Ceaselessly striving towards the asymptote of perfection means that WIP, the acronym for The Writing Institute of Princeton, will always stand for a "work in progress." This section will eventually become home to a new mission statement. In the interim, I offer the following—an open letter to my students, which I hope captures the spirit of WIP.

Dear Students,

I've become increasingly bothered by a recent trend in education: a split between the personal and the professional—with the second taking priority over the first. The result of this trend is that the humanities and social sciences are seen as an obstacle, rather than a complement, to STEM. Various politicians and leaders have even called for HSS (the humanities and social sciences) to be defunded at the postsecondary level. While HSS will never be as marketable as STEM, it is a mistake to think that we can separate the technological from the human, the "practical" from the philosophical. Learning is more than what we do in the classroom, more than just job preparation—more than a bookmark we dispose of once we've finished the book of school and moved to a career. Education is never less than acquiring a set of marketable skills, but it is surely more than that. The professional is personal and the professional is personal. As an example, consider that effort is what links personal motivation and professional success: the more we are personally invested in learning, the more we find theories that inspire us and problems that challenge us, the more we connect our life and our learning, the easier it will to be motivated—to put forward effort, and to ultimately succeed, both personally and professionally.

Institutional education, unfortunately, is not well-suited to this end. Standardized assessments coerce educators to "teach to the test"; national standards require teachers to cover too much content, fostering a superficial rather than critical approach; competition pressures students into prioritizing what can be measured on a test; entire disciplines, such as philosophy and psychology, are mostly ignored; specialization and a lack of interdepartmental communication discourage interdisciplinary learning; non-cumulative tests reward a short-term "dump" and forget approach to learning; large class sizes limit teachers from connecting with the unique interests and strengths of each students; insufficient ability grouping fosters "teaching to the middle," a pedagogy that leaves students at the bottom confused and students at the top, bored; narrow performance metrics discourages real-world problem solving; and tradition and the pressure to conform discourage experimentation.

The result of this split is that students inevitably see education as, at worst, an obstacle—a set of hurdles artificially added to a journey, the overcoming of which contributes little or nothing to achieving success either personally and professionally—and at best, as a mere instrument, a ladder they can kick away once they've reached the destination. In both cases, education becomes something to get through and not an ongoing journey worth embarking upon for its intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Evidence of this shift can be seen in the rising rates of aliteracy (people who can, but don't read). Approximately 27% of Americans neither read nor listened to even part of a book in the past year. Overall, the average time spent reading each week was under 2 hours, a statistic that includes students, educators and other professionals who are required to read on a regular basis.

We will have failed as educators if our students join the millions who—outside a scope of narrow technical skills—stop reading and stop learning.

I've intentionally used the first-person inclusive ("we"), because I'm guilty of falling into this split myself. As an example, consider the literary analysis that we do in class, much of which is beyond what you'll encounter before AP literature. I reasoned that presenting you with a challenge would send the following message: I'm giving you this, because I think you're capable of more than you believe—you can rise to occasion if you work hard and hold yourself to a high enough standard. Without also inspiring you to have high standards, however, such challenge can be demoralizing rather than empowering. Part of my ongoing job is to connect the personal with the academic—to give you reason to believe that you can meet a high bar and reason why you should; to make learning connect with what interests you, rather than impose my own interests upon you.

Both of us are busy, however. We are offered no lack of activities, responsibilities, and hobbies, all of which compete for our limited time and effort; undertaking one thing often involves dropping another. To be effective, therefore, education must always be a gift—one we freely give to each other, an intentional decision to prioritize the long over the short term; a difficult journey amidst alternate paths that promise immediate gratification. Giving this gift goes both ways; mine, in continuing to educate myself and prepare curriculum; yours, in an active participation that looks for challenge and not shortcuts. This metaphor is ultimately limited, however: education cannot be received unilaterally; you cannot accept my gift without also offering yours.

See you in class,

David Mack