Welcome back to the Men of Issachar Podcast.
We have a very special episode that's been in
the works for a while now. I think we've had
to reschedule this particular session around
four or five times due to either illness or everyone's
schedules just not being able to match up. Nick
Duncan and Christie Wright are our guests today,
and we're going to be talking about classical
Christian education, or CCE, as you might hear
it referred to. and why it is superior to other
types of education in most cases. I know that's
a bold claim, but there's a study that Christie
quotes in this episode that kind of backs up
that claim. So I encourage you to listen all
the way through. Both Nick and Christie are 1
% of 1 %ers in my book. Not only are they brilliant
in many different subjects, they are truly kind
and good people and have a ton of experience
and just wisdom to break the subject. So sit
back, relax, as Terry Gantt, Jeff Wright, and
myself, Jason Gull, strive to be Men of Issachar.
Welcome back to the minivisicar podcast the podcast
where we seek to be like the minivisicar to know
the times and to know what to do If you if you
were if you listen to our last podcast we had
on our guest Joshua Abitoy to speak about elite
education secondary education higher education,
I guess And so today we're going to go back to
a more foundational approach. And we have a couple
of guests with us today. So I'm here with our
usual host, Jeff Wright, back with us after a
lengthy battle with a near terminal case of the
flu. Jason Gaw, of course, back with us. I'm
here as well, Terry Gant. And we're back with
Nick Duncan and Christie Wright. Christie is
the academic dean of a classical Christian K
through 12 school. And Nick, what is your title?
Development director development director of
a different K through 12 classical school and
so And I am also an administration in classical
school So we've got a couple of folks here who
what we all have at least one foot in in Classical
either with being a parent or being a teacher
former teacher, whatever. So this bunch is going
to discuss Classical education I think today
so hey, can we get on the record? I guess Chris
you first how many years in classical? This is
my 19th year Okay, founded two schools. Yep,
so far. Nick, how many years particularly were
you a headmaster? Ten. Ten years. And then taught
before that for? Three years before that, and
so 14 or 15 years total at this point in CC.
A couple decades in the room. All right. Well,
let's see. I guess the question, probably the
big question to kick us off with, and this is...
This is kind of the point of the episode, is
what is classical education? What is it that
makes it different? So, anybody want to take
a stab at that in a succinct way? Yes. Okay,
do it. All right. Classical Christian education,
we fondly call it the new old way, because it
is new in a sense to a lot of us, especially
in America, this generation particularly. The
modern movement started in the late 70s, early
80s. Most of the oldest classical Christian schools
started in a span between like 78 and 82. And
so we call it new because that's not very old.
But we call it the old way because the movement
is a recovering and a discovery of a way of educating
that itself is incredibly old. It's the way that
people in the West were educated. beginning in
the ancient world, all the way back to Athens.
Of course, it's looked different in the West,
even in different seasons and different ages,
but all the way back to Athens and the first
academies, the gymnasiums, all the way up to
the late, in America, all the way up to the late
1800s, early 1900s. There's about a 40 -year
stretch, the progressive era from about 1880
to 1920. When you have the rise of John Dewey
and others who began what we call like the progressive
movement, what we call modern education, secular
education, where they began kind of deconstructing
the old way of educating and reforming it into
what we would commonly call job training, preparing
people for the workforce over and above educating.
And so the difference is, is that education is
really a passing on of a way of life, I think,
most simply is how you would put it. In Ephesians,
when Paul says, to fathers particularly, to raise
your children, the nurture and admonition of
the Lord, one of the words that we translate
there doesn't actually have a very good English
translation. So, the Greek word is paideia, and
we don't really have a…nurture and admonition
doesn't really do it justice. So, Padea is like
a passing on of a way of life. It's an inculturation.
It is what God's people of old would have thought
of when the Lord told them in Deuteronomy to
teach their children by writing it on the doorposts
of their house, on the front lips of their eyes.
It's Psalm 1. When you rise up, when you walk,
like at all times, this is an immersive, for
all my Baptist friends in the room, this is an
immersive way of doing life. It is a passing
on of a way of life. And particularly after the
time of Christ, this type of education became
distinctly Christian. And so, for the majority
of its time, it's been Christian. And so, That
is what kind of Western education has been, and
then we call it classical education because it's
old and we're recovering it. And we call it classical
Christian education because it should be centered
in Christ, because you'll hear us use words like
truth, goodness, and beauty. Those are the transcendentals
that the Medieval's would speak of and everything
that you could know that was worth knowing was
true and good and beautiful. and that Christ
is the standard and the root for those things.
And so, there's a lot more to it that I'm sure
everybody here could add on to, but that's kind
of in a nutshell what it is. And it doesn't change.
You can find different flavors of it, but our
discovery of it changes as we continue to read
medieval writers and ancient writers. And we're
still in that process. We want our students and
we want our own children to be lifelong learners.
And so we should be lifelong learners. So we
want to keep reading these people and trying
to improve upon it by recovering more and more
of the gold and making it even better. So that's
what we're in the project of doing. That's our
project. OK. So we can probably unpack a few.
key terms, right? Like the term classical, if
you're familiar with it, is a reference to a
Greco -Roman culture, right? That's what it really
means in its narrow sense. It has to do with
Greece and Rome. And that is a big component
of what classical does, right? There's a lot
of, I'm going to use this term pedagogy. Pedagogy,
to put simply, is just teaching method. What
are the strategies the teachers employ in the
classroom to actually instruct? So we derive
a lot of pedagogical strategies from Greeks,
your Socratic question and answer dialogue. And
that was a... And still is a very common way
to educate certain specific classes. So lawyers,
for instance, are still educated that way, even
in a modern university that has nothing to do
with classical. So this is not something that's
completely vanished from the earth. But K through
12 classical schools see these teaching methods
as they align with the children's development.
They make sense to the kid. And you kind of ride
with the grain of the student's developing brain
by Applying pedagogical techniques that enable
them to learn well and in a way that's interesting
to them in addition to the content that we actually
teach so If I had to say that there was there
was two differences So the idea of an elevator
pitch right and that was a pretty good one If
I was just talking to somebody who just asked
me what what is the the thing that's different
about classical? I would say well, there's two
things That are that most people would commonly
understand and one is curriculum So the actual
content of what is in the classes and the other
one is the pedagogy So the pedagogy like I said
is just that the teaching methods and this is
of course oversimplified but again elevator pitch
and so the methods that we teach are borrowed
from the old way of teaching the old way of learning
the old way of understanding human development
and You know, it's important to point out that
this isn't good because it's old. It's good because
we can look back on paragons and see that they
were well educated. I often find myself looking
back to like the American founders and thinking,
how were they educated? And it was with these
methods and with this content. And so the curriculum
side is, there's certain specific academic disciplines
that all classical schools ought to have, but
it's based on the liberal arts. So Mrs. Wright,
would you like to unpack the liberal arts for
us? Before I do. I'd like to add I think a brief
succinct way to think about classical education
is that you want to help children understand
the answers to three questions. First, who am
I? And if you let that sink in, you don't answer
that with rote memory, right? Who am I? And all
that you have to learn and unpack to answer that
question well, how did I get here? again, thinking
about that culturally, okay, I'm Christian, I'm
Western, who is my family? What does it mean
to be, you know, living in the postmodern world?
And then all that you have to learn to have a
full answer to that question, who am I? How did
I get here? And what am I made for? What is my
TLAS or my end? Where am I headed? I think that's
another easy way to help, you know, doesn't get
into the details, which we can into liberal arts
education, but It doesn't quite get into the
details of the curriculum, but you can imagine,
well, what are all of the things I need to learn
if I want to answer those three questions and
how much time it would take to be able to do
that well? Well, and just because we're setting
up contrast and things, too. So Nick already
talked about progressive education. Think about
the richness of those questions versus how will
I earn a substantial living, which is sort of
the right or how do I integrate into the economy,
which is sort of how do I go to college? Yeah,
that that's the highest. aspiration of the progressive
education. We're talking about something that's
just categorically different. Yeah, it really
is, um, drastically different. But Terry, to
go back to your question about the Southern liberal
arts, so we're talking about seven disciplines.
We're going to organize them into three and four.
Um, we'll start with, uh, the three, the trivia.
These are language based, um, arts and they're
all, um, You had referenced in keeping with the
grain of children. I think that is really helpful,
but is secondary. So when we think about them
just in terms of content and discipline, we're
talking about grammar, which we define as the
basic component parts of every subject. So we
would say that English has a grammar, but also
science has a grammar, mathematics has a grammar,
theology has a grammar. So everything has a grammar
to it, understanding the basic component parts.
And then we go to logic or dialectic. understanding
how do those parts interact with each other?
What kind of systems do I need to understand
to understand language, science, history? This
is where we're talking about things like hermeneutics,
right? How do I understand how literature works?
