that the
Gateway faculty are in possession of three things necessary to facilitate
the individual student’s development: concern,
knowledge, and know-how. This trust is
fundamental.
Learning at the Gateway
Academy is a conversation. Nevertheless, to insure that the conversation
does not degenerate into chaos, the teacher is the guide of that
conversation and is therefore at all times the arbiter of where the
class is to go, and how it is to get there. This is a
hierarchy which implies a functional authority and
is according to nature and fundamental. Likewise order and
a respect for order are fundamental in any creative
environment. Similarly, respect of each person by the other
is essential to any genuine community.
In times gone by, all of this was taken for
granted. Today, unfortunately, it is not. Therefore, the school asks
that students, together with their parents, formally acknowledge these
essentials with the full understanding that a willful violation of these
guidelines is grounds for immediate dismissal from the Program.
* Incidentally, the word “charge” suggests not
control, but responsibility.
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