". . And how am I to comprehend The bedevilment of gods and men, I, a stranger and afraid, In a world I never made?"

    Over the past several years, we have watched this attitude seep into one area after another of public and private life. From international politics and economics to community, family and the basic self, a silent doubt is creeping. Amid the increasing noise of uncertainty and chaos, a smothering sense of despair spreads and infects, more every day.
    And, because we see too clearly where this MUST lead, we are fighting it. We are fighting it in the only field where it can be fought effectively, at the root in education.
    Yet we find the same basic doubt and thoughtless noise among educators. On the one hand we hear advocates of "progressive" education and a "life-adjustment" philosophy calling for more flexibility or even abolition of standards in the name of freedom, relevance, or whatever the latest catch-phrase suggests. On the other hand we hear the traditional educationists extolling their faith in the "tried and true" curriculum and approach, and defending basic education more from a fear of what change might bring (is bringing) than a positive understanding and affirmation of the true goals of education, based on a clear vision of the nature of man's mind.
    Newsweek carries an article illustrating the practical results of this controversy. ("Back to Basics in the Schools", Oct.21, 1974.) The article documents and illustrates the disintegration of public education, and the public outcry against teachers and systems which don't teach institutionalized illiteracy. But Newsweek overlooks basic principles, as does the public, so the "traditional" education to which they turn has the same basic flaws it had a generation and more ago. NOBODY THINKS OF THE THIRD ALTERNATIVE.

Here, then, in a nutshell, is our Third Alternative, the 4R's Method philosophy:

FOUNDATIONS OF THE 4R's ACADEMIC METHOD

I.  Primary focus on Natural Law.

   A. The human is categorically different.

     1. Has a more advanced organ of integration.

     2. Conceptual by nature.

   B. Human is born Tabula Rasa.

     1. Knowledge and skills gained contextually.

     2. Implies Basic Education philosophy.

       a. 3R's.

       b. Philosophy is an essential basic education requirement.

       c. Economics is an essential basic education requirement.

       d. All generative subjects.

II. 4R's Program - categorically different.

  A. Begins with remedial Montessori.

    1. The Planned Environment.

    2. Adapted to the older student.

  B. Create your own order.

    1. The Executive functions.

    2. The Maintenance requirement.

  C. Bringing order out of chaos.

    1. Integrated program of generative experiences.

    2. Building the Entrepreneurial Personality.

  D. Principles of Human Architecture.

    1. Human growth follows exact principles.

    2. Human education an exact procedure.

    3. Skyscraper of Man The Eight Basic Attributes.

    4.Measuring growth in these attributes.

III. Individualism vs. Collectivism.

  A. Doing vs. Talking.

  B. Producer vs. Consumer.

  C. Socialism vs. Laissez-Faire Capitalism.

  D. Determinism vs. Free Will.

    1. Historical, psychological, and economic determinism invalid.

    2. Reason, man's only tool of survival and of society's growth.

IV. Modern technological Advances.

  A. Enable man to master his physical world.

  B. Destroy man if he tails to apply same natural laws to human relations.

  C. 4R's Method is the total integration of these basic concepts into 

      day-to-day application.

