I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Waring Parent, professional magazine editor, John Knowles, who discussed what he sees as Waring's value proposition -- what sets Waring apart from other learning institutions. You can view video excerpts here:
John is the father of Mattie ('21) and Ella Knowles ('24). As the Editor of Journal of Electronic Defense, John has a strong view into the skills that will be needed in the future workplace and how schools either hit or miss the mark.
John argues that with the speed of change in the workplace and with ever-changing technologies, the real power of a liberal arts education is in learning how to learn -- not so much in learning what to learn. At Waring, John argues, students are allowed the freedom to follow passions by their teachers, who teach to the individual student.
No question we value content at Waring: we read the Odyssey and Jane Eyre, we teach the quadratic formula and the periodic table. But far more profound in the Waring pedagogy is a culture around learning how to learn, how to ask great questions, how to delve deeply into (any) text we read, how to write and speak convincingly, what to listen for in a Mozart Sonata...
