DOCENDO DISCIMUS

The Unexamined Summer?

I've been reading an excellent book entitled, When Athens Met Jerusalem: An Introduction to Classical and Christian Thought, by John Mark Reynolds, Provost at Houston Baptist University. Reynolds' thesis is that reason and faith need to remain good neighbors within the City/Kingdom of God, for this pairing of the two is what true classical Christian education is.

But (and here's the rub), it's difficult and takes work. He writes:

"Thinking may be hard at first, but it is addictive with practice. People created in God's image will ask questions, and questions demand answers. Answers seem to be what questions are for, but the Greeks soon realized that the first answers are not the end of the process. Good answers lead to better questions, and these questions keep the process of learning alive. It is possible to find a single truth, but one truth has a tendency to lead to the search for another, just as eating one honest-to-goodness potato chip generally demands a second. People began to question the old answers, sometimes finding them satisfying, sometimes not."

As we're one week away from school ending and summer beginning, it might be a good idea - both for us and for our students - to think about how we might continue the question-asking and answer-seeking to keep the process of learning alive.

While we all are ready for a respite, classical Christian education calls us to make sure it's only that - a respite. There are too many questions to be asked, too many answers to be sought!

What book(s) are we thinking of reading this summer? What documentaries are we thinking of watching? What journaling are we thinking of doing? What field trips are we planning? What museums are we visiting? What parts of nature are we exploring? What conversations are we hoping to have? What subjects are we wanting to study? And who might be able and willing to help us with any of this?

I realize that next week is probably not the week to get all this down on paper...but the week after might be! And I'm not advocating a schedule that resembles the school year, but I'm not advocating a vacation to Slug Island either. Many of us have as much to do across summer as the rest of the year, but that doesn't mean we can't fight for some time to ask ourselves what answers we're finding satisfying, and what answers we aren't.

Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Let's make sure this can't be said about our upcoming summer, either for our student(s) or for ourselves. If there's anything I can do to help you and your family avoid this, please let me know.

One more week. Finish well!

Moving Into Our New House(s)

(The following guest post is by Todd Wedel, Academic Dean and soon-to-be Upper School Principal at The Academy. You can follow his blog at Left Hand Blessings.)

During testing week this past April, we purposefully organized two activities for our Upper School students, something different and interesting, led not primarily by me but by our own 11^th-12^th graders. Each day, students worked, not by grade level, but divided into groups vertically instead of horizontally, comprised of students across the grade levels.

The Tuesday of testing week, each group worked to create a Veritas infomercial; the Thursday, they designed strange relays for our first Circus Minimus, in which they competed the following week. Our 11^th-12^th graders led the efforts, helping on Tuesday in designing and directing the infomercial and on Thursday in planning the relay stations.

These activities were fun and engaging, a chance to take a break from testing, work together, and accomplish something as a group beyond just a grade. And while these activities were designed to be enjoyable as isolated events, their deeper purpose was to introduce students to an exciting new element of our future Academy of Classical Christian Studies experience: a house system.

House systems have a long history in English schools, especially English boarding schools, but they have also come to be a common and central aspect of school culture in many classical and Christian schools, including Providence Hall. House systems organize students in the vertical integration our Upper School students experienced during testing week.

Without such integration, classes often develop their own identities, own cultures. While this is natural and good in many respects, the classes can develop cultures often different, distinct, and separate from other classes. These identities are driven not just by the personalities of those in the class but by the natural inclinations and aptitudes, both academic and moral, pertaining to ages and stages in development. 

Thus, while students bond together, they maintain a separation by age level, capitalizing on neither of two desired dynamics in any community. The first, a sense of natural leadership, service, encouragement, yes, even admonishment, from elder to younger. The second, a sense of natural reception of encouragement and service and a striving for emulation of those qualities of Christ-like leadership from younger to elder. 

The houses, then, function much as families within a larger church body. They are a place for specific, intentional relationships and activities, ranging from games and competitions, physical and academic, to service projects, to festivals and feasts. Those are the formal activities; the informal are more the goal, motivation, and end, to help foster a vibrant school community of mutual respect, service, and love. 