V. Advanced reading list for parents.

  A. To enhance your student's education.

  B. To enhance your own understanding of the Third Alternative.

CONTEXT

    Have you wandered why there is a vagueness and an uneasy confusion in today's events, why school grades mean less this year than last, why the advanced signs of "intellectual cancer", in the form of student drugs, pointless destruction, and the "zero" personality have been with us so long that they now seem almost normal? We long ago noticed the beginnings of these trends and set about studying their basic causes — and solutions. (The Case For Basic Education, Koerner, ed., Boston, Atlantic, Little, Brown, 1959.)
   Your child's school problems result from a primary misunderstanding in the philosophy of education, one which "sets up" the entire conflict between Basic Education (3 R's) and "Life Adjustment" emphasis (Driver's Ed., Home Economics, Golf, Modern Dance, etc.) This conflict is unnecessary.
    Even among those who see the issue most clearly, there is deep confusion. Read! The 4R's Method Explained. The 4R's program is the only educational procedure based upon the correct foundational understanding of the nature of man, the development of human life, social order, and freedom. The 4R's Method allows each child to develop greater capabilities, attain greater academic excellence far more rapidly by plan rather than by accident. Each feature of our plan follows logically from the basic insight that man by nature aggressively desires to know.
    Read The 4R's Method Explained again!
    All men are identical in their fundamental natures. Hence all humans must be built (educated) upon the same identical construction principles, just as there may be an infinite variety of skyscrapers, all built on the same basic principles.
    THE 4th R, OUR COURSE IN HUMAN ARCHITECTURE, FOCUSES ON INDIVIDUAL MOTIVATION, THINKING, DEVELOPING INTELLECTUAL HONESTY, OBJECTIVITY, AND AN INQUIRING MIND. Each student learns the natural laws of human growth, so that he can build himself intelligently, to live to the fullest capacity of his human abilities.
    The 4th R, (together with the 3 R's and other basic courses) provides the foundation for a New Renaissance by laying down the concept of the "total man", fully developed physically, intellectually, philosophically, and fully integrated as an effective, functioning human.
    For a more detailed discussion of our course offerings and program of generative reality experiences, see Diploma Offerings and our brochures.
    An individual's intellectual and emotional capacities are developed resultant from the experiences of the first 15-20 years. The only reason for an academic education is to provide a basic method of perceiving, conceptualizing, judging, and filing a vast number of facts and units of experience, which serve as springboard for the rest of the student's life.
    Thus we are committed to a program of generative subjects, strengthened where appropriate with "The Constructive Approach" to insight built upon firm technical mastery. ("The Constructive Approach, A Proposal For the High School Mathematics Curriculum" in The Mathamatics Teacher, April 1966, and "Why Johnny Can't Add, by Morris Kline.)
    The 4R's Method is completely honest in all ways. This implies a strict adherence to a code of intellectual honesty. It means passing requires mastery, not perfunctory 70%. We do not grade on a curve.

NON-GRADED METHOD OF PLACEMENT

     The 4R's Method is a "non-graded" approach to individual education, This implies a developmental schedule of advancement rather than the usual chronological schedule. We do give grades — in fact, we hold a higher grading standard than most schools - but we place students ACCORDING TO WHAT THEY DEMONSTRATE that they know, not their age or "grade level". Hence we can accent complete mastery and formation of the vital success habit. As a starting point, all foundational skills are first brought up to standard for all entering Flint School cadets. Each student, exercising his initiative in depth, may advance just as fast as he masters the material. Hence each student needs to become like a vacuum cleaner - sucking up knowledge from any source possible rather than sitting and waiting to be educated. This is no more than the honest truth.
     Young people are lied to too much from other quarters. We won't tell them that it's all right to drift through school only absorbing half of the facts presented and none of the integrating principles. It's not. BUT IS THAT NOT WHAT THEY ARE TOLD EVERY TIME THEY RECEIVE A GRADE OR A SOCIAL PROMOTION WHICH IS NOT PRECISELY DESERVED? Since the non-graded schools place students according to their demonstrated knowledge, any grade less than straight A is the students own volitional decision, as they soon come to understand. And when a student demonstrates superior work, we recognize it with high marks and praise which mean something because they have not been watered down. With "Grade Inflation" widely accepted, (See "Everything Is Shrinking In Higher Education," by Mayer in Fortune, September 1974, p 194; The Stanford Observer, November 1974, pp.1, 7.) we recognize that social promotion destroys inner quality, ambition, and productive ability in much the same way that fiat money inflation undermined and destroyed an entire productive economy. Natural laws cannot be broken. They inevitably destroy the one who attempts it. WHEN BASIC EDUCATION WAS ABANDONED, THE BREAKDOWN OF DISCIPLINE AND MENTAL COMPETENCE WAS INEVITABLE.
     Our "non-graded" approach means placement at the demonstrated level of competence. If a student passes the third grade spelling test but not the fourth, then he'll enter the fourth grade spelling book. The same student may place in Algebra II if he demonstrates mastery of Algebra I. Similarly it makes little difference if a student has "taken" a history course, and perfunctorily learned a "heedful" of facts and dates. If he lacks a conceptual grasp, he will take our unique history presentation, (which we learned from Isabel Paterson, Goethe, etc.) on a level appropriate to his knowledge, to learn the meaning, the "lessons" of history. This comes only with understanding, which has to be first hand. The first lesson in any subject is, "Don't believe anything I say, just because I said it." Each has to understand the reason, for himself, before knowledge is valid. By the same token, each student advances to more advanced work just as fast as he develops the depth of insight and skill which it requires, rather than waiting to keep pace with slower students as is the policy of the "progressive" education philosophy. To avoid hurting the slower student's ego, if his work is substandard, the progressivist holds to social promotion. Instead, we place him in a class he will be able to master, hence never subjecting him to failure in the first place.
     The best, most conscientious schools measure the quality of a student's scholarship by what he accomplishes in a year's time, as if being in the class for a year were the crucial factor giving value to accomplishments. The essential factor is the unit of growth.
     The amount of time which each step takes a student, shows how valuable he made that time to himself. SO UNDERSTAND THE DESTRUCTIVENESS OF THIS SUBTLE INVERSION. The universe does not exist in time; time exists (only as a measurement of motion) within the universe, So our students learn to measure the value of their time by how quickly they can "move" along each distinct step of their growth path. Man gives value to time, not vice versa. Hence we follow a developmental schedule, focusing on the individual student's accomplishments, not on how many year's he's been in school.

