Admittedly, the only connection between the author Jane Austen and England’s new Jane Austen College is the name. But I’m so charmed by the idea of a school named for Austen (in British parlance, a “college” is a secondary school, not a university) that I can’t resist writing about it again (the previous posts are here and here), this time to note its opening this month
In American terms, Jane Austen College, located in the eastern English city of Norwich, is a charter school – a free public school that operates independently of a local school district. Its specialty is the humanities, a true breath of fresh air in our science-and-math-obsessed culture.
But students interested in what we now call STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are not lost: Jane Austen College is affiliated with a math/science academy named for Sir Isaac Newton.
The great thing about naming British schools? You can choose from hundreds of years' worth of towering intellects.
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