(9/2006) - The approach of the college acceptance season can be a discouraging time for a head of school. It is a time when students and parents focus intensely, and at times inappropriately, on the perceived prestige of their college of choice. Acceptance implies a successful high school tenure while rejection alludes to some failure on the part of the student or the school. In both cases, the entirety of four years of sacrifice, dedication, and scholarship are conveniently summed up by the brand of a particular college rather than by the superb education the student has already received.

For those of us inside high schools, it has been hard slogging to maintain the pretense that the purpose of a high school education is to prepare young people for college, and, more important, the “right” college. It is time for educators to initiate a continuing dialogue with parents and students about the true meaning of education. In doing so, we should come clean and tell the real story boldly and without apology: the purpose of a successful high school experience is to prepare adolescents for real life. Real life as I define it means a rich, full life driven by intellectual curiosity warmed by substantial, committed friendships, and buoyed by adventures of both the mind and the heart— the kind of life we call “the good life.” If we don’t acknowledge openly what is truly vital to discover in high school, our students may be spending too much energy on the wrong kind of education.

Two recent books note a juxtaposition that is alarming to me as an educator. Thomas Friedman, in The World is Flat (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), offers an alluring vision of globalization that has significant implications for the way we must educate our children in the years ahead. He quotes Shirley Ann Jackson, the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an Emma Willard trustee, as she articulates a sense of quiet crisis. “The U.S. today is in a truly global environment,” Dr. Jackson says, “and those competitor countries are not only wide awake, they are running a marathon while we are running sprints. If left unchecked, this could challenge our preeminence and capacity to innovate.” The ability to innovate—a trait essential for navigating successfully the landscape ahead—will need to be integrated into our educational system at all levels. Educational institutions will need to be nimble and smart to educate young women who find their life’s calling in being agents of social, political, environmental, and industrial change.

Friedman’s provocative call to action should remind us of what we all know in our hearts: education is a life-long adventure, not a four-year endeavor to a fixed end. What happens at Emma Willard is about instilling habits for the long haul rather than applying the right college bumper sticker on the family station wagon. Our alumnae know this better than anyone, and it is a message I hear from them regularly and passionately: “My wonderful years [at Emma Willard (EW)] gave me a huge start in the world and enriched my life forever.” “I will always remember EW as the place where I learned to learn.” “EW taught me how to be a student of life.”

Yet, even as I imagine what our girls will need to be intellectual innovators in a global environment, I am brought quickly to a new reality by Barrett Seaman’s Binge:Campus Life in an Age of Disconnection and Excess (Wiley, 2005). A former journalist, Seaman researched 13 college campuses, intent on providing an insider’s look at life outside the classroom, and reports a number of disconnects in the social culture of our Nation's finest colleges and universities. Among them: disturbing trends in drug and alcohol use and sexual behaviors and excesses; unexamined insensitivity around issues of diversity; a growing aloofness from professors who feel the tension between research and teaching; and, of course, the impact of the new economics of athletic programs. It strikes me—and reports from young alumnae tell me this is accurate—that it is vital for girls to own the necessary social survival skills to get through the college experience so they can thrive as intellectual innovators.

The powerful truth is that we need to worry about both the academic realm and the social arena. It is not enough to ensure an acceptance letter to college, as if that is even possible any more. Instead, we are called to address social realities considered unimaginable but a few short years ago. Young women must go armed with an education that unites the mind and the heart in a substantial partnership. They must feel confident intellectually and socially—two very different, yet essential, educational projects. The good life starts with a high school education that instills both the habits of the mind and the habits of the heart. It is made possible by a grounding that can only happen in an environment that challenges both the mind and the heart.

At Emma Willard, smart girls from around the world will always have a place that understands this truth. The world can look to us when it is searching for young women who can apply intellect and heart in healthy measure to make a difference.