The statement "Education is a talent game" can have very different meanings. To the Admission Office, which received 278 applications for admission in January alone and expects 550 total, the challenge is to craft a community. Proctor's mission calls for a highly diverse (including academic diversity) cross-section of the college bound population, so "talent" as measured by aptitude testing serves only to define "college bound." We can achieve optimally without more and more kids with higher IQs.
This is due in part to the talent that really counts: the adult population. How does a school attract gifted teachers, and once they're here, provide them the freedom to stay completely JACKed about their lives at Proctor?
Land Use Manager David Pilla came to Proctor in 1980. When a few inches of snow fell recently, he postponed his Wildlife Management quiz, told us to strap on snowshoes, and led his class up the south side of Ragged Mountain to identify the freshest animal tracks.
Students separated in pairs. Dave exhorts them to document everything: the percentage of cloud cover...the weight-bearing capacity of the snow's crust...evidence of edible barks and tree buds. These girls correctly identified tracks of deermice.