Today, I taught middle schoolers about the hero's
journey. That is very appropriate for the logic
level because we need to understand how does
literature work. And then we get to the third
aspect of the Trivium, which is rhetoric. And
so in rhetoric, we're understanding what are
all of these things I've learned for, what do
I aim them at, how do I communicate about them
in an educated and wise way, and then also in
a winsome way so that if I've learned to understand
what is good and true and beautiful, which is
sort of undergirds these, I also understand I
have the impetus to bring people along with me,
right? I don't learn these things for my own
sake, not just to get into college, but the goal
is to understand what is good as a distinction
from what is evil or just unhelpful. And then
necessarily I need to be bringing people along
with me. So that's the trivium grammar, logic,
rhetoric, and we can talk about these more, but
just to get the other. These exist as independent,
like academic disciplines on their, in their
own right. We, you know, we obviously teach students
rhetoric in the sense that it's sorry. I'm going
to say grammar, but rhetoric too. We teach grammar
in the sense that they're learning parts of speech.
It's like what you would think of as grammar.
So it is a class as well, but it's also a category.
And so it does double duty in that sense. Right.
So we're talking about a curriculum. Let's put
kids in grammar class, put kids in a logic class,
which we do, put kids in a rhetoric class, which
we do. But I like to think of it as well as an
epistemological framework. So how do I understand
any discipline? How do I gain knowledge? So if
I look at anatomy and physiology, which is not
my field, I probably should have picked something
I knew more about, but I need to start by understanding.
I'm building knowledge. How do I understand anatomy
and physiology at a grammar level? What are the
basic component parts? There's a lot of memory
involved. We have to know the names of things.
Right? And we can think about, you know, we could
talk a lot about naming and the theological implications
with naming, having authority and mastery and
understanding something well. But then I need
to know how do the systems of the body work?
And then what is the body for and how do I communicate
that? What are all the reasons I would need to
communicate that? And that's just one discipline.
So we're attacking everything with the Trivium,
but the Trivium is also in and of itself three
different, you know, content areas. I don't know
if we want to keep talking about the Trivium
or if I should go on. No, you can move on. I
just wanted to point that out, that it can be
both. So context is key. Yeah, it should be.
You say it can be. I think it necessarily should
be. Well, I agree. I agree. What I mean is like
in conversation, it could be either of those
things. So you got to pay attention to what specifically.
And that doesn't even get to Dorothy Sayer's
understanding. Well, I wouldn't say that that's
her full understanding of the Trivium. It's just
what she puts out an essay. She gives a speech,
I believe in 1947, if anybody wants to correct
me on that. She gives us a speech to the graduating
class. Again, check my details, but a graduating
class of teachers at Oxford in 47. And she says,
no one will ever listen to me, but here are some
thoughts I have about education. And so she puts
the trivium back out on the table. And she says,
look around you. Are we impressed with what we're
seeing from our educated class? It's excellent,
by the way, for her to have written this so long
ago. It's pretty jarring. It's available for
free if you just Google it. Dorothy Sayers' Lost
Tools of Learning. That's right. And you'll find
it. And it's not very long. So if this is an
interesting topic to you. look that up and you'll
find it pretty easily. Yeah. So she is really
responsible for the spark of the recovery that
Nick was mentioning earlier. And she talks about
the Trivium in a third way that I think is really
very excellent, but I also think is really secondary.
So she talks about it in terms of the developmental
stages of children. And so children are pole
parrots in the grammar stage. They want to repeat.
This is where we get our chanting and our reciting
and we can do it again and do it again and do
it again because we know the six -year -old.
Their brains are good at memorizing large volumes
of grammar, essentially. I know in teacher school,
they really downplayed or really condemned rote
memory. They would say, drill and kill. Don't
drill and kill. Nick, I don't know if you heard
this in teacher school, too. But they say, don't
drill and kill. But then what we have is a class
of a society of people. Everybody has really
strong opinions, but not a lot of factual basis
for those opinions because they. they didn't
learn the grammar of whatever they're talking
about. And so, right, the strong opinions of
politics, but you say, well, who ran for your
state Senate or define this thing that you hate.
And they often can't. Absolutely. Yeah. So defining
is really important. It's part of the grammar
stage again, necessary. Um, and this is really
important for small children. So Dorothy Sayers
said the pole parrot stage and then she, um,
in the logic stage, again, she's kind of looking
at middle aged or sorry, middle aged middle,
middle aged children, middle grades, children,
middle school aged children. And she called them
the pert, I believe. Am I remembering that correctly?
And if anyone's spent time with a 13 year old,
they know that you cannot tell them anything
that is true without them questioning that. And
that's, you know, probably a little bit of a
social thing. I think it's in the nature of a
child to start to question and say, I need to
understand more. than just taking that at face
value. I think that's good. What they're saying
is, you know, can I see what's behind the curtain,
please? Can I understand? And that's the developmental
stage where an independent, mature adult is starting
to emerge. Right. Right. And so it's good for
a student to, at some stage, start saying, well,
I'm going to have my own thoughts about things.
Oh, great. It's just, it's so often kind of like
a wildfire. Right. Because they're immature.
Right. So one of the things I appreciate is that
this model anticipates that and channels it.
And what I was referencing, I think people tend
to think of middle schoolers as really sassy
and sarcastic. That might be more of a social,
I hate the phrase social construct, but some
things are socially constructed. I don't think
they necessarily have to be punks. I think that's
probably more social. They aren't necessarily
foolish though. That's right. That's the biblical
category. The goal is to become wise. That's
right. And so they're questioning, but they're
not always going to do that in a really respectful
way. They're not going to do it in a thoughtful
way. An effective way. to teach them how to question.
What we like to say is they're going to argue
anyway. We may as well teach them how to do it.
Well, there are rules. How do you ask the question?
Well, how do you, you know, to, to elicit information
that will help you resolve whatever it is that
interrogate an idea. Well, right, right. So,
um, again, if we're looking at sears, um, you
know, the way she laid out the trivia and we're
talking about how do we teach pedagogically in
keeping with the development. mental stages of
a child, and we look at a child who is foolish,
bound up in their hearts, yet straining towards
adulthood and independent thinking. Still bearing
the image of God. Yeah, it just clashes, and
it's just a big knot and a big mess. And so we
say, here's what we need. We need structure.
We need systems for thought, right? We need to
teach you what questions to ask, how to do that.
Let you know there are questions to be asked.
This is a good thing, right? Pushing against
authority, I think, is a good thing. appropriate
within all the parameters, respect being one
of them. And then when they've learned how to
do that well, what we see in our older teenagers,
here we say rhetoric school is 10th, 11th, and
12th. That's kind of the idea. Schools can define
that differently, but we're looking at those
older teenagers and we see that they're anxious
to create. And contribute contribute term that
comes to mind for me. I don't know that anybody's
had an original thought in a really long time
Sure, but they like to think that they have you
know, they are striving towards original. Well,
you're you know You're at the age that they're
at they have accumulated sufficient grammar knowledge
and they have learned to think clearly enough
that they now Feel that they have contributions
to make to What would happen with whatever academic
discipline whatever social situation they're
in and in many cases they're they're correct
and so Now we're at the stage where we're going
to teach them how to do that, right? Just for
clarity, we're talking about moving into the
rhetoric stage. Moving into the rhetoric stage,
that's right. So we do need them to contribute
and every contribution is going to require communication.
Yes. There's no field. that says communication,
good communication skills are not required here
whatsoever. Nobody's going to say that. Not to
mention, you know, Nick talked about a way of
life, not to mention the fact that communication
is necessary to be a good churchman, to be a
good wife, to be a good adult child, you know,
just thinking about all of the things that are
going to be required from humans, not just we
do this so we can go to college and then we can
work. and then we can retire. But what does life
look like? This is an enculturation. And our
society dissuades communication skills because
we have such good communication tools that the
skills often lack because of those tools. We
were just discussing this before. The Zoomers
stereotypically aren't very good at phone calls,
right? Because they text and email for everything.
That's a weakness for this generation because
they have been allowed to lean on this and another
example just We all used to memorize phone numbers
right now. Nobody remembers anybody's phone number
because we just save them so it's a skill we
used to lean on now we have a tool that does
it for us and you know part of the part of the
purpose of reaching back in time is to look at
what what were we what was education good at
when it was making Renaissance men and women
and Calling those things back up even though
yeah sure AI can write your email or write your
speech or whatever. Rhetoric teaches them how
to think through it and do it in a superior way.
A way that can actually move the needle. Sure.
With the trivium, grammar, logic, rhetoric, and
then quadrivium, what does that do? Get your
listeners up on that. Right. Are you sure we
can? talk another hour about rhetoric. Right.
