Trinitas Blog

On a morning not too many years ago, while standing out front opening doors and greeting the grammar children getting out of their cars, I opened the door for a boy who was navigating his book bag and lunchbox through the door of the car while at the same time trying to get a large and elaborately-colored poster through as well while attempting not to damage it. In taking the poster from him so he could get out of his mom’s car safely, I was able to see how much detail and care had been taken to make this poster dynamic.

In the process of transferring possession of his project back to him, I told him, “Nice poster, you put a lot of work into that.” To which he quickly, and honestly replied: “Thank my mom, she did most of it.” I felt a bit perplexed, but not surprised, as I watched him hustle the rest of the way into the front doors of the grammar building to turn in “his” poster to his teacher.

It’s a long-standing Trinitas tradition to close out each day with the entire school singing the Doxology together. To lift our voices together and sing “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.” is the best way I know how to depart one another’s company. It is like we take all of the energy expended, the knowledge and wisdom pursued, the time invested in training affections, and the virtue cultivated and affix the postage of worshipful prayer to it before sending it heavenward for the day. It is a glorious experience. Even if the little ones sing a tad too loudly to be on key and I struggle to start on the same pitch two days in a row, it is a glorious experience.

On Thursday, October the 20^th at 7 pm, Trinitas will be screening selections from the documentary “The Miseducation of America”  at The REX theatre. Free tickets for the evening are available here. The highlight of the evening will be a special guest appearance of David Goodwin, president of the Association of Classical and Christian Schools. Along with Pete Hegseth of FOX News, David coauthored The Battle for the American Mind, the book which led to the creation of the documentary.

Parents are in the business of working themselves out of a job. Think about it: from early in a child’s life, the role of parents is to prepare children to be independent. We train them to eat, use the restroom, brush their teeth, dress themselves, read and write, say please and thank you, and lots of other things before they ever lose their first tooth. It doesn’t stop there, of course. By the time they’re teenagers we’re making sure they can get themselves out of bed and to school or work on time, drive themselves around, make all the right friends, take the classes that lead them to the best colleges and then on to the best careers. All these things we do because we know they’ll be on their own soon, and we won’t be there to tell them what to do.

Have you ever bribed your children to eat broccoli? I know, I know, some moms are bragging right now about their children loving vegetables from the womb. Sure, we can argue that some do, but many do not, and so getting them to eat their broccoli is all about cultivating their taste.

Something new and exciting debuted at Trinitas this fall. All logic and rhetoric school (grades 7th-12th) students and faculty members gather together during first hour on Fridays to learn, discuss, and pursue wisdom together across a broad range of topics. Even parents are welcome to participate in what we are calling Schola Seminar.

In his book Norms and Nobility, David Hicks advocates for a return to a dialectical approach to education. Especially effective in the context of teachers and students learning together, dialectical education requires learners to commit to certain positions in order to test those commitments against experience, established wisdom, and ultimately, the truths of Scripture. Often utilizing primary sources and Socratic questioning, this approach to learning fosters moral and intellectual growth in participants.

There is a great scene in Margery Williams’s 1922 children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit. The titular character begins questioning the old “Skin Horse” about the process of transforming from a mere toy into something more real. As the Horse explains:

“It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

I always think of this conversation when I asked my opinion on writing in books.

One hundred twenty-eight years ago, the United States Congress officially recognized the social and economic impact of American workers by, ironically, giving them a day off. Since that time, the first Monday in September has been a federal holiday often celebrated with parades, fireworks, and backyard barbecues. Acting as the unofficial end of summer, Labor Day might also represent the end of lazy summer living and the start of the demands of a new school year. Yet for the thoughtful Christian, even a secular holiday such as Labor Day should be cause for contemplation.