It was a day for tackling big questions! At the inaugural session with Dr. Matthew Croasmun of Yale Center for Faith and Culture, our 8th Graders began their months-long inquiry into… themselves. The Life Worth Living @ Unquowa program, developed in partnership by Dr. Croasmun, Mr. Snow, and Ms. Warshaw, introduces students to the practice of intentional self-reflection as they gear up for their next steps in high school and beyond. Over the course of the remainder of the school year, students will consider what they and others desire most in life, what is worth wanting, and how those “wants” might shape responsibility to self and community.

This first session tasks students with dreaming big; first about their own futures – what they believe they want for themselves and what seems to be important to them. We then moved to interrogate those desires further: digging into the “why” behind those wants. After that, we touched on responsibility – it’s definition and how it impacts our decisions.

Finally, we ended our study with glimpses of how different people throughout history have answered the questions of responsibility and what is worth wanting. These glimpses will come back up as we continue our journey together.

As their teachers and advisors, we were so proud of how thoughtfully and seriously engaged these young teenagers were, considering questions that have been asked by those much older than them for thousands and thousands of years. These are some of the biggest questions about being a human being, and, as Dr. Croasmun reminded us, we will never become experts at answering them because we are always living them out and re-evaluating. It was a wonderful start to the third year of our LWL @ Unquowa program, and we are so excited for our next visit with Dr. Croasmun!