So that's the three trivium. And then we get
into the four. I said the trivium or language
based. I've been talking also for a while. I
don't know if anybody wants to. I'll do, I'll
do the quadrivium. How's that? So the quadrivium
are our number arts and they are arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy, and music. And so That can
be explained. This is still a little esoteric,
but arithmetic is numbers in sequence, geometry
is numbers in space, astronomy is time and space,
and music is numbers in time, which is fancy
sounding. But these are all number arts, and
you wouldn't think that when everyone's like,
do you got STEM education in classical? And that
may be a good deviation, because that's going
to be a question. And the answer is yes, you
know you teach you teach science and math robustly
and Furthermore, why why are we studying science
and math? One of the points of emphasis is is
because science is such a vast field It's not
really reasonable to expect any school K through
12 to teach a student to be an expert in any
field of science. And so a big important part
of it, in addition to learning the grammar of
a specific type of science, for instance, you
mentioned ANP or anatomy and physiology before,
but also teaching them how to be scientists,
right? Like how do you make legitimate scientific
inquiry and submit to the truth of your findings
and things of that nature? So there's some philosophical
components to it as well. If that doesn't sound
relevant, I think most people can harken back
to very recent days when we were told the science
had a definitive conclusion on a topic and we
should listen to the science. The science is
settled. You need a sort of person who understands
the grammar and the logic of science to go, wait
a minute, that's not how that works. So some
kind of rhetorical manipulation is taking place
here. Well, really what we want to do in science
is we want to organize our thinking. One way
to think about classical education is we're teaching
children how to have organized an organized mind
and an organized heart. Um, and so science, of
course we want nurses and doctors and method.
We need all of that. That's really practical.
That stuff is definitely, um, available to students.
But, um, I would say more than that is that we
need students to learn how to organize their
minds and the scientific. A study in science
helps them to do that with the material world,
which they live in. It's necessary. And I don't
think, I think it's tempting for Christians.
You know, I think there's an old idea that like
Christian schools just say, well, we just need
the Bible. What else do we need? Just teach the
Bible. That's sufficient. It is sufficient for
salvation and godly living, true. But the Lord
has worked in the material world as well. And
I think having a robust understanding of science,
learning to love the works of the Lord, not just
in the spiritual realm and the immaterial world,
but in the material world as well. Again, it's
just thinking, how do I work? The scientific
method is a way to think through a problem. And
so even if you're not going to be a scientist,
if you're going to be a mother, I just need to
think. I need to have an organized mind and know
how to think through a problem well, and that
applies to anything. Sure. Home improvement project,
car problem, very down, earthy issues. A special
needs child. Even relationship problem, even
things that aren't necessarily STEM subjects.
How do I solve the problem in an organized way?
And then also in a precise way. Nick might speak
more to this, but the Medieval said, Do not get
near the theological studies until you have passed
certain markers in math and science. And the
reason is because theology and the greater things,
the transcendental things, require such an ability
to practice precision. right, to define well,
to think through categories well. And science
and math do that for us really, really well.
So I like to call math details training class.
Yes. It is a kind of logic class in its own right.
Absolutely. And the Medieval saw philosophy as
interrelated to what we would call mathematics.
because it's about orderliness, precision, right?
So Pythagoras is not just developing a mathematical
theorem. He's engaging in philosophy because
there's an interconnected in a way that probably
he didn't recognize as a pagan. There's an interconnectedness
within Christ who is revealed both through special
revelation and his natural world. They saw those
things as more tightly wedded that would be wise
to see as more tightly wedded too because you're
operating on the same for lack of a better term,
operating system that God installed in His creation.
Another thing to take this in a little bit different
but a related direction is the importance of
thinking of those transcendentals. So again,
they are truth, goodness, and beauty. Everything
that Christy said is right about having an organized
mind, and that that is a thing that we're seeking
within classical Christian education. But when
you think about humans having souls, right? So
souls are simple, they're one thing, but they
have various faculties. So we have a will and
we have a mind and we have affections. And the
way that we educate, if we're passing on a whole
way of life, then The liberal arts particularly
are about intellectual virtue. So the things
that that Christy was speaking to But it's also
why we value things like fine arts you've seen
a growing recovery of What we would call mechanical
arts, which are fine arts or arts that would
produce beauty and liberal arts produce intellectual
virtue and mechanical arts are producing things
that are for just the common good of man. So
mechanical arts are very broad, but you can think
of like a beekeeper, someone who is beekeeping
is doing a mechanical art and the outworking
of that is honey, which is a good thing. And
those things meet sometimes in like a skilled
craftsman with wood. Yes. Very functional, also
very beautiful. Both things are there's intellect
involved there Your affections are involved there
because you want to build something that is good,
right? You want to build something that is lovely
and of course you have to use the basic foundations
of nature and how the wood works and how the
saw will work that cuts it and you have to use
math to measure and to figure out the best way
to to do the craft to join things together or
to tear some things apart in order to join them
to other things. Well, and then how to glorify
them, right? You glorify them by joining them
well, varnishing, displaying. So part of all
this education of it not just being just intellectual
pursuit is that you don't want to make just very
clever devils, right? So we talk about the language
of piety a lot. So Thinking about what you're
made for that question that Christy raised earlier
You know Westminster shorter catechism question
one says you're made to glorify God and enjoy
him forever Right. So that involves all of those
Transcendentals that we're speaking about so
so I was I was made by God What are what who
is he then and what are my duties to him and
water and then so the first four commandments
are all about that, right? And then the last
six commandments are all about to our fellow
man. So this is Christ saying, love God and love
neighbor, right? The very first command of loving
neighbor is to honor your father and your mother.
So how should inferiors honor superiors? And
how should superiors honor inferiors? Like there's
hierarchy built into God's world. We all have
biological fathers and mothers. We all also live
under various... local state, national governments
in America that rule us. Lordship of Christ for
him and over all things. Christ is head of the
church and also all things. And so hopefully
our students are going to be church members,
right? So like there's all these various hierarchies
that teach us how to relate to other humans in
our life. And piety is honoring those institutions
and obeying their lawful commands and not only
those that are living, but honoring those that
have come before, right? And so this is why we
read by and large people who have died, right,
from ages past because they have wisdom to offer
that we need to glean from and not just so we
can learn what has happened, but like Christy
said, know who we are and it pushes us into the
future. It's true conservatism. How do we conserve
these things? But not just conserve them for
their own sake, conserve them so that we can
learn how to glorify God and how we can learn
to honor our fathers and our mothers that came
before us. Yeah, so I've been chomping at the
bit, listening to you talk. I'll take a little
excursion here, but I want to tee you back up
on that point. So Christy talked about the kind
of human frame approach that classical education
represents as secondary. That was for me sort
of the hook. that set my affections for classical.
You think about, you know, again, contrasts are
helpful. You think about a progressive educator
who takes a child and sees it as an unformed
lump with potential for usefulness in an economy.
And they begin to shape that lump toward their
purposes for it, right? Classical education actually
has spent centuries, maybe millennia, studying
the human as a creature. and figure out the best
ways to bring that creature to its highest expression
of the potential that was built within it. And
that was what, again, hooked me on this, that
it was a human kind of education, where progressive
education is much more dehumanizing. It makes
cogs for a machine, is an easy example, where
classical education is trying to raise humans,
to elevate and glorify humans. And one of the
things that i most appreciate about the traditions
i learn more of it in here we're getting close
to the tee up nick. Is that classical education
is largely immune to what cs -luis or it has
been there's forces that are pushing in the wrong
way but it's largely been immune to what louis
called chronological snobbery. Which if you're
not familiar with that listener it's this idea
it's intellectually unfounded that because we
exist later in history we have a superior perspective
to those who've gone before us. That's chronological
snobbery. Classical Christian education, when
done right, rejects that. To an episode we did
previously on Menevis Carr about conservatives
need to conserve something, one of the things
we're privileged to know is that in a fallen
world, things that are truly true, good, and
beautiful are hard to come by. And they must
be conserved and handed on and built upon. Well,
that's what classical is doing. And so I guess
the thing that I most want to tee you up on here,
Nick, is This is a fifth commandment education.
We talk about honoring our fathers and mothers.
We know that's a virtue in Christianity. We know
it's a command. We tend to have a limited view
of, well, that means I need to be respectful
of my dad. I need to do what my mom says when
she tells me to go do the chores. But we actually
have a fifth commandment understanding that's
incredibly expansive. And this tradition takes
it to an appropriate Christian end. And so, let
me just roll that fifth commandment I did to
you and let you talk about that further. Yeah.
Well, you did a pretty good job. I'd say we could
think about maybe like a practical outworking
of what this would look like. So, something that
a lot of us in this room care about are like
generational farms, right? So, the way that a
classical Christian education and thinking about
piety and honoring those have come before um
what that what making a decision about your family's
generational farm would look like versus what
uh progressive education system would have you
think about a decision like that so let's say
your your great great grandfather uh started
this farm and he's got a few hundred acres and
uh generations of your family have worked it
and because you grew up in progressive education
and because you've You know what's the media
tell you that like the economy is the most important
thing ever. All that matters is like GDP, this
is the measure of what makes a nation great.
