To graduate students who can think clearly, discern wisely, and articulate winsomely classical, Christian schools must have high standards. This means that there will be a striving for excellence in all that we do. With this, we need to be very careful to pay attention to the temptations that come along with this kind of atmosphere. One such temptation that our students may face is setting up idols of perfectionism and putting their worth in their achievements.
Excellence vs Perfectionism: Helping Our Students Avoid Idolatry
Topics: Blog Posts, Parenting, Classical Education, Christian Education, True Education, Social Issues, Grades, Virtue
Last week, we shared ten practical tips for achieving enduring success and experiencing the wonderful fruit of classical Christian education at Trinitas, This week, we have ten MORE practical tips we've assembled from our teachers which we hope will benefit your family.
Topics: Blog Posts, School Life, Parenting, Classical Education, Scripture, Christian Education, True Education, Parent Involvement, Reading, Homework, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, Virtue
We should all be familiar with Jesus’ exhortation in Matthew chapter 6 to seek the kingdom of God rather than chase after the things we think we need. He doesn’t say we should forget about the things we think we need—food, clothes, the important stuff—but that those things will be added to us if we will seek first the kingdom of God. The idea seems to be that seeking after food and clothing (and fill in the blank) is something akin to getting so blinded by individual trees that we become unable to see the forest. Or worse: Jesus seems to be cautioning us against a form of idolatry, against letting our material needs (and wants) take the place of God as the focus of our worship and devotion.
Topics: Blog Posts, True Education, Christian Living, Teaching, Grades
Of Pigs and Pupils: Fast Food, Modern Education, and the Growth of Classical (Christian) Schools
The classical school approach offers a fundamentally different vision of education that families fed up with a factory approach to learning find compelling.
Alexandra Desanctis, recently wrote in the National Review of the exponential growth of the classical Christian school movement. What accounts for the growing popularity of these classical and classical Christian schools? Why are so many families opting for a return to an older way of educating their children? Strange as it may seem, I believe this classic Chipotle video helps explain the reasons for the rapid spread of these schools.
Topics: Blog Posts, Classical Education, True Education, Secular Education, Social Issues
As Trinitas begins its 25th year of providing classical and Christian education for like-minded families, it's a good time to remind each other that Trinitas serves parents in the mission God has given them for the education of their children without replacing them altogether. Yes, our experienced and gifted faculty do have the enormous responsibility and opportunity of taking the lead in students' education for the next 174 school days, but they are not replacing the role of the parents nor are parents mindlessly handing their children over to the school. Both are working together to be faithful instruments of grace in the education of the student.
Topics: Blog Posts, True Education, Parent Involvement
What's the best way to begin the summer break here at Trinitas? With a book recommendation, of course! Several years ago, I read The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming of Age Crisis and How to Build a Culture of Self-Reliance and think that it is still of value to parents today. The author, former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, has been in the news here in Florida frequently this year as he has assumed the helm of the University of Florida.
Topics: Blog Posts, True Education, Parent Involvement, Social Issues
A quality that is disappearing from the world is the ability to see and understand what lies beneath the surface of an issue. People seem increasingly content to swallow headlines hook, line, and sinker as if the story could be no deeper than the tallest letters in bold print. This sort of naivety is the very thing that makes a people easily manipulated or even oppressed.
Topics: Blog Posts, True Education, Social Issues
G.K. Chesterton is responsible for one of my favorite quotes about education. He wrote,
“Education is not a subject and does not deal in subjects. It is instead a transfer of a way of life.” What we are trying to do at Trinitas is transfer a way of life to our students, a paideia, a way of being distinctly Christian in a world that seems increasingly hostile to that."
Topics: Blog Posts, Classical Education, Christian Education, True Education