Month: March 2012

Greetings from Evangel Classical School!

It’s hard to believe that we are staring down the barrel of April.  That’s a beautiful time of year here in the Pacific Northwest, but it also means we’re only five turns of the monthly calendar away from the first day of classes at ECS.  That’s crazy.  A few years ago people stopped telling me that the years go by faster the older you get, and I suspect they stopped telling me because it was obvious they didn’t need to.  Well, the months are passing quickly for sure, and we’ll be buying school supplies in no time.

As April approaches, so does April 2, by which day we have asked any families who are interested in having their children attend ECS this fall to express their interest on our Interest Form.  If you fit that description, please take a few minutes and fill out that form for us.

Finally, if you’re interested in asking more questions in person or discussing ECS or classical Christian education, we are having one more open house/open forum at the home of Chuck and Teresa Weinberg on Sunday night April 1 at approximately 8:15.  As before, all interested parties are welcome.

If you’ve spent any time on the ECS website, you will have noticed the dashing visage of one Abraham Kuyper adorning the homepage.  If you click on his nose (or any part of his head, I suppose), it will take you to this link.

Though we have a whole page devoted to Kuyperian Calvinism on the site, it is good to talk about Kuyper’s mindset and influence on our school. While trying not to duplicate everything from the bio page, I want to offer a bit more explanation as to what we find so compelling about Kuyperian Calvinism.

Kuyper famously said the following:

There is not an inch in the whole domain of human life which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, “Mine!”

Now, most Christians will agree with Kuyper because his statement is thoroughly orthodox.  And yet its implications are, in fact, comprehensive.

Take work, for instance.  Many Christians believe that work is spiritually neutral.  It’s separate from what you do on Sunday mornings, so it’s not a spiritual thing.  Having a good work ethic and good reputation are fine, but what happens from 8:00-5:00, Monday through Friday is not the real, spiritual stuff of life.  The same thinking could apply to education, politics, etc.  Enter Kuyper.  Kuyper believed that if Christ is Lord over all the world, then that includes the Christian’s workplace.  He actually cares about widget making for the glory of God, because Christ isn’t only about His work in the Church, but rather everywhere, and in all spheres.

Christ’s control and care are truly pervasive (Colossians 1:16-17).  So the Christian dare not approach education, law, politics, church, nutrition, landscaping, finance or metallurgy as though Christ does not care; Christ cares more than anyone.  We, as the Church of Christ, are a strategic instrument that the Lord is using to effect His will in the world and beyond (Ephesians 3:10).

We at ECS hold in happy tension a premillennial eschatology and the fact that Christians are supposed to behave joyfully.  Although the world will progressively and morally decline in anticipation of the second coming of Christ and His subsequent millennial reign on the earth (spoken of in Revelation 20), the spirit of the New Testament commands to believers is in no way pessimistic or dour.  We are rather to be joyful and confident in Christ as we obey His commands to love one another (John 13:34) and represent Him in the world, even if the world will grow increasingly uncomfortable with our presence.

This was the mindset that drove Abraham Kuyper.  He believed that Christ is present and interested in politics, education and the Church, and Christians should be, too.  For that reason, he was very active politically, educationally and ecclesiastically.

Due in no small part to the work of Abraham Kuyper, church culture in the Netherlands was powerfully changed as Christians were educated and emboldened to represent Christ in all spheres of life.

This undergirds the vision of ECS.  We are passionate about helping our students to realize their place in the Church and the world as Christ’s happy ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20).  And we want to equip them to do this with joy and effectiveness.  That sort of mindset will transcend occupations and will make an already-nervous enemy tremble.

Last Sunday evening many of us (i.e., the Committee and a number of interested families) gathered to talk about ECS and the classical Christian model of education.  While there were a number of things we discussed that would be worth reproducing for you here, there is a thick thread that runs through everyone’s task list: WORK.

And this is a problem, because we hate it.  We don’t like having work to do, and we definitely don’t like being told to do it.  We are accustomed to ease and given to laziness (which we call “efficiency”).  But none of that changes the fact that there is work to do.

Maybe you’re the father of a second grader and you’re thinking about homeschooling your daughter in this model next school year.  Perhaps you’re a recent high school graduate who wishes she were trained in the classical Christian model and who wants to make up for lost time.  Or maybe you’re a grandparent who would like to see ECS well-established by the time your grandson is ready for kindergarten.  It’s even possible (not as likely for those reading this) that you’re an eighth-grader who is thinking about attending ECS as a freshman, but are despairing because you have never studied Latin or formal logic.  Whatever the situation, you have plenty of work to do.  Why is that?

For starters, parents are responsible for the education of their children.  Sadly, many parents abdicate this responsibility.  Others delegate it to a school, expecting for “education” to happen from 8:00AM to 3:00PM, Monday through Friday.  Others know better and strategically select a school that will effectively support them in the education of their children by reinforcing common biblical principles while loving academic content into their children better than they could as parents.  But regardless, the parents are responsible. And if those same parents are going to make good decisions, they must be well-informed.