Then you would be very easily, it would be very
easy for you to want to sell that farm because
after all, you've raised in what they called
education, but what was really job training and
teaching you to be a machine in the cog to help
you think, how can I make the most amount of
money possible? to live the best and most fulfilling
and happiest life that I can live. And so I'm
going to sell the family farm for $50 million
because they're going to subdivide it or they're
going to build an AI data center on it. That's
a big push now. I feel like I've walked into
a Wendell Berry story. At this point. Yeah. Well,
everyone should read Wendell Berry. He thinks
in a very classical and Christian way. As I say,
he does actually tell stories to flesh these
exact ideas out. He does tell stories to flesh
these things out. And so versus someone who went
through a classical Christian education, if it
did its job, then you would hope that they're
thinking about more than just the economics of
it, that they know they're not just a cog in
the machine, that their most important asset
is not just their economic output, but that they
also owe honor and respect to the generations
that have come before them, and that they would
recognize that there's something special, and
I would probably even argue sacred, about the
dirt that their family has worked. for so long,
and that that would hopefully lead them to a
different outcome. And so, the economic factor
is important, but it's not the telos, it's not
the most important thing. And so, classical Christian
education reframes that very thing going all
the way back to what Christy said of what is
most important, and it helps you think about
what's most important as the glory of God and
also loving my neighbor. And you have to order
your loves. So who are your most immediate neighbors
that you owe the most love and honor and respect
to? It's your very own family, your very own
community members, the people who live right
next to you, your church members, the people
who go to your school, the people who live in
your county, and then your state, and you work
out from there. You have national shared history,
even with someone that lives 3 ,000 miles away,
but who still lives in your nation versus someone
who lives in another country and on and on. So,
classical Christian education helps us think
in a pietistic way and helps us think in a way
that we would love and honor our neighbors in
a way that that command gets totally twisted
and seen in a totally different way when you
go through a progressive secular education way
when you're just thinking about, you think more
in terms of economy and like more money is how
you help more people even if those people are
far away. And so it's just it's a totally different
way of life that you've passed on. Yeah, I was
just gonna say the idea of thinking through Piety
in terms of concentric circles. You know, you
mentioned why do I care about my countrymen more
than the countrymen of another country? But I
think we're very concerned about what happens
in Great Britain because they're still Westerners.
Now those are many concentra - That's where the
vast majority of us came from. Absolutely. And
so I don't have an obligation to the people in
Scotland before the people of Cookville or of
our county where we live. But at some point,
I do care very much about them because they care
about the West because I'm a Westerner and I
understand what that means. And I understand
it. It means a lot what happens in Great Britain.
to me and to my people here. You're like, I understand
those relationships because I've understood history
from a logic perspective, right? Going back to
the Trivium and Jeff to address, you know, the
idea of fifth commandment. If we think about
social ills or social status today in our country,
I've said this many times, we've talked about
this, that you really not to oversimplify, but
you could really categorize the social ills of
our day by saying it's all a fifth commandment
violation. And we don't know who we are and we
hate our fathers, right? Whether we're talking
immediate fathers, which is largely true, we're
talking about authorities over us, church authorities,
those kinds of fathers, church fathers, the fathers
of our country, right? You just think real practically
taking down statues. you know, changing, um,
who we should study or how we should study in
the history classes because we hate who we are.
And then again, thinking like, do we even, but
do we know who we are? We lack a grammar understanding
of that as well. And when you look at these,
um, yes, shenanigans going on at universities,
what you say is we have, um, we have a lot of
daddy issues going on. We have fifth commandment
violations. Well, and then to go back to the
neighbor idea, I think that's one of the things
that, you know, a lot of factors that led me
here, but CC was part of that is that the neighbor
i'm called love is also my grandfather my great
grandfather my great great grandfather. Did they
had goals and ambitions for their family and
coming generations i'm not a self emerging project.
That is supposed to just treat my world is informed
but i'm the continuity of something that was
good before me you know and i get it there's
you know you make have been converted out of
a family line of great degeneracy. But for those
of us who have been handed good things, we have
an obligation to the neighbor who tried to set
us up well, right? And to continue the thing
that they had begun. And that, in that Fifth
Commandment sense, extends that, you know, as
a son of the Reformation, even as a Baptist,
Martin Luther is a kind of father to me. I have
certain obligations to him because of the good
that he in history did that came down to me.
William Kiffin is an English Baptist. Robert
E. Lee as a figure in my particular part of the
country, in my region, I have an obligation to
these people. I'm not disconnected from them.
Sometime in my past, I worked at a church that
felt very hamstrung because they had a cemetery
on the grounds. There was a lot of bemoaning
about that. And I eventually met a wiser Christian
who said the reason that so many churches have
graveyards is because they saw some of the churches
outside the building in those graves and some
inside the building worshiping the Lord now.
But they were a body of continuity. And that's
the kind of thing I'm thinking about. It's like
a local cloud of witnesses just outside. Absolutely.
That's so good. Exactly. And so CCE is self -conscious
about this and says, hey, Aristotle may not meet
me in New Jerusalem, but the Lord used him to
produce some really good things. And we have
an obligation to carry that forward and Virgil.
And, you know, you name the list, then you eventually,
as it goes from Athens to Rome to Jerusalem where
Christ, apostles proclaim the gospel, now I get
into a whole bunch of Christians who are making
the best use of what God surfaced through the
pagans and self -consciously deploying it to
Christ's glory. That has an obligation upon me
that's going to constrain my individual choices.
I think the image of Aeneas carrying his father
out of the burning city of Troy is really, really
rich, but he also has in his hand his little
boy. Right? And so you have, I mean, it's just
a beautiful image of these things that we're
talking about. You have, and of course, Aeneas
is, you know, his whole mission is to carry his
home, including his gods and his people, to a
new place where, of course, they can flourish
and continue. And so it's very generational.
And of course, because of our day, we tend to
think in terms of who am I as an individual?
What's the verse in Jeremiah? God has plans for
me. We just think about like me as an individual
like I just woke up on the planet. you know,
entirely by myself. I just, I think I got this
stuff in youth group, right? Like what is God's
plan just for me? And never really being asked
to think what's your duty? What's your responsibility?
In what ways do you owe God who made you, your
parents who raised you, your forefathers and
thinking through that in lots of ways, but your
forefathers who came before you, what is your
duty to them? And only when you understand that,
can you look to the future and say, now, what
is my duty to my own children, to the children
of my neighbors? I just think about people who've
started schools here, people involved in the
local school, what is the duty to the children
of my neighbors? And then how do we think, you
know, do all of those things in light of having
grandchildren and great grandchildren and great,
great grandchildren? Well, and I won't keep us
here forever, but, you know, as you're thinking
through this, think about the phenomenon that
is so aberrant in history that we see all around
us of intentional childlessness. where an individual
says, I won't have children, I won't reproduce.
It's a fifth commandment violation. It's fifth
commandment. And you think about the sacrifices
that their grandparents made. I mean, you just
think about history. You know Western history
to some degree. Wherever you came from, they
survived famines, they flee war, they worked
multiple jobs to provide. They gave so much to
the line that produced you. And then you, as
this radically autonomous individual says, I
will lop the line off here. That, in some ways,
is Western culture in our day. We'll just lop
the line off right here. And again, I know I
keep going to literature, but it's just what
I'm neck deep in most of the time right now with
my classes. Today, I... taught the students the
difference between a comedy and a tragedy. A
comedy ends with a marriage, right? There are
children. There's a hope for a future. It's not
about I'm happy and in love with this person.
We think about marriage in too narrow of a way.
That could be part of it, sure, but it's not
about you and your love for this other person.
It's about the future, right? There's a bright
future. A tragedy is when there is no death and
resurrection like for the hero. It's when there
is only death. There's no hope for the future.
And so we are pursuing tragedy as a nation, as
a people. And we're thinking about how to train
children to think about not just what can they
do, which is important. We have to do something
with our time. But one way to think about classical
Christian education is we're teaching children
how to be, that enculturation, that paideia.
What kind of person do I want my child to be?
That doesn't matter if there are no children,
if there is no future. It assumes that there
has to be a future. And what kind of children
do I want my great -great -grandchildren to be?
Yeah, you're the link in the chain. The fifth
commandment works both ways. So we've kind of
been talking about this. You're honoring all
those who have came before so that you can pass
on that way of life to your inferiors, right?
