No Tests? College's Students Must Relearn How to Learn

Fleming thought: Hmmm. This is a long speech.

"All the freshmen were like, 'Um, what's going on?' "

One father -- who was deeply skeptical of the school from the beginning -- laughed afterward and said it reminded him of Hogwarts, Harry Potter's wizarding school, with its obscure lessons and mysterious initiation rites.

Inevitably some students drop out, unable to get through the endless philosophical conversations, worried that they will not be prepared for a career or needing the threat of bad grades to get them out of bed to class in the morning. Several did this fall, Fleming said -- just packed their bags and were gone.

"I don't know how I've been doing, actually," said Allison Dietz, a freshman from Bethesda. "Sometimes I'm worried -- maybe I'm not getting any of this -- maybe I just think I understand this." Friends in her dorm told her they worried about the same thing. "It's possible none of us get it."

Eric Honour, a freshman from Fairfax, said, "There are a lot of people, it would drive them crazy," not getting scores all the time. "They could not deal with it." But without constant tests, it was easier to get behind in his Greek class.

But many students said they loved the seminars, and the connections between classes.

Even though she'd never liked geometry before, Fleming became fascinated by Euclid. Sometimes when someone was writing out a proposition on the blackboard, and she saw how the lines and angles and logic all snapped into place, she would think: That is beautiful.

At midterm, Fleming's friends at other colleges were frantically studying for exams.

"I felt kind of bad that I wasn't stressed out about anything," she said.

Tutor Deborah Renaut watches the students learn to learn from one another, not just relying on her for instruction and approval. Some still try to decode her words if she talks about what interested her in their papers. "They want to know -- 'Does that mean it's good?' "

In lab one day this fall as they began learning about measurement, students spent the class talking about quantifying and qualifying, what could be measured and why, Swiss cheese, baseball, emotions, pencils and how close to death Socrates recommended living.