The recent high school graduate should’t expect to fully understand the Greco-Roman mindset of the first century by reading one poem by Homer…but it can sure help.  To know better, or how to best prioritize your time takes work.  You have to learn what to learn.  Then once you’ve decided, the real work actually begins as you do read Homer and Virgil and Milton and Euclid and CS Lewis and study Latin and logic and more (or More).  Some would use that to excuse inactivity, because making excuses is easier than work.

Proud and well-informed grandparents are excellent ambassadors with contagious enthusiasm.  But if they want to be able to effectively champion the school or speak of it intelligently to others, they have to learn more.  We’re very glad to help, but it still takes work.

The student looking to enter the classical and Christian model had better be ready for (yup, you guessed it!) work.  Now the work is supposed to be hard and fun and rewarding and rigorous, but it’s still work.  If you can work hard and you’re open to the possibility of sacrificing the immediate gratification of straight A’s for sake of the greater, more lasting payoff of being able to use your mind, to handle the tools of learning as a homemaker or a widget-maker, and to be able to understand your place in the stream of Western culture, then you’ll be just fine.  We believe that these things make for better worshipers, and becoming a better worshiper takes work…for all of us.  But be working hard now, and be ready to work hard next year.

I write this first for myself.  I’m excitedly overwhelmed by the amount of work there is to do, and yet I know that this is a necessary and precious season in the life of our school that is marked by high dependence on God.  And we will be quick and glad to give Him the glory for the fantastic outcome (or shall I say, “process?”) we anticipate by faith.

As always, if we can better inform your work, or if we can answer any questions for you, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Risus est bellum.

Greetings from Evangel Classical School!  I trust this finds you looking forward with eagerness to next week and the official start to spring.

Two things before I offer us all an aesthetic challenge.

• Please remember that we are asking families who are interested in ECS to fill out the Interest Form on the school’s website by Monday April 2.  There is no obligation to enroll nor does this secure a spot in the school for those who do so, but it will help the Committee to make the most informed decisions we can in anticipation of our April 30 follow-up meeting (7:00PM at the Marysville Seventh-Day Adventist Church).  While you’re on the website, spend a bit of time looking around as there are some recent additions (e.g., the page on Kuyperian Calvinism).
• Regarding these emails, we are modifying how you will receive them.  I suppose this is also your opportunity to opt out, if you wish (though you can do that any time afterward, too).  The new process will enable us to send this information from our website and post the information on the website in one act.

Very simply, you will soon receive a confirmation email from Feedburner.  If you want to continue to get these newsletters, please follow the directions (it involves a click of the mouse to confirm you’re not getting spammed by a machine).  From that point forward, you’ll receive these mailings via a feed rather than from me.

Also, I apologize ahead of time if you receive retroactive mailings of information I’ve already sent.  As we load past newsletters as posts on the site, you may receive them a second time as a feed.  If so, please disregard or re-read at your leisure.

Beauty: the Aesthetic Leg of the Pedagogical Stool

Many schools today – especially Christian schools – keep the pedagogical tools named Truth and Goodness clean and well-oiled.  They are effective and powerful for the development of young minds and the shaping of students’ worldviews and sense of morality.  They are useful for life after high school in the home, workplace, military or college. But by themselves they make for an incomplete education.

Perhaps it’s better to think of a pedagogical stool with three legs named Truth, Goodness and Beauty.  In most schools, the stool is wobbling on two legs because – if it’s present at all – the leg named Beauty is woefully stubby.

And this is a statement that many schools make in a number of ways.  We live in an age of commitment to self, and moral relativism. (For ME, I think that killing a baby in his mother’s womb is okay if his quality of life would be less-than-ideal…for ME. And don’t judge me because I’m entitled to my opinion.)  It’s little surprise then, that aesthetics (or any formal training to better appreciate them) is largely an afterthought…or even a non-thought.  How on earth can we expect our students to appreciate music by dead guys when we have no grounds for telling them it’s worth listening to?

In The Case for Classical Christian Education, Douglas Wilson writes the following:

“The triad we want to urge in classical Christian education is truth, goodness, and beauty.  When it comes to aesthetic issues, the Christian world is horribly compromised.   One of the tasks of the Christian school is to help bring us out of this relativism by teaching students to love that which is lovely – in music, in painting, in poetry, in drama and in dress.  Whatever is lovely, Paul says, think on this” (187).

To say that an appreciation for beauty is neglected in the modern educational system is a gross understatement.  Is it any wonder that the budgetary axe falls at the root of the Tree of Fine Arts when those who are making the decisions tend to have little appreciation for the arts themselves?  The statement we are making with our checkbooks is that there is greater value in a touchdown then a downbeat, and and greater value in the applause of fans gathered in a gymnasium than a concert hall.  Students’ test scores continue to drop, and we wonder why.  After all, we’re educating our students with a strong emphasis on truth and goodness, right?  What more could there possibly be?