To the next generation in hopes that they will
do the same. And we do this as humans. But it
is the Lord who has taught us this, and it is
the Lord who has not only explicitly taught us
this in His commands, He also modeled this by
being faithful even to His own people when they
were unfaithful, right? So I've been reading
through 1 and 2 Kings with the boys and with
my boys at home, and they're just always devastated
every time there's a new king. because I'll say,
and so and so became king, and he did, and they'll
go evil in the sight of the Lord, because it's
almost always evil in the sight of the Lord.
And then they get to the end of that king's time,
and it says he dies, and then it'll say something
about why the Lord didn't punish them. And last
night we were reading, and it says, but the Lord
did not punish them because of his love for Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob. earlier in a couple chapters
back, after the death of another king, it said,
but the Lord didn't punish them because of His
promise to King David. And the thing I talked
about with the boys is, what are those promises?
And they were able to deduce just through questioning
themselves, trying to teach them classically.
that it's the same promise, that it's just a
different aspect of the same promise, that God
promised that he would do something through Abraham,
that he would bless the entire world, all the
nations, and that he promised King David that
he would have a son who would always sit on the
throne. And so, he was faithful. He is generationally
faithful, even when we are generationally unfaithful.
And so, he is the one who has been faithful,
and he is the one who teaches us how to do that
too, how to be faithful too. those who have came
before. It's why all of the Old Testament is
full of God saying, remember, I am the God who
brought you out of Egypt, therefore obey my commands.
It's like I have saved you, therefore worship
me, therefore obey my commands, therefore love
me. And it's the same story all the way through.
And there was a promise that that Son would come
and all the nations will be blessed. And then
Christ has come and He has done that and continues
to do that. He continues to bless the nations.
And Christ is the Son who will sit on the throne
forever. And so, classical Christian education
is about recognizing that and about saying, okay,
we're not God. We can't be generationally faithful
in that way. We are not redeemers in the sense,
obviously, of cosmic redemption that Christ is.
But how can we be like Him and showing that kind
of love and generational faithfulness? Well,
and I would stake out here again, just trying
to use helpful contrast. So I had a buddy who
lived, he's a faithful churchman, great guy.
He lives in a different part of Tennessee. And
he said, give me a call. I want to talk to you
about starting a Christian school, not necessarily
a class school, but a Christian school. And brother,
if you're listening, you're about to find out
what I'm going to talk to you about. This is
why I've kind of locked in on CCE and CCE alone,
because I recognize a lot of good has been done
through what we would call traditional Christian
education. But we're not striving for like, okay,
what's some good we can get? We want the best.
We want the best for our families. We want the
best for our communities. We want the best for
our churches. What's good enough isn't good enough,
right? And I hope the listener in this conversation
is hearing how CCE pushes you to this deep, immersive,
comprehensive vision of Christ over all and Christ
in all. The contrast I would make if you're saying,
well, okay, I get why you prefer this to progressive
education. I also prefer this to a Christian
school that kind of treats each subject autonomously,
then has a Bible class as part of the curriculum.
Because for CCE, you can't understand anything
apart from Christ. The reason arithmetic works
is because Christ is Lord and orders his creation
and it's supposed to do something to serve his
kingdom. And so it's not this like additional
optional accessory that you can lay onto the
curriculum map. but every subject is suffused
with Christ. You know, we talk about Him as the
deepest root of truth and the highest expression
of it. And that holds true for virtue, that holds
true for beauty. And so CCE done as a Christian
project pushes you to say everything can only
be understood in light of Christ. And if you're
not doing it that way, you're actually not interfacing
with reality, because this is how reality is
constructed. It's for Christ. It's through Christ.
It's in Christ's kingdom. It's His reign. And
if you're not going at it from that angle, you're
missing the most substantial part of the education.
all of the worst parts of the progressive education
that we talked about. You're talking about the
kind of Christian school that like has Bible
as a class. Correct. That model that just kind
of attacks Bible on. I mean, it's better than
government school. You know, I think we all would
admit and agree to that, but it's just not as
robust as it should be. So when you're learning
math in a school like that, If you're still not
learning one plus one equals two is a valuable
thing to know because that is how God has spoke
His world into existence, and those are the laws
by which His world works, and learning that math
is to glorify Him, then you will learn that math
for some other end. And that other end might
be, you know, I'm going to end up being a I'm
going to end up being a carpenter one day or
an engineer or something, and you'll still learn
the math and you'll still be able to build things
and they'll still be structurally sound, but
you're still using the tools that God has given
you to work with. And so, what classical Christian
education does is helps you understand not only
the math and how to build things, but what should
I be building and why should I be building it
and who should I be building it for? What purpose
should it serve? And so, There are many people
who have built things that are evil by using
the same math. And then there are people who
have built things that are lovely and beautiful
and glorious who have understood why they should
be building in the first place. And so it's the
telos of who you are also translates into the
telos of the outworking of your hands once you
start actually, you know, doing various sorts
of work or vocation. Well, I'd go back to something
Terry said about earlier, way earlier in the
episode, is STEM part of classical Christian
education, right? And we tend to think broadly
of STEM as technology development and utilization,
right? And Terry, maybe I'll just let you talk
about this more, if I can cue you up the way
I wanted to with Nick. You raised the point that
nobody knows phone numbers because we have cell
phones, right? And y 'all tell me was it Aristotle
who didn't like books because it would ruin their
Socrates. You can't have a conversation with
a book any more than you can have a conversation
with a statue. So he didn't write anything down.
Yeah, he thought if we started writing stuff
down, we'd never be able to remember anything.
Yeah, and I'm probably more Luddite than I've
ever been, but we're probably not quite that
Luddite, right? We're very thankful for books.
We spend a lot of time with books. But Terry,
to the point about STEM, You have to, you have
to have a human being who one knows what a tool
is for, what liabilities and what strengths it
brings to you. So you think about a world that
right now is either terrified or idolatrously
in love with AI. What kind of human being do
you want to create that knows what to do with
artificial intelligence? So it's not that we're
anti -tool. It's that we recognize tools take
certain options off the table and they put certain
options back on the table. These are the kind
of people we want handling the tools. I need
somebody who can think about what the tool is
for and to what end it should be used. And also
what dangers that tool brings. Yeah, all new
technology is inherently double edged, right?
We kind of sometimes joke about how the internet
should just be shut down, right? Because it's
just a cesspool. Seconded. And yet here we are
with a podcast that most people will probably
reach via the internet. And we use it all the
time to stay in contact with loved ones, to find
good information that is about true things. We
use it as a resource for teaching. And so there
are good things that come from phones, computers,
internet, those kinds of things. And we bemoan
the negative influences of those things, but
also that's because humans are involved. So AI
will be like this, it's just gonna be like every
other technology in that way, where it can be
used for great good, it can be used for great
evil, and I want somebody, before I even know,
you know, train somebody on how to use this tool,
I need somebody who can recognize evil when they
see it, and know how to avoid it, and has their
order, their loves properly ordered, so that
when they're using a tool - And understand humans
who would be impacted by it, right? Yes, yes,
and that they can use a tool to extend their
skill and usefulness, towards a good end, a truly
good end. I was trying to find a recent social
media post by Elon Musk, who I do not think was
classically educated, although I don't know and
I do not know that he was a Christian. He says
he respects the teachings of Christ, but I have
not seen him respect the teaching that your sins
must be repented. So I don't hold him up as a
model. I haven't seen the fruit of that in his
life thus far. Well, we're talking about tech,
right? We're talking about tech, which is why
I bring him up. He reposted, in case you guys
weren't listening, he kind of reposted something
where he says AI is going to be bringing in an
age of great wealth. I'm sure you guys have read
him on this subject. Um, there's going to be
healthcare like you've never seen before. There's
going to be, um, all these things available.
Humanity will never have seen wealth like this
ever, ever, ever super optimistic. And of course
I read that and I'm like, uh, I don't know. But
at the end, and he said this in many different
ways, I'm sure. But at the end of this particular
post, he said, but this is only true if Grok,
um, his, his particular AI, if Grok is trained
on truth, beauty and goodness. And I was like,
ah, He, he gets it. Somebody's talking to him.
Somebody's talking to him. Contrast that with,
um, Sam Albury. Altman. Altman. Altman. Thank
you. Different kind of guy. It's a different
contrast. Um, you know, in a, uh, kind of a recent
interview with Tucker Carlson, he's talking all
about chat GPT and all the capabilities and Tucker's
like, You know, what about some basic ethics?
And he's like, uh, hadn't thought about it. Literally
had no category. And he's like, okay. Tucker
keeps like breaking it down and he's like smaller
bites. He's like, so basically is it, is it good
or could it ever be bad? And Altman's like, I'm
just not a philosopher. I don't know. And I'm
thinking this guy is leading, um, the tech front,
you know, one of the guys leading the tech front
for our people. And he doesn't understand that
he should be thinking about ethics or philosophy
just for him. It was like, yeah, I just didn't
know. I hadn't thought about it wrong or irrelevant.
