3.       What misconceptions do you encounter re classical education

I think that some see learning as a means to an end–the end being Christian dominion. Too often we have some pretty unbiblical ideas about this “dominion”. Christ’s work is typically accomplished through suffering and love. We tend to think that we can come into the kingdom by our wits and by crushing down our enemies. This is just another (snootier) iteration of the political mythology that claims that things would be right if we just elected the right people. I have seen some parents that were saddened because the first wave of CCE educated people have not demolished unbelieving culture and set up the New Jerusalem yet. I think that this is very short sided. Classically educated kids are doing great things. I see a lot of hope in them. I just don’t think that the way to cultural influence looks like a corporate takeover.

Another misconception is that classical Christian education is salvific or at least highly sanctifying and that it works sort of ex opere operato. So parents believe that our school will make their kids love the things that they themselves do not love. I feel at points like I am working to reunite not parents to their children, but grandparents to their grandchildren (i.e., the parents are from a different culture than their children and grandchildren).

2.       What obstacles does classical education confront now and will it confront in the future?

At present, I think that main obstacles are a lack of wisdom (for all parties involved—wisdom being earned by painful failure mainly), a lack of support particularly from the church, and a lack of patience which will seek to find final answers and methods too quickly.

First, there is the lack of wisdom. This is being corrected, but we are still very inexperienced and very naïve. We learn by suffering through budgets, clinging to core commitments, cutting away things that either do not matter or matter no longer, and continuing to learn about how to do this well. The main dangers are twofold. First, we can fail to recognize our lack of wisdom. This is a fairly straightforward sort of pride. Pride keeps you from learning. The antidote to this pride is difficulty and failure. We face these now, and they should be goad to us encouraging us to learn. Second, we can see our lack of wisdom and fall into despair. This despair can cause us to look for wisdom in the wrong places. I see this in the trend of schools recently hiring headmasters who know a lot about business or education, but (professedly) know little about classical education. I think that this sort of person will help the school become more financially stable, but what sort of school will it be in the end? I think that the real challenge is learning the real world truth (balancing a budget, etc.,) that we need to learn without giving into to drink from the trough of worldly wisdom while discarding the very truth that was important to us when we started this thing.

Second, we face a lack of support—especially from the church. This lack of support is causing (forcing? Tempting?) our schools to become what they should not be. The poor are being excluded from a classical education because the schools do not have the resources and the churches are politically hamstrung. The poor are forced into homeschooling (even if the parents are not gifted at it) or sending their kids to low cost and/or low quality schools. Schools seek to meet these needs, but quietly we are morphing into prep schools that serve—not the community that we had in mind at the beginning—but instead the needs of the wealthy who are tempted to look at this sort of education as a means to power (some poor are tempted by this as well).

Third, we have to face down the obstacle of patience. We want things not to be messy. We want to come to definite wisdom. We want a machine that runs at a steady, cool temperature where all the meaningful questions are answers. This, however, is not possible if we want to do it right. We are 30 years into a 1000 year project. If we are blessed, we are not even done with the beginning of the beginning of this. We have to be patient so that we can continue to learn about how to do this.

2A. What does classical education need now and in the near future?

It needs God’s grace (we need His blessing to sustain our work—in spite of the fact that it is imperfect, shortsighted work done by broken, sinful people). We need patience to let the work develop and to help us learn what we should. And we need love. We need to love our students and families. We need love to grow in our communities and churches. We need to continue to ask hard questions and to be content with whatever results accrue from following through on the callings God has laid on our lives.

1. 1.       What do you see ahead for classical education?

I am not as sure about this. The way that our culture does education is changing. In many ways this change must come and I see it as a positive development. People are beginning to be forced to think through the economics of the government run systems and the insanity of bureaucracy of this system. What will come of this? I do not know. Changes like vouchers and defunding of public schools could radically change the environment. Economic difficulties for families could make a classical Christian education (at a school) harder to afford.

All of these concerns, however, are secondary. The underlying question that we will learn the answer to is this: do we have communities (churches and families) that will support classical education. If we have this, then we will see schools (in a myriad of forms stretching from homeschooling to fairly regular looking schools) grow and thrive. If love has grown cold (my greatest fear) or if our love is too narrow (which is just coldness to all outside of a narrow family or church), then we will turn in on ourselves. The best families will do homeschooling well. Others will be left to do the best that they can or will end up finding some other (non-classical option). We need to love one another enough to continue to reach out to others and to make sure that more and more have the opportunity to have this kind of education.