For the 2013-2014 year, we will implement the house system in our Upper School (grades 6-12), and are evaluating how best to extend it to our Grammar students. This is an exciting development in the life of our school, so look for continued announcements, updates, and clarifications as we prepare for next year.

(For more on Providence Hall's use of a house system, click to watch Providence Hall Head of School Nathan Carr describe their experience.)

The Classical Capstone

(l to r): Sarah Baskerville, Ruth Serven, Mackenzie Valentin, Austin Clark, and Todd Wedel

"A well-spent day brings happy sleep."
Leonardo da Vinci

"At this I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me."
Jeremiah 31:26

I slept well last night, not because I was tired (I was), nor because all's right with the world (it isn't). I slept well last night because I had just witnessed truth, goodness, and beauty at work, and it was comforting.

Last night, I (along with four other teachers - Abby Lorenc, Alex Kelley, Josh Spears, and Todd Wedel - and four sets of super-supportive senior parents) had the privilege of hearing from our four seniors - Sarah Baskerville, Ruth Serven, Mackenzie Valentin, and Austin Clark. Each presented what we're calling our Classical Capstone - a 25-minute speech followed by a 10-minute question and answer period, during which the student fields questions from parents and faculty advisors concerning what he or she has just presented. In addition to the presentation, students have the opportunity to create something that goes along with the topic discussed.

As the Capstone is a year-long project, Academic Dean Todd Wedel put together a 35-page booklet detailing the initiative's requirements. Here's the overview paragraph:

The Classical Capstone is the culmination of the Classical and Christian education at Veritas. Through the process of developing their Classical Capstones, students will be required to determine a topic of interest to themselves, formulate a driving question or concern, conduct background research, take a position, motivate the position or concern to their audience, work through drafting the Classical Capstone, publicly present the Capstone Project and answer questions from the audience, defend their project during a formal examination, and reflect up on what they have learned about the learning process, themselves, and a Christian worldview through the various stages of the Classical Capstone. 

The project is designed to encompass the students' classical Christian education:

The Classical Capstone will demand that students demonstrate all the elements of a truly classical education, familiarizing themselves with the grammar of their topic or subject, determining the connections between/among viewpoints/sources/positions/expressions, and expressing their viewpoint cogently, clearly, and winsomely. The Classical Capstone will demand, as well, that the entirety of the Project is imbued with a Christian worldview, from the way students select an appropriate topic, to the way they conduct research, to the type of argument or position they formulate, to the way they express their position, to the way they respond to questions and challenges. 

So that students avoid becoming overwhelmed or lost in the process, they are able to choose a faculty advisor to walk through the year with them:

Students will work with a Faculty Advisor during the course of their Project in conjunction with the Classical Capstone Director. The Faculty Advisor will help with the selection and narrowing of topic/focus, aid in direction of research, aid in the formulation of appropriate argument, and serve as one of the members of the examination panel.

Finally, when all's said and done (as it was last night), there are "deliverables":

Although the most common form of the Classical Capstone’s final deliverable will be a paper, students are not limited to this form. Other forms of rhetoric-level instruction are acceptable and encouraged if they comport with students’ natural gifts and abilities. The scope of the project will still involve background research and may require written work even if the final deliverable is not written (e.g. a student may need to write an analysis and defense of a painting or musical composition). Deliverables will be evaluated on their ability to demonstrate standards of biblical aesthetics including order, balance, harmony, unity-in-diversity, etc.

I'm not sure I can think of a better way to invest two hours. Our students presented very thoughtful and well-written papers on the topics of our human need for art, what good art is and should be, how our relationship to food has everything to do with our relationship to others, and (just for fun), an in-depth analysis of William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

As Mackenzie's presentation involved a study of journal-making, she made two beautiful leather-bound journals - one with paper she bought, another with paper she made out of (I'm not kidding here) old jeans. Ruth, having talked about art more literarily, brought copies of an original short story heart-wrenching in its description of two boys caught between dysfunctional parents called "The Tree".