Yeah. Basically like, well, we told it to stop
telling people how to commit suicide. Yeah. But
they probably wouldn't have done that if somebody
hadn't bothered them about it, you know, right?
Well, so I'll give another illustration just
if, if listeners want to think about this practically
one of the Concurrent factors with AI is the
idea that humanity is basically going to be displaced
from any of a meaningful vocation Somebody's
got to work to subdue the earth So what we'll
need to do is provide them a universal basic
income and that way they can still have earning
earning purchasing power You know the economy
will keep moving or whatever Well, you need someone
and I don't mean to indicate that I've settled
this but you need someone who knows humanity
The kind of person who knows humanity through
CCE education to say well, but humans are made
to work What happens to the human who's permanently
put on the bench and unable to make a meaningful
impact on? Their world is that survivable for
humans? So it may sound great for you to get
X number of dollars from the government so you
can buy the next PlayStation generation and use
your time completely on leisure But is it actually
survivable for humans? I mean, I have my conclusions
and my suspicions on that, but you need somebody
asking those kind of questions of the tools and
the strategies that are being birthed in this
moment in history. And that gets back to the
original three questions, right? Who am I? Why
am I here? Those kinds of philosophical questions.
And if you know answers to those, or if you know
how to ponder those things with meaning. you
probably are going to have an opinion on that
question. One of the tenets of classical Christian
education is this integration of subjects and
you cannot answer those questions without a firm
grasp of how these subjects are interrelated
and dependent and then of course you cannot act
in society for the good of yourself and for your
neighbor, thinking real practically about AI.
You cannot do that without integrating. That's
how you get this guy like Sam Altman saying,
I don't know, I'm just a tech guy. I'm not the
philosopher. He's not had two thoughts about
ethics. That's a travesty. That's where my mind
went to, Christy, the command to love your neighbor
and love your Lord. Those can't be meaningfully
pursued without those three fundamental questions
you raised earlier. And you also have to remember
that the command to love others is to love yourself,
to love them as you love yourself. Well, what
does it mean for me to love myself? In what way
do I know myself? And what is my telos in the
universe? You can't practice basic Christianity
without being pushed to these, what we would
call the great questions, the questions that
humanity's wrestled with. you know, forever.
It's part of the reason we study the literature
we do. We call it the great tradition because
they're wrestling with these ideas. But, you
know, if you were going to be like, let's just
boil down Christianity to essential moral commands.
Love neighbor, love God. Well, immediately. I'm
supposed to love my neighbor according to what
definition of love? Give them whatever they want?
and whatever they think feels good in the moment,
or is there some kind of higher standard that
we all conform to that we can thrive in? What
does it mean to love them as I love myself, particularly
if I'm self -loathing in the way you're talking
about with our culture, where we tear down our
fathers? I mean, nuts and bolts Christianity
can't be pursued without something like this.
Inquiry of these questions and I think it's really
helpful for students to be put into an environment
that's self -consciously going Okay, we're going
to spend our time thinking about this in their
formative years Let me shift gears if I can because
this has all been very good and from the outside
looking in a person looking at a classical Christian
school It's gonna see some some idiosyncrasies,
right? So let's talk about a couple of those.
We'll start with this one. Why are they all doing
Latin? or Greek, some of them do Greek. What
are we doing here? Like, why aren't we teaching
Spanish or Chinese or computer coding? Why Latin?
I have the sarcastic answer. Send it. Hurt children.
I actually was talking to a mom recently about
this and raising up middle schoolers. I said,
you have to contrive. In our world, we're so
wealthy. We have so many technological advances
that we have to contrive ways for our children
to be miserable. So that's my, that's my pithy
answer. No, that's somebody step in and do better
than that. It's not working at my house because
my boy does the pick the dick, the Latin and
he loves it. Well, that must be nice. He just
does it for fun. That's an option. I've been
told that's an option. That is an option. I mean,
can I suggest. the fifth commandment again. Okay,
yes, this is a reason. It's the mother tongue.
That's what I would say. It's who we are. Yeah,
much of our civilization has been passed down
from Rome, which obviously Rome had lots of problems
from a Christian perspective, but we have derived
a lot of our understanding of justice, order,
society. Our definition for piety was extremely
important to the Romans. I mean, you could translate
it almost as duty. They're almost interchangeable
in the Roman mind. And so, yeah, it's our mother
tongue. This was also the lingua franca for generations
where classical universities existed in Europe.
You may travel to one. You may be from England.
You may travel to France and go to a classical
university, but you knew you were going to be
fine because everybody spoke Latin. Their native
tongue may be German or, you know, Romanian or
whatever it is, but everybody knows Latin. And
this is how... This is how they were educated.
And in the old days, before the advent of modern
progressive education, the subjects that were
taught were mathematics, Greek, and Latin. And
the reason was because all of the great works
of literature wherein the other disciplines were
found were written in Greek and Latin. And so
you needed those subjects, not just for their
own right, which they are of value in their own
right, but also so that you could access the
great tradition. So that's a reason as well.
And it's kind of connected to what you're talking
about. Another one. Lewis says that the reason
to study Latin is that you get the opportunity
to read the Latin poets. Yeah. And you could
say Greek is the same. Greek is less common.
I think Greek, finding somebody who knows actual
Attic Greek or classical Greek is, there's a
lot of people running around that know Koine
because that's what the New Testament was written
in. And it's a little different, but that would
also be worth pursuing. But Latin is the more
common one. Now, another one. I was just having
a conversation earlier with our Latin teacher
about a particular example of Roman orderliness
of thought that appears in their language. And
he was talking about a particular grammar construction
that Latin has an ability to very clearly articulate.
And the English equivalent, which is very ambiguous
and hard to understand. We have to use 20 words
where the Romans have like one preposition to
accomplish the same thing. So there's an orderliness
to the thoughts of the Roman mind that probably
contributed to the development of the language.
And then the two probably fed each other, right?
The way that you, when they learned to speak,
it also helped shape their thinking. It came
out in their architecture. Yeah. And their thoughts
of society, like these things that we're talking
about adopting and bringing along from from their
civilization. Another reason why Latin can be
used is because it teaches the tools needed to
learn language in a general sense. I often find
myself when discussing Latin with students thinking,
all right, well, what's the English version of
this? Do you know what a direct object is? That's
where you start. And you say, OK, here's how
you do this in Latin. But it increases and enhances
their ability to use their own native tongue.
And then they can carry these tools into really
any language they want because human beings communicate
the same kind of concepts to each other, regardless
of language. And now you've got the tools to
study any language you want. And many of the
languages are based on Latin. Sure. Yeah. So
that's the practicality in me. Yeah. Well, and
Terry, if I could kind of piggyback on your idiosyncrasy
point there. And again, I just need to qualify
that not every opinion I say reflects everybody
else in the room. But hopefully the listeners
like, oh yeah, CCE sounds great. I'm interested
in that, right? Well, that's been happening now
for several decades. It's become fashionable.
It's trendy. There's a, you know, there's a CCE
proponent serving in the current administration
with their president. And so one of the things
I would tell someone who's like had their appetite
wetted for this is that it's become trendy enough
to be counterfeited. Yes. And if you're inquiring
and wanting to find what we're talking about,
the idiosyncrasies are your way to find the authentic.
And so you're going to have CCE schools that
think they're CCE because they read the Aeneid,
right? But what you're looking for listener is
a school that's unapologetic about Latin education,
unapologetic about academic rigor. unapologetic
about reading dead white guys, unapologetic about
the things that make us distinct as a classical
school, and not the school that is saying, let's
throw away any of that that's unpalatable to
our market constituency. Let's make this as stylized
to their preferences as possible. I don't want
to sound elitist on this, but we offer a very
specific kind of thing. And it has to be offered
according to its nature. To modify it is often
to lose it. It's not unlike the gospel. When
you say the gospel plus something, you end up
with something less than the gospel. CCE is not
nearly as important as the gospel. But when you
start stylizing CCE, you start losing it. Yeah,
it's not elitist, it's faithfulness. It's faithfulness
to tradition, it's faithfulness to... Again,
it's all about the fifth commandment, boys. It's
faithfulness to those that came before us. That's
exactly the answer I would have given for Latin.
Ultimately, Latin is a great way, a great means
to grow in wisdom and virtue. But why is it a
great… And access beauty. And access beauty.
And why is it a means to those things? Well,
it's because as Americans, as English speakers,
if English is your father, then Latin is your
mother. And so it's to not know Latin like and
you know, we are a generation of people that
do not know Latin. Well, some of us have taught
it at a rudimentary level, but I want my sons
to know it robustly because I want them to not
only know their father, but also their mother
and and to think about language just a little
bit more, you know, we started by talking about
Padilla and how there's not a great English translation
for it. ancient languages are that way. They
give us access to words that we can't even articulate
in our own language, which therefore gives you
access to thoughts and to wisdom that you cannot
even access in your own language because you
can't think of it in your language, because you
think in your language. You think thoughts using
the words that you know. And so, when you have
access to Latin or to biblical Hebrew, to biblical
Greek, You can think about the Scriptures, you
can think about those that have come before you,
and the thoughts that they have had in ways that
you couldn't otherwise. Can I suggest a metaphor?
