Education is teleological. “Teleological” is a big word that comes from the Greek word telos, which means end, goal, or purpose. To say that education is teleological is to say that it shapes children to be a certain kind of adult, and education always works because it always forms students toward its inherent telos, its […]
Happy New Year! Last Sunday marked the first Sunday of Advent, and with it a new church year began. The civil calendar marks the beginning of a new year in a few weeks, but those who follow Christ live by a different rhythm, an ancient yearly cycle that walks us through the incarnation, birth, life, […]
Here’s your “dog bites mailman,” obvious news bulletin of the day: the world is a dangerous, scary place. And the more things change, the more they stay the same; the world has always been (in the words of Luther) “with devils filled,” “for still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe.” The world […]
It’s November, so I am going to talk about the end of school. No, not the end of the school year. I mean the end of school, as in the purpose or goal of education, as in, “Educate to what end?” Why are you educating your children? I’m not asking merely about your immediate goals […]
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterful tale The Hobbit, the wizard Gandalf accompanies the story’s unlikely hero, Bilbo Baggins, and his dwarf friends on their adventure across the Misty Mountains. As they prepare to enter the forbidding forest of Mirkwood, Gandalf announces that he must leave his friends. Danger awaits them ahead, he assures them, but they […]
Low standards are a plague. They are a plague on the home, on society, and most certainly on education and youth culture. Teens, it seems, are expected to be vulgar, boorish, self-centered, monosyllabic slackers whose slogan for life is a bored “Whatever” and whose moral standards are shaped by the narcissism and vacuity of social […]
David Bryant The Christian Life
The Providence Upper School has begun to do some new and exciting things in its morning assembly. Each school day Upper School students and teachers gather in the Great Hall to read the Scriptures, confess our faith, sing, and pray together. It’s such a gift to begin our day with devotion to Christ the Lord. […]
Classical Christian education is a new and exotic animal for many Regents Academy parents. I always appreciate finding simple and direct explanations of many of the concepts, otherwise unclear or unknown, associated with our school’s philosophy of education. Below are a few questions and brief answers by Douglas Wilson that get right to the heart […]
Each week at Providence students memorize passages from the Bible and often recite them before their classmates. Why are we using valuable time and effort to memorize Scripture? Here are some answers to that question. First, we memorize Scripture because we are a Christian school. A school can, of course, be a Christian school without […]
David Bryant CCE, Cultural context
Parents who have been at Providence for a while know that what their children are receiving at the school is something distinctly different. Sometimes I hear parents saying they have a hard time putting their finger on it, but they can see it in their children. What’s the difference? You can see it in their […]