Sarah, advocating for a cultural return to "cuisine" (and not just "cooking"), baked amazing homemade pumpkin muffins using her own recipe for everyone in attendance. And Austin had obviously invested his "project" time in a ton of extra reading and research, as evidenced by his phenomenal grasp of the complexities of the Normans and Saxons during his Q&A time.

With only a month of school left (and a thousand thoughts having to do with it running through my mind), it was nice to sit back and witness why it's all worth it. Last night was a celebration of our seniors' hard work and accomplished rhetorical gifts which served to reaffirm the trivium as a tried and true educational methodology. In addition, seeing their desires (and not just their words) shaped by education that is truly Christian was inspiring.

Make no mistake, their grasp - like mine - of the nuances of life is far from perfect and still developing (some of the parents' careful but challenging questions spoke to this). But, it is being shaped and redeemed by the truth, goodness, and beauty of the Gospel, reminding me of Philippians 1:6, that He who began a good work in these students will bring it to completion at the day of Christ.

I'm not sure there's a more comforting thought with which to hit the hay.

Why We Test (and Why We Don't)

"Not everything that can be counted counts,
and not everything that counts can be counted."
Albert Einstein

As is true of many schools in our state and nation, Veritas is administering standardized tests this week. Our Grammar and Logic students (1st-through 8th grades) are taking the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, while our 9th and 10th graders are taking the PLAN Test. (We're doing some other developmental things with PreK, Kindergarten, and 11th and 12th grades so they don't feel left out.)

We test because we can, not because we have to; this is unfortunately not the case for a majority of American schools. Education in the United States has been preoccupied with standardized testing this past century, but especially so during the past decade. From President George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" in 2001 to President Obama's "Race to the Top" in 2009, we have not lacked for modernity's attempts to measure educational success.

There's little conceptually wrong with this; assessment is a good thing, which is why we at Veritas test our students every year. For us, good uses of testing include identifying general areas of instruction that need improvement as well as facilitating home/school interaction as to future specific differentiated instruction within our unique blended model. We take test results seriously, but not so seriously that they blind us to the bigger picture captured in our portrait of a graduate.

Over the past eight years, Veritas students have scored in the 90th percentile of the ITBS. In addition, over this same period of time, we've tracked a 10-point improvement over students' own pre-admission assessment scores, which means students are improving while with us (for comparison, most public schools report only a 1-to-2-point improvement over the year).

In 2012, across the core subjects (defined by the ITBS as language skills, reading, and mathematics), our students’ national percentile rank for K through 8th grades was 84th and our school’s national percentile rank for K through 8th grade was 97th. This means that, on average, Veritas students scored higher than 83% of American students and we as a school scored higher than 96% of American schools taking the ITBS in these subjects. Also (and as in previous years), our students tested an average of three grade levels above their grade level.

Most of what you hear or read about testing is negative, and rightly so due to the unintended consequence of schools choosing to "teach to the test" for the sake of increased government funding. In addition, the modernist mentality of "all success must be measurable" is limiting in evaluating what a student has learned and not just what he or she can regurgitate. Test scores can be a helpful measure of past and/or current realities, but often are poor predictors of true success (especially a more biblically-informed definition of success currently missing from our Department of Education).

Here are just a few things that testing does not help us evaluate about a student's experience across a school year:

• Leadership potential and growth
• Enjoyment of spontaneous creation
• Value of actively engaging with community
• Risk-taking and innovation
• Empathy and compassion
• Ability to ask deep questions
• Reception of constructive criticism
• Integrity and humility
• Desire for truth, goodness, and beauty
• Collaboration with others
• Overall love of learning

The list could go on and on, but the point is this: testing provides some insight into a student's academic achievement, but not all of it.

Of course, on the flip side of the testing question is the concern that kids shouldn't be made to test for reasons of pressure creating or contributing to existing test anxiety. Some argue that standardized testing (and its results, particularly if they're not what the parent - not always the student - hoped for) could work against a kid's self-esteem and confidence and therefore should not be used.