Three short-term measures suggest themselves:

First, of course, the most obvious measure is the standardized test, the Scholastic Aptitude Test, and its companion, the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test, which all of our high school level students take each October.

THE NATIONWIDE AVERAGE HAS BEEN FALLING DRAMATICALLY FOR THE PAST DECADE:

Mean Scores On The Scholastic Aptitude Test

Educational Testing Service, quoted by Human Events, Jan.12, '74, p 12.

      Education in general has thus been deteriorating. This means for example, that an average 11th grade student knows less 11th grade material than the 11th grade student last year. Obviously, however, his 11th grade score, is still better than his 10th grade score, but the increase 5 less for each succeeding class.
     On the other hand, Flint School students, from one year to the next, shows twice as much improvement as national averages. Consider the following table, which also shows the increment necessary to stop scores from falling. One can easily see, therefore, that the accredited government school system is falling short of the scores needed to maintain status quo, while Flint School scores are not only improving beyond the status quo requirements, but are improving more than enough for two years in one.

PSAT One-Year Increases (On Average)

1. College Board Score Reports, 1969-70, pp. 11-15. See also PSATI / NMSQT Interpretive Manual, 1973, pp.6-7.
2. Calculated from "Overall Drop", Table 1, dividing by 10 to find equivalent PSAT drop. PSAT / NMSQT Interpretive Manual, 1973, p.9.

     That is, from one year to the next, Flint School students show an increase in academic aptitude 2.8 times that of the average American student, and 2.5 times the increase required to maintain current national standards, as measured by the PSAT.
     ALL of our high school level students take this test, whereas in most schools only the better students take it, and Flint School students' average scores are in the top third of national averages, as shown on the table below. Most college bound students will show a greater than average score increase. But, THE ENTIRE FLINT SCHOOL'S PSAT AVERAGE INCREASES OVER TWICE AS MUCH PER YEAR AS THE NATIONAL AVERAGE GAIN.
     Another way of looking at this is to note that Flint School students' mean percentile scores rise from one year to the next by 5.8⁰4,ile points verbal, and 11.3⁰/oile points math. That is, from one year to the next, Flint School students show an increase in academic aptitude 2.8 times that of the average American student, as measured by the PSAT.

PSAT Percentile Score Increases Flint School Students

     (How many millions of students across the nation are they therefore "passing up"?)
     Of course, one might say that with national averages declining, a percentile increase isn't that significant. We agree. Though Flint School students' scores are improving much faster than nationwide averages are falling, we feel that these data, impressive as they are, are not so much a credit to us as an indictment against the mass of other schools, mainly in the accredited public school systems.
     But accurate measurement of the essence of academic quality is a nebulous thing. Exact systems for measurement of genuine in-depth quality have not yet been developed. In essence, it has been the judgment of the teacher as to how penetrating is the test or examination; how "hard" is it graded?
     So, apart from Flint School's demonstrated superiority by national measurement, how do we measure our students?

