Trinitas Blog

Our junior and senior classes have just returned from five days in New York City. Some schools would call it a junior-senior trip; we call it an aesthetics trip. On a Trinitas aesthetics trip the main mission is to discover beauty that we can’t discover at home. We go in search of music, dance, art, architecture, and food. It isn’t that we don’t have those things in Pensacola; it’s just that we can find more of them in places like New York City and Washington DC.

Recently I proposed that the classical school movement is seeking to preserve the heritage of western civilization, in part, by teaching and training good oratory skills. I also explained some of the ways Trinitas begins this teaching and training as early as kindergarten. If the beginning is, as I mentioned last week, as simple as teaching five-year-olds good eye contact and clear enunciation, then the end of that training is guiding eighteen-year-olds through the writing, presentation, and defense of a senior thesis. There are, of course, many, many varied components between those two stages but perhaps none as important and exciting as the John Chrysostom Oratory Competition.

From Ancient Greece to the founding of the United States, one mark of western civilization has been excellent oratory. From Pericles to Patrick Henry and John Chrysostom to Thomas Jefferson (with Demosthenes and Cicero thrown in for good measure), the roots of western civilization have been nourished for more than two-thousand years by those with the ability to articulate lofty ideals in a way that leads to both understanding and inspiration in the hearer. We could call them the Silver Tongues of the West. But the West isn’t what it used to be. Oratory now seems most often employed to convince us to spend money on some product or to vote for a particular candidate. Of course it has always been used in this way, but it seems that in times past, good oratory was more memorably used by men such as those mentioned above to convince others of good ideas, the kind of ideas that change the world for the better.

Re-enrollment season at Trinitas is in full swing and, in fact, the deadline to re-enroll current students for next year is just a few days away. With the thought in mind that parents re-evaluate their child(ren)’s education during this season, it might prove helpful to review some of those distinctions that make Trinitas a rather not-so-ordinary sort of school.

In Eph 4:3, Paul says the Ephesians ought to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” While we know Paul wrote this letter specifically to the church at Ephesus, and with a specific context in mind, we also know that if Paul’s exhortation was true for Christians at Ephesus, it is true for us at Trinitas. Maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace is no easy task, though, no matter where it is being attempted because we’re all sinners, especially talented at offending each other, hurting each other’s feelings, and generally getting in each other’s way. But when the place you’re attempting to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace is a school where 200 people are living in community each day, it is a difficult task to say the least.

With drama underway, it seems like a fitting place to unpack the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. On the stage students are called to imagine life from another perspective. Students wrestle with not only what someone says, but how they say it and then why. Actors humble themselves and explore a nature not their own. In this putting on of a character, students are able to actively pursue the true, the good, and the beautiful.

When you come to Trinitas, what jumps right out at you is the fact that it is a different sort of school than your common public or private school, and even different from most private Christian schools you will have been acquainted with in your life. That isn’t to say that there aren’t other schools like Trinitas in the world, and it isn’t even to say that Trinitas is the best school that you will ever have been acquainted with. It is different, and that should be obvious. One of the main catalysts for that difference is the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty in our school life, not only in the classroom, but also in the hallways, at the lockers, on the ball field, and in short, everywhere the school has any presence as an institution.

When teachers and administrators from other schools visit Trinitas, one of the things they love is that all of our students sing. Music is not an elective at Trinitas; singing is not optional. We sing to start the day, we sing in music class, we sing in other classes, we sing in choir, and we sing to end the day. It is not a spontaneous thing—though song does occasionally erupt unannounced—it is intentional. We work at it. Even those of us who do not naturally sing well work at it (even harder in fact).