ABSTRACT
What was the life I was trying to prepare students for? Was it the life of the educated person my Westtown roommate James sought? Was it the life I was doing my best to live? Answers to this question grew in unexpected ways. One seed was planted in the late 1960s when I saw the film Breathless by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. In it, a journalist asks a French philosopher, “What is your greatest ambition in life?” The philosopher answers, “To become immortal … and then die.” Over the years this phrase, “To become immortal … and then die,” returned to me again and again. I had no idea what it meant, but it seemed significant.