II. PARENT RECOGNITION OF EXCELLENCE
     How else can we measure the effectiveness of a Flint School education? Since we are an entirely free enterprise operation, our effectiveness may be measured by the same criterion as any business. We have to satisfy our customers or close down. And we satisfy.
     SATISFACTION! While long-established private schools across the country are encountering difficulties for want of customers, (Fortune, Sept., '74, p. 122.) we keep expanding! Now in our 8th year, (1974/75) we have annually expanded our enrollment by an average of  37.5%. We now have 65, and next year will have an expanded capacity for 80. (Interested parents should send in their registrations for next year right away so their students won't miss the opportunity of a Flint School education!) And are they satisfied? Look at the Rave Notices they send us:

". . . Thank you for the tremendous improvement in Bill. We all think it is a miracle."
". . .  It has been a source of amazement and marveling that he has changed so much! His attitude, his externalizing in his outlook, his control, enthusiasm, and exuberance is wonderful to behold!"
". . . His 4th R Book he is 'specially proud of and presented it to me with so much feeling, saying that within the book is the key and answer to survival; it has all the elements of man's need and in any emergency. What confidence you have given him, and what a sense of responsibility!"
". . . I really feel that you all deserve a great deal of praise and appreciation . . . for the ideals which you have striven to implant in her."

While we do not seek out testing services, we occasionally receive results from such "before" and "after" testing initiated by parents.

". . . The results of this second Wechsler Bellevue after two years in the Flint School indicate on increase in his I.Q. of 24 points. (A verbal I.Q. increase of 31 points) . . . I join his parents and himself in our admiration for the excellent work you and your staff have demonstrated."
". . . From April, 1973 until June, 1974, in Moth on the Wide Range Achievement Test lie moved "from 6.1 grade level to 8.3 grade level." In spelling "from 9.0 grade level to 11.2 grade level." "The most significant change in scores here is, of course, on the comprehension section. Keeping in mind that a percentile score of 50 indicates that a student is achieving grade level, we see John advancing from the 5th percentile to above grade level to the 66th percentile . .

      It will save you a lot of reading time if you will take my word that this is representative of the correspondence we receive from school parents. With our customers as satisfied as this, who could be surprised to learn that 2/3 of our non-graduating students return for more and that our most effective advertising has always been, and is increasingly, word of mouth recommendation. People see our students and send us more.
      We are not accredited. Nor do we wish to be. Accreditation is largely concerned with physical requirements — hardbound books vs. paperbacks, width of stairways, number of square feet of classroom space per student, a 32" diameter globe, etc. Two sailing ships would never meet the physical standards. To accept accreditation standards, we would have to follow government guidelines on textbooks and teachers, which we find are inferior to our standards. We are, after all, continually trying to raise our test scores. Teachers on board must enter a training internship program since Flint School goes far beyond today's normal educational systems. Some of our teachers have teaching certificates, but they also must complete the Flint School teacher training program in order to meet our higher standards.
     However, our non-accreditation has little to do with the transfer of credits. Our credits have been accepted without question at government and private secondary schools (our grading standards are probably higher than most). Colleges seem eager to accept our recommended students, probably because we submit with our transcripts a statement of our academic educational philosophy.

III. THE INNER GROWTH THE SOURCE.
     After all this is said, what we see most clearly, and appreciate the most deeply, and what so many parents reflect, albeit subjectively, is the very significant personality advance. From living closely with them, we see so many subtle indications every day that there can be no doubt about the real inner growth. ". . . and her Social Maturity test showed 5.2 years growth after her year with the Flint School."
     For just one example out of so many: One of the lectures in second year 4th R is about two different personality types and the traits of each, the producing individualist vs. the consuming collectivist. The lecture suggests that the sense of life of the latter type is characterized by Housman's line of poetry (found at the head of this paper.) "A stranger, and afraid, in a world I never made." (Of course, the Flint School also answers anyone who feels this way, "Why didn't you?") We discussed the way such a person would look at life. However, where could we find examples of the contrary positive view? A search through most of today's literature shows how prevalent is the fatalistic, collectivist, and generally anti-life view. So the class was then assigned to create a one or two line expression that characterizes the opposite of a "stranger and afraid"

• Kim Duncan: "Productive and strong in a world where rational beings belong."