Like me a good metaphor? Can you make a metaphor
out of that? A few years ago, we planted a bunch
of blueberry bushes in our yard. I think a few
raspberry bushes were involved at some point.
And the thing about planting a berry bush, and
this might be true for all fruit, I don't know
about that. For the first few years, we had to
pick the fruit off before it matured. And the
idea is that we're pushing the energy of this
plant into the root system so that it would be
strong. And so I was excited about blueberries,
excited about raspberries, but for several, two
to three years, we had to, you know, pick the
fruit off and we couldn't let it really fruit.
And what classical Christian education is, is
it's an education of of roots, right? So we talk
about the fifth commandment, but it's also an
education that requires roots and values roots,
which means, and I mean, I could probably expand
this into in lots of ways. Um, but as, as we
think about something like Latin and we, and
I know I've heard parents say, well, you know,
it's not really practical. And it's so much like
those bushes where you say it doesn't seem practical
yet, but this year I think we put up like 40
court bags of blueberries in the freezer. Yeah,
we didn't plant acres of these. No, we have like
six bushes and they're still just starting to
fruit well. And so it didn't seem really practical
at first to pick off all the berries, but what
we wanted was really, really strong roots. And
so studying something like Latin is establishing
roots for our children in their own learning
and their own thinking, but also just thinking
about what it means to be a Westerner. It's going
to the roots of who we are as a people. And again,
I could probably expand that into some other
ways when we think about reading instruction
or cursive or lots of other areas. Having a baby,
very practically beneficial for the first several
years of its life. It's a long -term project.
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. As someone in the room
who deeply identifies with Ernest T. Bass, all
this sounds really good. How do I know that it
works? What what proof is it well so the the
biggest association of classical schools There's
a couple of different groups kind of working
on this but the ACCS the Association of classical
Christian schools has done significant amount
of empirical research on Outcomes right outcomes
for classical students compared with see if I
can so homeschool students Catholic school evangelical
college prep public school And there may be one
other one. But they put this out. It was called
the Good Soil Study. And I can't remember when
it was conducted. But I want to say that the
actual data was released around 2019 or so. That's
right, 2018, 2019. 2018, yeah. So we've just
got a few minutes left. But Christy, do you want
to give us some interesting anecdotes from that
study? First of all, is this available for interested
parties to just find? It is. It is available
on the website. the ACCS website, Association
of Classical Christian Schools. Right. I think
it's classicalchristian .org. Right. And you're
looking for resources, and then it's called the
Good Soil Study. And so I'll see if I can...
Yeah, Cardus did this study for them. That's
right. Known for studying educational outcomes.
So here's one. This is, you know... Real basic,
but I think parents still want to know like can
my kid go to college if they don't have two years
of Spanish in high school And so, you know if
we're looking at those different groups homeschool
evangelical schools Catholic schools college
prep schools and public schools Let's just I'll
pull a few specifics. I could talk about generalities,
but I think the specifics are really helpful
to illustrate the fact that classical Christian
education is very effective in lots of ways.
We're talking about making virtue as human beings,
but also like, but just can they go to college?
So these students were asked, these were alumni,
these students were asked if they were well prepared
for college by their high school. And the lowest
they are coming in under 50 % was public schools.
The Second highest is about, I'm looking at maybe
70, 75 percent was Catholic schools and then
just under 90 percent of the ACCS alum. So ACCS
is just a particular association that does not
include all classical schools. But this study
was just trying to single out the efficacy of
ACCS schools. And almost 90 % of those students
said they were well -prepared for college or
other high schools. Again, the second was coming
in closer to 70, 75%. That's a pretty big jump.
That's a very, a very big jump. And then that,
you know, this study, if you want to look into
it breaks down who earned A's or mostly A's in
their college, who earned a B or higher? I'm
sorry, who, who earned a a bachelor's or higher
in college, ACCS grads. over and above their
counterparts who felt well prepared. It's one
thing to be prepared. And we've seen studies
on American public school students often feel
very well prepared, but score lower than most
other developed countries. So it's how prepared
are you, but then also how do you feel prepared?
And those things are actually matching for ACCS
students. Let's talk about life though. We talked
about Classical education is really an education.
This study is very comprehensive. Very comprehensive.
A lot of outcomes were measured here. And among
other things, there were like, um, life activities,
you know, what, what are you, are they in church?
Are they, what is their family? Yeah. Are they
participating in public life? These kinds of
things. So go ahead. Yeah. And, um, Those seven
outcome profiles, by the way, are college and
career, life outlook, Christian commitment, Christian
lifestyle, traditional and conservative, independence
of mind, which I think is, some people might
be surprised that they're, you know, oh, aren't
you indoctrinating students? You don't want them
to be independent. We actually want them to be
independent of certain influences like popular
culture, right? Not independent of scripture,
but we do want a certain kind of independence
of mind and then influence. And then it also
assess school experience, like did the kids enjoy
it? Did they make friends? Did they have a good
time? Which I think is of some value, certainly.
So let me try to find, I keep scrolling, it's
a very long document. Here's an interesting one.
Okay. ACCS graduates, do they trust people around
them indicating a positive outlook on life? So
are we graduating cynics? Are these people cynical
about the world? Have they learned to be hyper
critical? What does that look like? Do they trust
the people around them? When it comes to strangers,
coworkers, people at church and their neighbors,
they exceed all of their counterparts. Every
single metric on this question exceeds their
counterparts. They trust their coworkers. The
margin between those other kinds of education
is greatest when it comes to coworkers and strangers,
which I thought was really, really interesting.
So, you know, kids who are discipled well are
trusting strangers more than children who were.
given any other kind of education. I don't know
if I'm communicating. It doesn't mean naivety.
It means that they're the bedrock of a high trust
society, which we're all feeling the loss of.
Right. Okay. Who, who do you think trusts scientists?
Now we're just talking about trusting institutions
and outsiders. Who do you think is trusting scientists?
Catholics, public school, homeschool, what would
you, I think most of you probably know all the
outcomes. You don't have an honest guess. Well,
if I was trying to be objective, I would guess
that public school students would trust scientists
most. Is that accurate? No, it's ACCS students.
Oh, how about that? Okay. Yeah. So if you think
about, are we teaching our kids to hate science
and just put their heads in the mud? Sure. To
be in the lakes for wool checkouts. Absolutely,
no, we're actually teaching our students how
to think well, and that good scientists should
be trusted, but they understand to ask that question,
and how to define it. Let me find another metric.
So in other words, the potential accusation against
ACCS that we're anti science, like we, you know,
we don't, we don't respect scientific pursuit
is appears to be unfounded. Entirely unfounded.
Yes. Yeah, absolutely Let's see While you're
looking for that interesting anecdote about the
studies that when it came when it came out The
ACCS was a little reluctant to release the information
and there was initial Concern that the numbers
were not going to be impressive and it turned
out that they were reluctant to release it because
it appeared that they cheated Because the outcomes
for the ACCS schools were so strong Now, this
was carried out by an independent agency that
the ACCS employed to measure these things. So
the ACCS did not manipulate the data. But I found
that to be interesting that they were like, oh,
goodness, it's so overwhelmingly positive in
most categories that it almost seems faked. So
it really is worth it to look at if classical
Christian, if you're involved in it now, or if
you are considering it, This is something to
look at. And again, this is ACCS schools, which
are all classical, but they do not represent
all classical schools. And the outcomes are maybe
similar for other classical schools. We don't
know for sure, but it's likely that there's some
carryover there. Right. Go ahead. Well, I was
going to say one of the anecdotes that Chrissy
highlighted for me a while back that I find interesting
pastorally. I think the idea that we're anti
-science comes from this idea that somehow Christians
are anti -intellectual, we're terrified of Darwin,
we, you know, our faith can only survive in intellectual
sheltering. Another one of those is that we become
kind of religious snobs and look down and have
no meaningful connections to the world that's
lost. And one of the things that ACCS students
scored on very high is that they have meaningful
friendships with homosexuals. And so they're
still interfacing with a world that has a very
different value system than we do, but they are
interfacing with the world in a way that they
can say, well, actually we're very, despite the
disparities. They're not monks. They're not running
off to hide. Right. We're not hiding. We're not
being, you know, religiously hateful in whatever
way that might be assumed to be, but we're actually
engaging with the world as we meet it. Yeah.
