Trinitas Blog

In case you haven’t noticed, children do things adults don’t; for example, children run.  They just run to run, not to go anywhere or for any reason, but just for the sheer pleasure of running. They will also pretend-play with just about any item they find.  A stick becomes a Greek sword, a jacket is shaped to make a baby’s blanket, and sofa cushions become a fort.

Student: What do you think about students dating in high school?

Gibbs: Why date? Why not just get married?

Student: We’re obviously not old enough to get married.

Gibbs: So why date?

We’ve just packed away the tents and doused the fire on the annual Trinitas Father & Son Camping Trip. From beginning to end it was an opportunity for men to spend time with their sons and other men in a setting that disarms. The wilderness is no respecter of persons—a night sleeping on the ground feels the same for carpenters and bankers alike. Thus we were freed from the stations we occupy Monday through Friday and got to know one another better because of it.

I used to think our little house in the country was ideal for raising children, but eventually our children got old enough to leave the comfort of that little country house and go to school. Then I realized that the fifty minutes we spent commuting back and forth to school each day added up to 8,500 minutes (almost 142 hours!) of time spent in an enclosed space with children in the course of just one school year. That realization along with the other stresses of commuting caused me despair…until I learned how to use all that time for the benefit of both children and parents! What follows are three blessings we’ve received from using our school commute wisely.

One of my favorite teachers sometimes reminds her class of nine-year-olds that they came into this world with nothing and that they would have nothing still if their kind and benevolent parents hadn’t given them everything they need. She usually issues that reminder to her students in the context of a pep-talk about taking proper care of their clothes, lunchboxes, backpacks, pencils, binders—you get the idea, but it also extends to care of their desks, chairs, books, and other non-consumable items they use at school. She refers to these items under their care as their little kingdoms. If they can take good care of those little kingdoms, they will someday be prepared to rule well over larger kingdoms—households, businesses, churches, and governments, for example.

With enrollment season for most schools upon us (Trinitas included), I hear a lot of questions from young parents who are trying to determine if their children are ready for kindergarten. Of course, there is no one-size-fits all answer to that question. Standards for public schools are usually very different than standards for private schools, for example, but to complicate matters further, standards also vary widely among private schools. So how do we define kindergarten-ready at Trinitas?

The seniors at Trinitas Christian School recently finished their senior thesis project. Trinitas is not the only school where seniors write and defend a thesis as a requirement of graduation. Thesis papers, and sometimes a defense of those papers, are a requirement in most classical schools and some prep schools around the country. It is a good project to cap off a high school career and prepare for the next step, which is almost always college for Trinitas grads.

For the past two weeks I have suggested that Christian parents are called to something different; specifically, they’re called to parent differently in keeping with God’s direction for His people, which necessarily means they’re called to partner with a school that is in line with their parenting (remember, there is no such thing as a neutral education). But it may not be as simple as just sending your child to any old Christian school. You want a school that is in lock step with your church and home, a school that teaches your children how to be Christians out in the wide world. Unfortunately, all Christian education is not the same, and because you want more for your children, I suggest you take a look at classical Christian education.