Trinitas Blog

As a father of five, I am greatly concerned with the cultivation of virtue in the hearts of my children. Frequent thought and active parenting has been invested in training my children in honesty, diligence, self-control, and respect. The lack of these virtues is tough to disguise. When children are disrespectful and lazy, succumbing to every desire of their flesh, they create what my mother would refer to as “a scene.” Yet behind the more common virtues, lies one that receives precious little airtime – Piety.

The pursuit of wisdom consists of basic things: reading boni libris, competing with a charitable heart on the field, turning in commonplace books, parsing Latin and Greek, working out complex Calculus problems, reciting poetry, memorizing Scripture, crafting essays, exercising your vocal cords in choir, and submitting your best art (even if you don’t think you’re much of an artist). Well, maybe it is better to say that these are the concrete ways you will pursue those lofty aims advocated by Aristotle, namely phronesis and techne. Both of them are arts aimed at the cultivation of the soul, phronesis meaning moral virtue, and techne meaning skilled virtue. Morals and skills. Or to use Paul’s language, “by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:1-2).

The Association of Classical and Christian Schools (ACCS) is the only accrediting body in the country that caters exclusively to classical Christian schools like Trinitas. Although the organization has over three hundred member schools, only a small fraction of those schools have met the rigorous standards required to become accredited. Trinitas has been associated with the ACCS since the school's founding over twenty years ago and has been an accredited member for over half that time.

Of course, a school doesn't have to be accredited to be a good school - there are many smaller classical Christian schools that offer an excellent education - but accreditation with the ACCS does assure parents that the school is committed to the highest standards of excellence in its pursuit of classical and Christ-centered education.

Mathematics is one subject that is commonly taught in many classical Christian schools just as it is in other American schools. By adopting Calculus for Everyone: Understanding the Mathematics of Change by Dr. Mitch Stokes, Trinitas will be demonstrating to our students the importance of mathematics in the broader western culture, and in particular, to philosophy.

In his book Norms & Nobility, lifelong scholar and educator David Hicks asserts that right thinking ought to lead to right acting. The idea is that a proper education should lead one to think rightly about the world and everything in it, and that such thinking should be followed by actions that are in accord with it. Proverbs 23:7 comes to mind, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” The passage refers to a miser or one who has an evil eye, but the principle also extends to the kind of people who are generous and don’t have evil eyes. It is just the way people work.

When the world measures the outcomes of a K-12 education, it most frequently does so in terms of grades, test scores, and college scholarships. That is the vernacular. When the conversation turns to what kind of schooling produces the best of those outcomes, the world naturally assumes prestigious college preparatory schools are best. But that simply is not true. To push back even further, it might be said that the world is measuring the outcomes of education all wrong. What if I told you there is now definitive proof schools that measure outcomes in terms of soul formation also produce the best grades, test scores, and college scholarships?

One of the biggest shocks of my parenting life came nearly two decades ago when a wise, gray-haired teacher confessed to me that she did not care about my son’s grade. The conversation was about his grade in some grammar school subject that was just low enough to prevent his earning an academic award if something did not change soon. I swooned at her remark. All I could think of was my child’s future. How would he get into a good college and then on to a good career if he couldn’t get all A’s in second grade?

Last week’s post was the first in a series about the “Good Soil” survey that will run over the next few weeks. The survey, conducted by the University of Notre Dame and Cardus, reports on alumni from all types of schools. These are alumni who grew up in Christian families and are now between the ages of 24 and 42. Alumni from classical Christian schools, especially ACCS accredited schools like Trinitas, will be our focus. Two areas the survey measures in alumni are Christian commitment and Christian lifestyle, our focus this week.