• Chris Butler: "A producer and objective in a world I made non-collective."

• John Averill: "Important and awake in a world I shall soon make."

• Bob Emslie: "A person with ambition in a world he knows he can make."

• Peter Tucker: "Whatever I do, I will be the best at it."

• Caroline Hazard: "When the world is changing, a man is one who knows his way through the ruins."

• Karen Bazemore: "I'm my own power to recognize, and I'm not willing to let the world socialize."

• John Garlock: "Alive and aware in a world I would like to save."

Where else would you find expressions of life a happy life but from people who realize that happiness takes work? These glowing lines, and others like them, add bright notes to our days. (We hope they have to yours.) It's why we love the school business. Inspiration positive thinking - is alive and growing at the Flint School!

MEASURING INNER GROWTH

     But, impressive as all of the intimate "subjective" evidence is, we need an objective measure of precisely this inner growth. To create the most appropriate measure of how well we accomplish the growth for which we strive, we had to go back to the very foundations of our method, the basic principle which makes the 4R's Method unique and uniquely effective. We returned to the basic individualist premise, the knowledge that all men by nature desire -actively, aggressively desire - to know. We asked ourselves how to uncover and strengthen that trait - and how to measure it.
     You might look at it this way. How do you teach a child who shows brilliant promise? How do you educate a 250 IQ, if you, yourself are far less. Do you have to search out a teacher whose IQ is 300? You'd never make it.
     You teach him the same way in principle that you'd teach any child because in basic principle all humans are the same, having the same organ of learning and all being "tabula rasa" at birth. You'd inspire him, show him his own tools, help him build his confidence in using them, direct him to the most generative and fruitful paths to explore - and step out of his way. At root, each mind learns under its own power. You can't stick a funnel in a child's ear and pour in the knowledge. What are the most fruitful paths? Well, for starters, see The Case For Basic Education. Also read again The 4R's Method Explained.
     The crucial element, of course is the will, the drive to achieve, the spirit of desire which you have seen steadily suffocated and buried in the government accredited schools. Have you ever asked yourself why a certain greyness, mental lethargy, or lack of spirit characterizes the schools which are supposed to be paving the way for a better future? Have you wondered why, with so much expenditure on education, businessmen are crying out that good men are so hard to find? And have you, too, projected the sort of world which such a generation will build? We did - and we set about doing something about it.
      What is that inner spirit, desire to know, will to excel, indomitable drive to get on with the job? One could call it many things. We call it gumption. Webster defines it as, "Courage and initiative; enterprise and boldness." Gumption. It's basic. Without gumption, the greatest IQ accomplishes nothing. With it, even the slow individual can accomplish wonders, sometimes running circles around the brilliant do-nothing. Of course, we're aiming for excellence by both measures. They are inseparable. As Booker T. Washington pointed out, "The world asks not what a man knows, but what he can do with what he knows."
     The Flint School's whole program is based on natural laws rather than man-made laws. (A natural law has the same impartial absolutism as the law of gravity, whether the subject is physics, history, or interpersonal relations.) From this base we seek intellectual honesty, objectivity, and an inquiring mind. We seek to inspire self-imposed, self-directed standards of excellence in each student.
    We have evolved six different measures of life-oriented "doingness," combined to form our GQ (Gumption Quotient.) Most people judge right and wrong by what "they say The Flint School cadet, by contrast, learns to measure his performance by its objective meaning in action . . . Thus the Flint School's GQ!