We must not forget that the only real way students build confidence is to attempt, struggle through, and overcome challenging things. The lie is that education should be easy; learning (i.e. that which goes beyond mere regurgitation of information and crosses over into character formation) is difficult. When it comes to helping our students deal with testing anxieties, the key for us as parents is not to over-emphasize perfect test results, but to help students shoot for improved ones.

Our goal should be to help students lean into and learn to stand up under stress rather than run away or hide from it. Stress is both a part of life and an important formation tool God uses in the lives of people (think of all the stress He intentionally brought upon those in the Bible He chose to use!). We should help students respond with faithfulness as they take hold of the task at hand, for as James 1 speaks specifically to spiritual growth, the principle applies to growth that is of an educational nature as well.

So we test our Grammar and Logic School students and take seriously the results. But we want to help them understand that the ultimate goal of assessment is not to pass the test and then fail life. That just would not not be very smart at all.

Not-a-Banquet: Halfway There

Add on a check that we received in the mail for $1,000 to the Scholarship numbers above and you've got an idea of where we stand with our Not-a-Banquet total: $10,875 raised from 39 of 180 Veritas families as of midnight on Friday.

Fundraising consultants will tell you a 22% constituency response is fantastic, but I know there are more than 39 families who love Veritas enough to give - especially when we're still just halfway to our goal of $20,000, and there are 16 current families and three new sports (basketball, tennis, and golf) we hope to see at Veritas next year.

Let me tell you a story:

Last weekend, after Mrs. Taylor, Mr. Wedel, and I spent Saturday morning at the Central Campus interviewing a total of 18 new and excited families applying to Veritas, I drove north to Edmond to watch our Veritas Grammar Griffins participate in the track meet sponsored by the Edmond Track Club.

Our kids were wearing their bright gold Veritas Griffins shirts, and as they walked around the track - whether separately or together - they were smiling ear to ear. My youngest daughter, Millie, was one of those kids in the bright gold shirts, and she was so excited that they were actually running against  students from other schools that she could hardly stand it. (Neither Coach Spears nor I have concluded how she missed that part about racing others in a meet, but she thankfully adjusted well enough.)

While the kids were taking it all in and pouring it all out on the track, several groups of Veritas parents were sitting in camp chairs or standing under portable tents, cheering for our athletes between animated conversations. A couple of dads made it a point to thank me and tell me how thrilled they were that we had a track team, while a mom gave me the whole lowdown on how she was planning to enroll her three kids in the fine arts offerings next year.

Listening to them talk, I had this distinct thought: these parents are the ones who have made this happen; they've committed to our school, they've signed up and paid for our first attempts at athletics, and they've come out to support our athletes (their kids). It's me who should be thanking them, which is exactly what I did.

As we cheered for the next Veritas runner to cross the finish line, we together tasted a bit of the future. It was sweet, not because we were a track and field powerhouse (yet), but because we were simply there on the track and field! None of this existed a year ago, but through our families, it does now. By God's grace, more will exist next year.

But we need your help. If you're part of the 22% who gave, thank you. If you're in the 78% group who have yet to contribute to our fundraiser, could I ask you to continue the Not-a-Banquet through the weekend? Everybody loves a long party, right?

Post a pic, give a gift - that's all we're asking. Right now, we're only halfway around the track, but if every remaining family donated just $75, we'd cross the finish line (and then some) of our $20,000 goal.

Before any race, a good dinner of carbs goes a long way. If you haven't had one already, I hope a Not-a-Banquet is still in your future. Then take the baton and run your leg of the race with us - we need you!

Out of the Bag for the Good of Oklahoma City

This week is a significant one for classical Christian education in Oklahoma City.

Four months ago, Providence Hall Head of School Nathan Carr and I (on behalf of our boards) launched via video and website what were then the public beginnings (at least to our respective schools) of The Academy of Classical Christian Studies.

