Sublime

William Damon, The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life (New York: Free Press, 2009).

Parents need guidance in directing their children on the road that leads to responsible educational independence. Learners need experienced leadership when they encounter rough terrain. These two needs are quite distinct: the first is a need for pedagogy, the second for intellectual leadership in all other fields of knowledge. The first calls for k

The purpose of education is to develop agency within a child. Purposeful work and achieving mastery are tools to getting there. They aren’t the results of learning and imagination, it’s the other way around—learning is simply the consequence of doing. To understand this is to understand the ecology that fosters genius and talent.

Early on, he had fallen victim to what psychologists call identity foreclosure—when we settle prematurely on a sense of self without enough due diligence, and close our minds to alternative selves.

Dans les enquêtes préparatoires de son ouvrage The Path to Purpose, William Damon a découvert que seuls 20 % des jeunes sont pleinement conscients de leur raison d’être7. Beaucoup ont perdu toute foi dans les grandes causes et les institutions sur lesquelles s’appuyaient les générations précédentes pour donner du sens et une finalité à l’existence.

ESSENTIALISM.

The capacities to be proactive, prosocial, disciplined, and determined stayed with students longer—and ultimately proved more powerful—than early math and reading skills.