They're in the world, but they're also not of
it. because the outcomes of that study also say,
even though they're in it, that they're living
more faithfully to their faith. I want to say
in that same section on the friendships with
homosexuals that they were also much more likely
to vocally express disapproval of homosexuality
as a lifestyle. Call it a sin. Right. The data
says these are the kids who are showing up to
church every Sunday. These are the kids who are
in their workplace making a dent professionally
and personally. Give us one more good one. We've
got to sign off here soon. This one says, ACCS
alumni defy categories as they retain orthodoxy
and engage the world, which is kind of what you
guys were saying. And so this is not just one
particular question, but sort of a summary of
this section. But it says, it assessed independent
views, reading science, willing to disagree,
accept differences, but willing to challenge.
Again, using multiple questions. And again, ACCS
alumni, far outpace homeschool evangelical Catholic
private prep and public school peers. Okay, this
one's interesting. I don't know. This is the
most important but again, just trying to yeah
again that you can find this on your own and
because it's all worth it's worth reading and
looking at. Absolutely. Obligation to care for
the environment. That one's again, not the most
important thing, but I think again goes against
but this would be another one where I'd say well
surely public school kids, right? Because they're
all they're all told climate change and surely
all that stuff. Yeah, so that's capture melting
and we'll kill you. Yeah, Florida's gonna be
underwater next week. All right. just over 52
% of ACCS graduates feel that they have an obligation
to care for the environment. Under that is coming
in about 47 % Catholic students, Catholic school
students, and then 45 % public. And so again,
outpacing their peers when it comes to things
like creation care. It's a liberal arts education.
It's not just a humanities education. It's not
how to ignore science and only know the Bible.
It's not just be a good Christian and don't have
to, here's one on total reading or reading non
-religious books. It's how to be human. I think
testing in this way is one data point, or in
this case, many data points. But also talk to
students who are in a classical school, talk
to graduates, talk to their parents. If you have
access to those kinds of people, tour a school,
sit in a classroom. Find one close to you and
call them. They'll be happy to give you a tour.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this stuff tells us
the things that we hoped would be true. You know,
the study. seems to prove that, but also go and
look for yourself. That's the classical way.
Go to the source, evaluate it, ask questions.
To go back, I know we need to wrap up, but to
go back to the question that you asked, Jason,
about how do you know that this works? And all
of the CARTAS study is excellent. I encourage
everybody who's listening, if you haven't read
it, to go read it. But as Americans who very
much love the roots of our states and of our
nation and we think about all of the good things
that I think most of us realize is evaporating
pretty quickly. Why is that? Why was there so
much rootedness and fruit and goodness and beauty
at the founding? And why over the last 250 years
has it faded away? Well, if you go back and look
at the way everybody was educated in colonial
America and in the first hundred years of the
country before that 40 -year gap, 1880 to 1920,
when was the last time there was a two or three
generation, you know, in a row that gave you
people like John Winthrop and George Washington
and... John Severe. John Severe, yeah, Tennessean.
And... Patrick Henry and William Bradford. Even
someone who's not like we would call an Orthodox
Christian, but a Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson,
yeah. Wouldn't we love it if all the secularists
were Thomas Jefferson's? If that was like as
worse as it got, you know, or Benjamin Franklin.
Men like Jonathan Edwards, theologians like Jonathan
Edwards or R .L. Dabney or Thornwell. Those sorts
of people don't exist in mass like they existed
in mass from you know, let's call it 1650 to
1850 like a to the first 200 years that people
were the European peoples came here and the way
they were all educated and the amount of thinkers
that existed at that time who weren't just thinkers
but who Ordered all these things we're talking
about ordered all of their thoughts and their
affections their civic life and everything to
see virtue pursuing wisdom and virtue for the
glory of god and for the good of their neighbor.
And also women who were helps to their husbands
like abigail adams like abigail adams was incredibly
educated and was lady and she spent her time
raising her children and. they went on to be
pretty incredible. And John Adams was not there.
I mean, he was gone, you know, doing revolutionary
war things and being a statesman and being an
ambassador to England. And I think he was the
first ambassador to England for America. And
so he was not home often at all. And so Abigail
Adams raised all those kids and you go look at
the fruit of the Adams children. And so, for
people who think that motherhood is unimportant,
right? To think about how classical Christian
education speaks to all of who we are. You want
your wives and your mothers to be like that,
and you want the theologians and the statesmen
to be like those men. And so, the Carta study
is excellent as far as what the modern movement
is doing, but that modern movement is trying
to recover what those people had in mass. When
people were educated, colonial America and early
America, first few generations, this is how they
were educated. That's why we live in the greatest
country that has existed up to this point. And
if I can say one last thing, I don't know, maybe
it was Jeff who commented on classical Christian
education is weird. I don't know if you use that
word. You have used it often. It's weird and
it creates conflict in lots of ways. And so I
think One more way that I want to put on the
listeners radar to think about what is what is
cce what does it do is it do for the students
it necessarily requires a very large dose of
courage. And one of the ways i started to talk
and think about cce is it's an education and
courage and and i think that matters as well
because all of these you think of all those men
they they're not producing anything if it's not
for courage. Right? And so I think that's a really
important part. I don't know that you're going
to find that in Plato. Maybe, maybe. I just,
I don't know how important that was to the medievals
who are creating the universities, but it is
virtue and it is required. And, and I think that's,
you know, should be more, more part of the conversation
that we have to, we don't want children to be
anti -authoritarian necessarily, but we need
We need children who are prepared and equipped
to, um, to do what is weird or difficult or creates
conflict. Because it's right. Because it's the
right thing to do. Yeah. And was it Lewis that
said that courage is the testing point of all
the other virtues? Well, before we sign off,
we've got to, we've got to make a nod to our,
our, uh, friends at bare knuckle gloves. who
have given us a couple samples I'm still using
mine. They're quite dirty now, but they're just
as comfortable as they were when I got them.
And they're holding up quite well. No problems.
Jeff, are you still using yours? Yeah, I'm using
them every time I can get them away from my kids.
Oh man, they've been stolen. They're trying to
take them. One thing I've noticed that's interesting
to me, we go through a lot of leather gloves.
Sam says a collection that you can buy fairly
affordably and we've we went through a good joining
of those when I've been doing fencing projects
with barbed wire I almost always wear out the
fingertips of the gloves working with barbed
wire fencing the bearskins have to my I Suffered
no substantial damage as I've done that stuff
and they're just another bison, huh? That's right.
They're both a little hide. At least that's the
ones they send us. But they have a wide variety
of different gloves. And so you should check
them out. We have a discount code. It's a car
that you can put in at checkout. That helps to
show. And it gets you a little bit of a discount
there. And so take a look. Look up Bear & Knuckle
gloves. BuyBearAndKnuckles .com. Yeah. BuyBearAndKnuckles
.com. That's bear the animal, B -E -A -R. And
one more shout out, this is not a sponsor of
the show, but this is a company that sent us
here at the school, they sent us a trauma kit,
which is kind of an emergency first aid kit for
pretty serious injuries. Those poor Latin students.
Yeah, yeah. This is a Christian company called
Refuge Medical Training and I highly recommend
their products. I had a chance to look over this
trauma kit and I've owned a couple of trauma
kits from just times in the past where I needed
to have those kind of things. And so I'm excited
to have this on the premises. We're hoping that
it just gets to sit in the corner and not get
used ever, but if we need it, we've got it. And
so if you are in the market for that, if you
want to know more about medical response, then
Refuge will do trainings. They have lots of free
videos. And if you're interested in getting yourself
a pretty robust first aid kit that can handle
very serious problems. then you should check
them out. And they are not paying us or anything
like that, but we wanted to give them a shout
out on the show because their kindness to just
donate that to us. But you can find them at RefugeMedical
.com. And their mission statement is to save
lives while in service to the Father's kingdom
and experiencing the abundance of his provision
and blessings. So these are our people. So if
you're in the market for that kind of thing,
check them out at RefugeMedical .com. Thank you
guys for making time just to be with us today
and lend some of your expertise and some of your
wisdom to these subjects. I really think it's
so important that people understand what we are
dealing with in this day and age, what our society's
having to endure, and what classical Christian
education has to offer everyone. I'm going to
post some more links to some articles in the
comments. Be sure to check those out. We've got
some great materials that have been put in front
of me, so I just want to share those as well.
The dads group at the Classical Christian School,
where my kids attend, they meet monthly and discuss
current articles. And I'm excited for you to
experience what we went over. So please be sure
and check those out in the description section
of the podcast. So I wanted to do a quick plug
for Classical Christian Schools. They need your
support. If you're looking for something to invest
your resources into, that will make a difference.
I don't think there is much nobler a cause than
classical Christian education. I've seen firsthand
the impact that it does make and I can tell you
that it is unlike any other schooling that I've
ever experienced or been part of. So again, thank
you for joining us. And until next time, we hope
you strive as we do to be men and women of Iskar.