The madcap, ironic comedy The Importance of Being Earnest is an enduring classic. The play seems frivolous and silly at times, but Oscar Wilde imbues his brilliant dialogue with choice truth. He explores truth and falsehood in a farce, showing clearly what people tend to prefer—pleasant falsehood over unpleasant truth. Culture, politics, the news, and perhaps surprisingly, higher education too, often train us to prefer this.
You might ask, Doesn’t higher education, by definition, lead students out of ignorance and into truth? If that education is based on original texts, original intent, and original thought, then yes, it should do exactly that. However, a young person just leaving high school might not have the tools of discernment or the ability to ask the right kinds of questions to know whether their professors are leading them toward truth or into pompous groupthink and clever-but-false consensus.
Education is largely about fact-gathering and skill-honing, but formation isn’t only concerned with facts and ideas; it is rooted in gaining knowledge and having the wisdom to apply it.
Before you despair for your own or your child’s education—decrying the lack of institutions that genuinely go back to the sources and give space for thinking ideas through—I posit to you The Importance of a Gap Year. A place to perceive truth, to encounter thoughtful questions, to grow in wisdom and discernment, to examine life.
There are excellent gap-year programs in existence, many very specific in their aims—from law and politics, to English and history, or spiritual direction and theology. But what if you could find a gap year offering all of those things and more—learning from primary sources, wrestling with ideas, working alongside others, and growing in spiritual formation? Wouldn’t you desire that opportunity before being propelled into a profession or a professor’s classroom?
Summit Gap Year does exactly that—it encourages leaning into learning with humility, becoming well-rounded in literature, theology, economics, philosophy, and the rhythms of liturgy, story, and beauty that God has etched into his world. It offers space to journal and pray without the distractions of technology and screens; a place to serve alongside others; a classroom led by godly, wise men and women who want to invest in students; opportunities for outreach; and internships or job shadowing to discover where one’s giftings and interests would best fit in various real-world vocations.
Socrates famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Yet it’s hard to examine one’s life with the noise of phones, screens, and constant activity.
Summit Gap Year offers you the chance to slow down, reflect, and enter into daily rhythms with fellow students and a staff and faculty who will love you and walk with you.
It is a place where you get to practice being a whole person, entering in with your head, your hands, and your heart.
Take it from one who has experienced firsthand the trajectory-shifting influence of Summit’s Gap Year. Your life will change in ways you don’t expect: in the questions you ask, by deepening your roots into the soil of God’s love (Ephesians 3:17, TLB), in becoming part of a community that is real, honest, rich, and long-term, and in your mental, physical, and spiritual habits. . . . You will be changed for the good if you allow it. Are you ready to discover the importance of a gap year?
By Jody Tschumperlin