For a moment I’m going to remove my U.H. hat and replace it with a H.D. hat. Oh, and H.D. stands for “Hopeful Dad.”
As you’re probably aware, I’m the father of three Raggants. I have a vested interest in seeing our school thrive and our students’ success, and it goes beyond my role as headmaster. If your family is like ours, you have moments when schooling is especially hard. Some books are really hard to read. Some math concepts are really hard to grasp. From Logic to Latin to Literature, faithfulness in the trenches can be challenging. We’ve had plenty of 10:00pm Latin caputs and revisions of math problems after evening church functions. I get it. It’s hard.
But recent homework marathons (perhaps a bit of an overstatement, I grant) have reminded me of a few points that I preach to others in my more lucid moments. These are things that I know:
I know I don’t want preferential treatment for my kids. Though he’s getting better, my son has a tendency to be sloppy in his homework assignments, and I praise God that Miss Bour doesn’t give out neatness points cheaply. If he gets full neatness points for subpar work, he’ll learn that mediocrity is the standard, and putting forth 70% effort is good enough. It makes the points cheap. Someday soon he’ll get full neatness points and it’ll be a big deal when he does.
If Mr. Bowers makes exceptions for Abbie because she’s my daughter, he’s depriving her of a good education. So as a dad I want him to know that he has my full support and I value his faithfulness.
I know that my kids are being enculturated, and a report card can’t fully capture that. If Ellie is faithful and earns straight C’s, she’ll come away from ECS with an appetite for knowledge, broad interests, deep loves, vibrant relationships, and having beheld Christ for 11 years (she was in 2nd grade when the school opened). She’ll appreciate Latin and history, even if she’s mastered neither. And she’ll have the work capacity of a locomotive. This is because of the cultural water she’s swimming in. We (and her teachers) are using a bunch of tools like good books and math lessons to train her in character. And I want her to be faithful.
I know I’m always teaching. How I respond to adversity and frustrations and joys and opportunities are effective tools for training my kids about how to handle life. My (hopefully-humble) readiness to laugh as a taunt to our enemy while remembering God’s sovereign goodness is instructive for my kids. My eagerness (or hesitation) to seek forgiveness when I wrong my children is showing them how I expect them to treat each other.
All together, this motivates me to be intentional in my living and grateful for the education that my children are receiving. And by God’s grace I see plenty of reasons to remain one H.D.