Some Musings on the Liberal Arts and Passing on the Faith
Dear Friends,
What an exciting few months! For those of you who do not know, our school is just finishing up a major renovation. With refurbished floors, new paint, and more bathrooms, the space has been transformed and I am so excited for our (full) school year to begin next fall! In addition, we’ve just received exciting news that the Chesterton Schools Network has partnered with the Franciscan University of Steubenville to offer college credits for all Chesterton Academy students! While the number of credits and classes is still being worked out, this means that students who attend our school will receive college credits while enrolled in high school, saving families thousands of dollars towards their children’s college education! (see the image below) Finally, I am very excited for our upcoming Chesterton Revel. If you haven’t purchased your tickets please do so ASAP as the deadline is fast approaching!
Since it’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post, I thought I’d share some things I’ve been thinking about lately, and why I’m convinced that the classical liberal arts are key to forming complete individuals and renewing the Church.
As I mention to my students, the first question in any discussion, after clarifying our terms, is asking what something is. In other words, asking about its essence. In this case, what is it that we are talking about when we say the word ‘education’? The literal meaning of the term in Latin means to ‘lead something out,’ like a guide leads one out of a dark passage into a bright noon-day field. I do not want to dwell on the obvious negative trends in education or the alarming number of young people who leave the Church after graduating from high school (75-80%). Amidst the temptation to pessimism and discouragement, there is a huge wave of support for the renewal of education in both the pew and on the street!
In my experience as Headmaster this past year, I’ve come across many parents who are finally seeing what their kids are being taught and are taking action. They are questioning content for sure, for there are a number of disturbing anti-Christian ideologies in schools that warrant concern, but what is really exciting is that many are now starting to question the educational system as a whole. Rather than simply accept that the modern experiment in education is the ‘normal,’ people are starting to realize that their children and even themselves have been shortchanged. Many now see that the great transformation in education that occurred in our country roughly 60 years ago vastly limited the purpose and scope of education, and left millions of young people without a purpose and adrift. They see that they’ve been cut off from the intellectual and moral tradition that had sustained western civilization for 2500 years. Seeking to avoid ‘controversial issues’ from philosophy or theology, the elites of the country decided it was much easier to provide job training than to guide a young man and woman to the peace and joy of mature adulthood. It was easier to simply tell students what to think, than to teach them how to think.
Along these lines, people are beginning to see how compartmentalizing education into separate subjects, without providing any unity in worldview, leaves students lost and without a purpose, like a boat without a rudder, adrift and caught in the stream of popular culture. After working in college for a number of years, I cannot count how many young people who seemed lost and were only in college because they didn’t know what else to do. The dreaded question of ‘what are you going to study?’ or ‘what career will you pursue?’ caused tremendous stress for these poor students because they had not been taught how to think for themselves or even make a decision. It is not their fault. With our current education system, it’s as if we’ve carefully led a child through the shallow end of the pool by hand, only to suddenly throw them in the deep end and wish them well.
To be sure, I do not want to denigrate the importance of learning basic job skills, but we Catholics must start insisting that our students receive both the content of the classical liberal arts and also the methodology of the classical socratic seminar. The former ensures we actually form complete individuals, while the latter ensures that they are inspired to actually learn something. The socratic seminar is key since it is where their curiosity and wonder is fanned into flames with probing questions. Rather than ‘drill & kill’ with lecture and memorization, classically trained teachers allow students to see the truth for themselves by posing key questions and examples.. For we are not computers who learn by uploading data, but are like cows chewing the cud. Answers given without first having the questions are quickly forgotten. Likewise, questions posed that are not shown to relate to our happiness and purpose in life seem trivial and fail to inspire us.
I apologize. This blog has gotten away from me, but I cannot help but take one last detour.
G.K. Chesterton says that thinking is connecting things, and if we cannot connect our science class with our history or theology class, then we are left with disparate pieces of data that ultimately will be forgotten. Like a piece of dead skin, information that students think they can look up in five seconds on their phone will soon be forgotten and usually are seen as unimportant. Here is a peculiar danger for passing on the faith in a Religion or Theology class. If the ‘faith element’ in a school is relegated to one isolated class, and the methodology of that class is to teach via lecture and memorization, then it often ends up doing more spiritual harm than good. Much like a (traditional) vaccine that innoculated people against a serious disease by injecting a weakened version of it, so also a religion class will often innoculate young people against the faith if it is taught in the modern (non-classical) style. It provides, or rather forces, answers on students but provides no questions. It is mere data we force them to memorize but do not show how it’s connected to other areas of life and their deepest desires. Sadly, this frequently leads to a schizophrenic worldview that divides their ‘faith life’ from their ‘real life.’ Now we can understand why 75% of our students are leaving the Church after high school.
I apologize for this last bit, and for the length of this post. These are just some of the musings I’ve been pondering lately. I am truly excited for the future though! One must first diagnose the disease before applying the cure. And many people are indeed coming together to help renew education with the classical liberal arts. Thank you for all your prayers and support for Chesterton Academy of St. Philip Neri! I hope to see you at the Revel!
Prayers for a blessed Holy Week,
Dr. Murray