THE GUMPTION QUOTIENT

Here are the elements of the Gumption Quotient:
    The General Awareness Standard: This is the area where the most serious damage has been done to the minds of today's young people by the destruction and perversion of the consciousness. This is the truly obscene in our world. Read "The Comprachicos." (Rand, The New Left, The Anti-Industrial Revolution, New York, Signet, '71, pp.152-204.) This is where the damage is fatal, and an area that parents very seldom observe. Read "The Contaminates Of The Consciousness." Read "Is Anybody In There?" This is an area not even written about in professional literature - the contaminates of the human consciousness. Yet this is where the "game is being played." Where both the content and methodology of a child's mind are wrong, what are the mental tools and information with which he will stumble into his future? This is the true horror story.
     Our program of group and solo objectives, of many and increasing direct personal experiences, of facing up to the necessity of first hand judgment, is aimed at correcting this dangerous corrosion of the human mind.
     Our awareness score includes the group and solo objective quiz scores, daily news report quiz scores, and general background information quiz scores. (The questions are easy enough that a normally alert individual would have no difficulty earning perfect scores.)

The Earnings Standard: The spending money allowed each student for the school year is a very real part of this program and is treated as a "grubstake", fit t i n g the dictionary definition, "funds advanced a mining prospector on promise of a share in his discoveries." Students are able to earn money by working on the ships, their work being graded for quality and their pay varying accordingly. (See the Flint School Tell-tale, Vol. 8 No. 1) They can further increase their rate of pay by consistently demonstrating top quality workmanship and job responsibility, by integrating the guidelines of consistently professional workmanship. In fact, a vocation skills training program with full time experience plus evening "night school" classes introduces them to the concept and practice of quality labor, skilled workmanship, and contractor status.
     In this context full of possibilities, some students have built their $45.00 grubstakes to return home with over $100.00 in their pockets, having spent and enjoyed from their earnings during the year as well! Others promptly go broke and then spend the rest of the year earning only enough to meet their immediate desires. The minimum, or 'break-even" point (⁰⁰⁰/o) is the amount of earning which would enable a student who spent nothing to pay back his $45.00 grub-stake at the end of the nine months with interest and an adjustment for the current rate of inflation. The ambitious, 100o/~ end of the scale is marked by the average earnings of the most productive 10o/~ of the students.

The Grade Point Average Standard: The measure is of course familiar to everyone. It being an axiom of the 4R's Method that we never subject a child to failure, each class placement is well within the present ability of the student. Grades less than 100% are therefore a matter of student choice. (Of course, no sooner had compulsory education laws been passed than children discovered that they could get around the laws if they wished by "turning off" their minds even though required to sit in a classroom). Since students learn under their own power only, the grades they receive are a measure of their inner desire, or gumption . 100% Straight A's, 00% = Straight F's.

The Maintenance Standard: Invention, Construction, Maintenance, Refinishing, Maintenance, Refurbishing, Maintenance, Rebuilding, Maintenance . . . In the midyear vocational training period, Flint School cadets learn the standards and criteria of different levels of building and repair work. And they learn that maintenance, taking about 900/o of the time, is the most important, the biggest labor and money saver. 4th R students learn that personal qualities, integrity, positive attitude, productiveness, pride, honor, even intelligence, need to be maintained just as physical condition and language skills must be maintained by constant use. We measure maintenance at the most foundational level. Cabin inspection and participation, personal cleanliness and grooming, anchor watch and sailing watch participation and responsibility, and work crew accomplishment, are each graded regularly and the scores compiled to reflect the underlying, un-dramatic "tone" of the student's basic personality. When a person loses that inner will and drive, these everyday details often reflect it first. When one decides to "come alive", the desire to improve the quality of life shows here. 100% is perfect. 00% is doing nothing.

The Qua Ten List Standard: The Qua Ten Scale is a measure of achievement outside of the required class structure, and includes seamanship rank, craft projects completed, marlinspike, and radio skills mastered, sailor's skills passed, book reports submitted, progress toward a bo'sun's rating, etc. All are excellent, generative, highly recommended ways to invest time - but not required. Students learn to evaluate their progress from slavery upward toward freedom by how much they accomplish on "their own time" con pared with how much they accomplish when there is a teacher or supervisor telling them what to do. Further, each grading period the incremet of current over previous scores is doubled, since the important thing is what you do today an tomorrow. "You can't live forever on yesterday's laurels" - the effort and growth have t be maintained. 00% indicates nothing accomplished by independent initiative. The 100% point is found by averaging the scores of the to 10% students, thus providing each student an objective, ambitious standard of self-expectation for accomplishment on his own.

