“Learning for the Sake of Learning” at Gov School

What would make a student choose to take in-depth classes for three hours a day all while giving up three weeks of their precious summer vacation?

Virginia Summer Residential Governor’s School is an opportunity for rising juniors and seniors in excellent academic standings to learn more about a subject than what high school offers.

Students can apply to go to Governor’s School in visual and performing arts, mathematics, science and technology, or humanities. Within every school there are more specific subject fields for which the student applies. Each school is held at the campus of a Virginia college.

The schools all last for three to four weeks in June and July. During these weeks the students live together in the dorms on campus at their respective college. They have at least one classroom activity per day and at least one teambuilding activity too.

In order to attend Governor’s School, students must be selected as outstanding candidates by both their home school and Albemarle County before their application is even considered by the state.

Of the 14 students AHS selected last year, the state invited 11 to attend Governor’s School. “We had two calls from the state saying how much our kids rocked,” gifted resources teacher Alexis Mason said.

One of these students was senior Divya Sriram, who went to the Governor’s School for humanities. “I liked the fact that we would have discussion seminars. No notes in class, just talk. Sometimes we would go off on tangents, but that was ok. It wasn’t learning for a test, it was learning for the sake of learning,” she said.

Sriram chose a seminar focussing on the history of monsters in society. The class discussed how monsters were stand-ins for common fears of the day. “Frankenstein is the African-American—it perpetrates so many stereotypes of slavery,” Sriram said.

Pingyi Zhu is another student from AHS who went to Governor’s School last year. Zhu went to the Governor’s school for Visual Performing Arts or VPA. In order to get into the VPA school applicants must submit a tryout, or in Zhu’s case an art piece, at the county and state level.

Governor’s school is a great place to meet other students interested in what you love. Zhu and Sriram are both still in contact with friends that they made at Governor’s School.

If you are interested in applying to Governor’s School you must meet with Ms. Mason as soon as possible, as the informational meetings have already happened.