Analysis of institutional mission statement and educational philosophy

Education -- Institutional Mission Statement

The mission of this institution comprises three essential goals: (1) to promote educational polices and practices that help every student identify his or her greatest areas of intellectual interests, strengths, and aptitudes; (2) to ensure that every student receives the necessary instruction and support to reach his or her full intellectual and vocational potential; and (3) to enable every student to contribute to the intellectual, social, and economic health of this nation.

The modern state has an obligation to define a focus of education that supports individual virtue and the preservation of the essential institutions of the state (Davidson, 179). President Barack Obama has echoed that principle and this institution is committed to providing an education that fulfills that responsibility as well as the simultaneous responsibility of ensuring that students become good citizens as argued by Locke (Deighton, 20; Yolton, 3), and, most importantly, that they learn how to think rationally and logically, as famously suggested by Aristotle (Ornstein, 112-113).

To fulfill those fundamental responsibilities, this institution will adopt a flexible curriculum designed to broaden the range of choices available to students. The purpose of that approach is to increase the genuine interest in learning among students and eliminate the traditional over-emphasis on subject matter requirements that have change comparatively little in more than two centuries. To encourage the development of rational and logical thinking, this institution will focus on the active-inquiry method of instruction wherever and to the greatest extent possible instead of the traditional reliance on passive learning.