Hillsdale Ed Article

Last night, I spent some time listening (more than talking) to a few very bright guys. I enjoyed the time greatly. Their thoughts, at least in the main, were ones that I found myself disagreeing with. Listening to the discussion really helped me gain some clarity. It made me consider the education that classical Christian schools work to give to their students! We spend time in discussion. Working to help students listen and respond. Seeing the truth that is sifted out as ideas sharpened against each other. I want to help students have the experience that I had last night. In classical education, we look different in secondary school. We argue with each other. We discuss. We wrestle with idea, and try to pin many of them. The skill that we are teaching is grappling.

Just another confirmation that classical Christian education is the right answer for what our kids need now.

I have a lot of thoughts about the project. I might fill them in later, but, first, I would like to thank those involved. I have been blessed by my interaction with them. Here is my dedication to the last volume:

Dedication

To Marlin and Laurie Detweiler, thank you for supporting this project. Your hard work was crucial and your judgments were stellar.  

To Carl Petticoffer, thank you for your patience. We’d have blown it without you.

To Ned Bustard, thank you for your brilliance. You made us look good. 

To Doug Wilson, thank you for your wisdom and humor. It’s been a nice decade working with you. 

To Gene Veith, thank you for your insights and wit. I promise I’ll sign the Augsburg Confession now.

To Emily, thank you for your patience. I will be down from the office in just a few minutes.

Now, we can just sit back and see what happens! I am excited.

Steve Jobs life and impact is a great argument for classical Christian education—an education with encourages the students to think through what it means to be human.

Let me set aside a few objections at the start. Of course, Jobs was not a believer. He was in fact an amalgamation of a 60s radical flower child (prone to some of the weirdest diets and fads and superstitions believing in them to the obvious harm of his body at points) and an Islamic Imam who was only content with ultimate and absolute control. He was not orthodox in any way. His treatment of people was at points reprehensible, rude, and unrighteous—and necessary in order to achieve the results he desired. His life and beliefs were far from the faith.

How then, you might ask, can his life and work form an argument for classical Christian education?!?! Here is how! He was conscious of why he created such earthshaking products. He was a good engineer. He was not a great engineer. Steve Wozniak, with Jobs the co-founder of Apple, was much more of an nuts and bolts (or RAM and circuit) engineer. Jobs surrounded himself with the best engineers, but his talent was in having the vision to see how products must be made in order to work well for humans. He humanized products. He demanded that they be usable and even intuitively usable by regular human beings. He pushed his engineers and designers past their ability and into their imagination to produce machines that fit humanity. In this way, his closest analog is a guy like Frank Lloyd Wright—another genius whose brilliance grew from an understanding and rabid commitment to building human-useful buildings.

What is very interesting is that Jobs, who lived in and transmitted a sort of distortion of reality (called by friends and foes the “reality distortion field”), knew why he could create better, more useful products than his competitors. It was because he understood the Liberal Arts. He knew that by asking the question: “How will a human use this?” and “Can a human use this intuitively?” He was bound to outstrip (by miles) what others who mainly focused on technology and only secondarily on the interface of technology and humanity. He was self-aware of this difference and gloried in it.

This is exactly the sort of education that we hope to give to students. Not all will receive all that we wish to give (more on this later) but it give them a chance and pushes them toward the junction of the liberal arts and whatever else they are producing. Who knows what the future holds? We can know this, however, if you have a good grasp on what humans are and have a deep commitment to creating products that are winsomely useful for real live humans. If you are able to win people over rhetorically by the intuitive feel of your products, you have a great advantage over your competitors…and you have a better chance of creating something that reflects the glory of God because it will reflect the glory of image of God.

As we work on our strategic plan, we have been considering some of the same things. This sort of innovation and cooperation speaks well of the leadership at the three districts—especially Penn Manor who came up with the idea. As budgetary realities start slamming us in the noggin, this sort of creativity is going to be critical. It will, no doubt, become more of the norm, but the people that come up with the ideas first should get some credit. So kudos!

Astute observers of education should recognize that the locus of control over education is shifting. Monolithic public school districts are breaking down. This is both necessary and good. The system is going to (has to) change. We can hope that more power and control over the process is restored to the parents and to the locals. (See the article that I posted recently from First Things on why this is good.)

Here are the articles:

3 school districts will merge teaching efforts article

PM supports open campus plan

Note, however, in an article published today (which people have not yet tied together) that the other shoe is poised to fall. Hempfield, one of the districts involved in the open campus idea, is facing a $4.4 million budget shortfall next year. Sharing teachers means needing fewer teachers. Open campus is, no doubt, a prelude to fewer teachers. This is a necessary correction, but no one seems to see it coming yet, so you heard it first here. Here is the article:

Hempfield facing budget short fall

Article on Education Reform

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