Oxford's Dreaming Spires

Examiner column for July 29.

    Last week, George Mason University students celebrated their time in Exeter College, Oxford, with a closing dinner that mirrored the opening one (“The Harry Potter Experience,” July 8.) There was, however, one huge difference: the Exeter summer program had, in three short weeks, produced a community of scholars and friends, linking Oxford tutors, administrators, students, and faculty advisors.

    The mood was more wistful and the decibel level higher than during our first dinner. The light still glowed on the elaborate table settings and old mahogany paneling, but we had bonded the way few semester classes bond back home. As the 23 of us (21 students and 2 teachers) made the rounds, saying good-bye and wishing one another a safe return, I wondered: how did we create a community in so little time? How could our schools at home replicate, in part, that magical unity?

 

            Both middle and secondary schools have experimented with grouping students and teachers to prevent alienation and anonymity. The success of such groupings has been greater for younger students; at Oakton High School, where I taught for many years, that model was abandoned due to lack of student interest. “Who wants to be with the same people all day long?” students explained to me.

 

            Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a public school that has a community spirit rivaling elite colleges in level of commitment, stages an unusual event during freshman year: the entire 9^th grade spends a night in the school building. It’s like the all-night graduation party, but moved up to the beginning so students can participate in team-building activities with other students, teachers, and administrative staff. Students may lose sleep on that fall Friday night, but the friends they gain will last the next four years—and beyond.

 

            Yet socializing creates only one type of community. Oxford inspires its students to aspire to higher educational goals. GMU students initially wondered if they would be able to measure up to Oxford’s famed academic standards, but every one of them rose to the challenge. The intense intellectual context, which encouraged them to embrace the challenge together, helped create another type of magic.

 

            Matthew Arnold paid homage to Oxford in his poem “Thyrsis,” written in 1865: “And that sweet city with her dreaming spires, /She needs not June for beauty’s heightening…” Those “dreaming spires” inspire students by asking them to aspire to greater intellectual heights. Note that spire, inspire, and aspire share a common linguistic root.

 

            We can import some of that inspiration into our own schools by raising the level of academic aspiration. We might not eat meals together in a Harry Potter-like dining hall, but we can feed our spirits during seminars and lectures if the school has encouraged shared, communal goals and a high level of intellectual curiosity and mastery.

 

             For my students, the magic might have begun with the similarity to the Harry Potter movie set, but it took permanent hold with the creation of an intellectual community far more powerful than anything in fiction. Not only were they inspired for 3 weeks, but they continue to carry with them the memory of Oxford’s magical, “dreaming spires.”

Comments

[David]

I know you have had a wonderful trip! Glad you got to enjoy it--in all its beauty! I am heading to London in January. . . I hope.

[Erica]

Great to hear from you, David! I hope you've had a good summer, and haven't been working too hard. See you in June!