This week - tonight, actually - we announce the new school to the Oklahoma City metro via a three-minute news story on Fox 25's "Tell Me Something Good" feature with news anchor Mike Brooks. Here's the link.

But before we do that, today we'd like to roll out the brand new crest for our new school. Many thanks to Todd Milligan at Dust Bowl Artistry for helping create what we hope our families will embrace as a wonderful and symbolic visual that represents who we are as The Academy. (Note: For an excellent interpretation of our crest, read Nathan’s explanation of each of the elements.)

In addition to the new crest, we're also rolling out our new public Facebook page and Twitter feed for The Academy, so go like/follow us if you would. Finally, if you haven't already (or haven't in a while), be sure to visit the official website for The Academy, where we cast our vision and continue to detail the creation of our new school.

Easter Sunday Slogan or Real-World Reality?

If you've been alive the past seven days, you know it's been quite a week for our nation. I won't rehash the events of the Supreme Court hearings in this email (though you're welcome to read my personal thoughts here), but it's ironic (or perhaps not) that so much of the vitriol of the debate has coincided with Holy Week. If anything, the events of this week have reminded me that we - that I - need Good Friday and Easter as much as ever.

In our 8th grade New Testament class this week, we began our study of the book of Romans. I had asked students to have read the book before our discussion, and they came with questions not just about the text, but in light of the pink equal signs and crosses found across Facebook, about what Paul's most systematic doctrinal treatise (and the latter half of its first chapter in particular) means for us today.

If you know some of our 8th graders, you know it was a spirited debate, not so much about right and wrong, but about the nuances of how Christians respond concerning both. We talked about how easy it is to make Romans 1 only about the topic of homosexuality, when what Paul is more fully describing is the process that leads to practicing such sin (as well as many others - see Romans 1:29-31) when God is not honored or given thanks.

These are the kinds of discussions that happen everyday at Veritas. Our goal is to teach students to respond, not just react; to appeal to cohesive biblical doctrines and virtues, not just decontextualized verses and proof texts; to think in solid logic, not just sound bytes. We want to help students learn to discuss and debate the nuances that come with the huge issues of our day, not for the sake of winning arguments, but for gently restoring a fallen world, for which Paul, in the first few chapters of Romans, reminds us that we are responsible and inhabit.

In true gospel ("good news") fashion, there are 14 chapters after these first two, throughout which "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). This hope is what we celebrate this Easter weekend, what we as Christians need, what the world in its fallenness requires to flourish, and with which we desire to educate our students.

"He is risen; he is risen indeed." May this be less Easter Sunday slogan and more real-world reality for us and for our kids.

Humble Phone Calls

Just this morning (before 9 a.m.), I've already taken two phone calls from current Veritas parents in need of financial help.

The first call was from a mom trying to figure out how to pay for the remaining two months of school; the second was from a dad looking ahead trying to figure out how to pay for next year with a second student in the mix. Theirs were humble phone calls, and I was humbled to be on the receiving end of them.

These are real people with real stories. Both were acting responsibly (I always appreciate parents who take their contracts as seriously as we do); both were struggling with how to make ends meet; both were hopeful that I might have an idea as to what some options might be to move forward.

Both situations are good examples of why we raise scholarship funds. Our deadline to apply for scholarship help is April 1st, but there is no deadline to give (though we do hope to raise the remaining $8,000 of our 2013-14 $24,000 goal from December as part of our Not-a-Banquet fundraiser on April 12th).

If you're a Veritas family who needs financial help, we hope you'll apply for scholarship. If you're a Veritas family who doesn't, we hope you'll give.

I've already talked to two people this morning who I know would be grateful.

Spring Bling Masquerade Ball

"Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?
What masque? What music? How shall we beguile
The lazy time, if not with some delight?"

from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

Pretty excited for our 9th-12th graders next month...

Overview of Classical Christian Education

It could use a better soundtrack and there's a terrible typo that ought to cost someone his or her job, but here's a good video on classical Christian education called "The New Old Way," produced by Veritas Press and the Association of Classical Christian Schools.