The Seamanship Standard: Nothing builds character like command at sea. Since no one is there to help you if your motor stops, you learn to rely on yourself and to demand that excellence a yourself which enables you to do so success fully. The seamanship program is a series a ranks to be earned as sailing and navigational skills are learned. Each new rank requires a higher degree of demonstrated responsibility, accord mg to the performance that is expected of the rank. The demonstrated responsibility and dependability must be recognized by the seaman ship rank vote and periodic revote for maintenance by other cadets. This evolves from judgement of simple good sportsmanship for Apprentice Seaman to the standard for Captain, stated — one word at a time — "Demonstrate consistently the assumption of responsibility, and behavior, becoming an officer." 00% means landlubber. 100% indicates the rank which is required to receive an A in seamanship that quarter, a progressive scale.
     These six areas are measured routinely and averaged to make your student's GQ score, expressed each quarter on the report card. It reveals an additional dimension of your student, not conceptualized by most educators. It is vital to all honest, productive humans, but unknown to the unproductive moochers or collective-minded. Your student knows the difference; ask him to explain it to you.
     We find the GQ a highly revealing measure of the inner strength of each student. Advance to a higher GQ score through the year, or regression to a lower one, corresponds very well to clearly observable strengthening or weakening of spirit, drive for self-improvement — gumption.
     We wish it were possible to compare Flint School students' GQ growth with that of all other students in the nation. We would see something truly phenomenal, for the "school scene" in government accredited schools is increasingly one of protests, disturbances, drugs, intimidation, etc. And in the classroom, along with all-pervasive socialist bias in texts and too often teachers as well, we wonder what happened to objective standards curriculum. And what of "old-fashioned" respect for one's teachers? Can anyone be surprised, in such a setting, that out of 23 million youths from 12 to 17 years old in 1970, 4.80/0 couldn't read at the 4th grade level? (1,104,000 people). (Sarasota Herald Tribune, 4, May, '74, p.1) (I wish you could all read the article; the test by which literacy was determined was ridiculously easy.) The widespread proliferation of little private schools run by parents is one result of the advanced cancer infecting public education, as people with gumption and insight move to protect themselves and their children. How can students learn anything in the usual public school environment anymore? How can they avoid feeling like the "stranger and afraid, in a world I never made"? The wonder is those students who still manage! More power to them!
     What makes the difference in the Flint School? Everything. The whole, carefully integrated program. But in a nutshell, experiences.' Lots and lots of first-hand, life generating experiences lead students to see themselves as active "doers," real people. And they like this image of themselves so much that they catch fire and rediscover their basic natures as active seekers of knowledge, on the way to creating for themselves the lives they wish, and the strengths those lives will require. We hold the ideal of ACCELERATED ADOLESCENCE. We help our students to grow up just as fast as they can, always assuming more and more responsibility — just as much as they can safely handle. And then we urge them on for more. By contrast, most schools operate on a delayed adolescence theory: "They'll grow up and have to shoulder the burdens of adulthood too soon anyway -let them play while they can." Observe what a profound difference this reveals in one's basic view of the nature of man and of life. If one doesn't actively pursue the best in life, he winds up seeking to avoid it or escape it, thus undermining his comprehension of the world he has created for himself, and in which he feels "a stranger, and afraid."
     What are the life-oriented experiences we provide for our students? Everything we can find which builds basic skills and traits, which opens up new horizons, which builds confidence and happy self-esteem. Everything, in a word, which is generative. We offer big ship sailing and navigation, small boat sailing and powerboat seamanship, water-skiing, swimming and lifesaving, snorkeling, scuba, marlinspike, work crew, vocational training, earning opportunities, money husbandry, foreign travel, currency conversion, group and solo objectives . . . The list goes on and on, and all this in addition to academics. Our ships form a very realistic and complete little society of our own. Every experience gives insight about the needs of world society from technological needs to human influences. We make every detail an opportunity to expand awareness and ability.
     How could you better invest your abilities than by providing this experience for your child at the Flint School Aboard TeVega and teQuest?