Where does this mentality come from?  Well, it should hardly come as a surprise.  Our society does not appreciate beauty like it used to.  Fine musicians have to play in multiple ensembles just to make ends meet; artists are stereotypically poor; Hip Hop artists that you’ve never heard of make more money in a night than Bach made in his lifetime…and 300 years from now they’ll still be listening to Bach (maybe not, at this rate!), while it’s doubtful that Lil’ Kim or Flo Rida will top many playlists (and yes, I had to look up those names).

Also from The Case, Wilson observes the following regarding clothing:

“Of course, we should dress for comfort, but the biblical view is that we should also dress for the comfort of others.  Today our natural tendency is to dress to suit ourselves.  In another era, students would dress to make themselves presentable.  Now students want to dress to make themselves at ease.  The former generations thought of others; we now insist on putting ourselves first” (186).

This is pretty indicting, but it also resonates with our own personal experience.  The same students who will proudly don a basketball uniform will insist that the wearing of a school uniform strips them of their right to express their individuality.

We are committed to growing in our students a sense of solidarity and a commitment to something greater than themselves in their attire.  As best we are able, we are committed to engendering an appreciation for beauty, whether in the aesthetics of our facilities or in formal musical training in the elementary classroom.  Our students won’t just sing a lot, we want to help them be able to read vocal music early in the grammar years.

And there’s more that we will do, if God wills.  But it’s not because we’ve arrived (we haven’t actually left yet), it’s because we’re committed to the leg of the pedagogical stool that many of our neighboring public schools have whittled to a nub.

Risus est bellum!

Good afternoon to you all from Evangel Classical School (in very early stages of development, but still a send-off point for my greetings, nonetheless)!  I hope yours has been a good week.  Before I try to encourage you all with a few thoughts on the teaching of truth, I offer a request for your input.

Many of you were at the introduction and information meeting on January 30, where we mentioned our plan to have a follow-up meeting on Monday night April 30 at 7:00 at the Marysville Seventh Day Adventist Church (that’s at 12012 51st Ave NE • Marysville, WA, 98271). So first, consider this your formal invitation to that meeting.

At that meeting we intend to announce more in the way of plans and logistics for next year, including which classes we’ll be able to offer and when.  But in order to do that, we need your help.

We are asking folks who are interested in our school to indicate as much on the school Interest Form.  It only takes a brief moment.  This expression of interest does not commit you to enroll your children; neither does it guarantee your children a place in the school; it’s only for the purpose of data collection.  But it’s very important; as you can imagine, it will go a long way in determining how we proceed.

We are asking that families fill out that form by MONDAY APRIL 2.  That will give the Committee four weeks to make the needed decisions, whether clear or difficult.

You may also be interested to know that we plan to have another time of conversation, Q&A and fellowship after the TrinityEvangel Church evening service on Sunday March 18.  The location is still to be announced, but the conversation will center chiefly on questions or thoughts that may have been triggered by the booklet Classical and Christian Education by Gregg Strawbridge.  It’s a loaded ten pages, and if you don’t yet have a copy, you may buy one of your own or let me know, and I’ll try to get you one.

And of course, feel free to pass along this information – or even this email – to your interested and like-minded neighbors and friends.

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Who’s Using Whose Truth?

In epistula, an email newsletter of Veritas Press, Larry R Stephenson, superintendent of Veritas Press Scholars Academy, wrote a pretty spirited email from which I draw the following quotation of Augustine:

Augustine said, “It is like what the Israelites did when they left Egypt and took all their gold with.” We take what God has revealed to pagans and give due recognition to the One who created it.

I thought that was a powerful statement. The world – and by default, public schools – teach lots of truth with a failure to “give due recognition to the One who” has revealed the truth…the Truth Himself.  Sure, two plus two is four, but is that the whole story?

It’s fair to ask whether an intentioned withholding of truth is truthful at all.  We don’t let our kids get by with this. “You didn’task me if I stayed there the whole night, Mom, so why am I in trouble?”  Yet we give the benefit of the doubt to schools, television stations, libraries…. They all have good intentions, just wanting what’s best for our kids right?

Probably not.  Because what’s best for our kids is a knowledge of God as He has revealed Himself in His Word and in Creation.  The world tries to explain away one, and militantly ignores the other.  (Side note: I watched about 90 seconds’ worth of a TV special that actually tried to use “science” to explain away the plagues of Egypt, and how they “naturally” triggered one another. Is that neutral?  Well-intentioned?)

We can teach all the truth that the world teaches (incomplete as it is), because it’s borrowing truth from us in the first place.  And more than that, we can teach the whole thing because we intentionally glorify the Giver and Source of that truth.

The world is working hard to undo what you’re doing.  We’d much rather be tag-team partners with you.

Risus est bellum!