Two Ways to Make School Meaningful - Part One

Most people are jaded with the concept of education for one of two reasons: either their degree has become a very expensive piece of paper that does nothing for them, or they look back on their own K-12 experience with underwhelm. No one is willing to say education is pointless, but school is looked on with suspicion. Young students even ask this question as they move from grade level to grade level; it seems that each year is unrelated to previous years, so they ask, “Where did the effort go?” 

Rose City answers those questions in two ways: the school of virtue and the school of academics. Education, true education, must shape the person to be virtuous, and it must provide a wealth of knowledge that can be drawn on. The following focuses on the former. 

The School of Virtue

Every parent has experienced this phenomenon in some way: a child attempts a task and completes in within a few minutes, with no fuss, no problems, and moves on with his day; but, at another point in time, the same task can be the equivalent to an atom bomb of tantrums and emotions, making the task last over an hour. Now, apply this to a day of schoolwork. Some families regularly finish their home day assignments by noon, but there are days where it stretches far past lunch for no reason other than attitude and lack of attentiveness in the child. This is not an issue within the school of academics; instead, it falls within the school of virtue. 

Tests, quizzes, reading assignments, note cards, recitations, and the like are all part and parcel of academics, but our goal as parents and educators is to capture and enchant the whole student. Intellects aren’t enough if they lose their imaginations to vice and unbelief. Virtue must win the day. 

Education includes grades and test scores, but our primary calling is to raise our children up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Education is bigger than we moderns tend to think about it. Mitochondria and Columbus sailing the ocean blue should be taught in school, but so should faith, hope, love, wisdom, justice, temperance, and fortitude. Virtue is taught in lessons and books, but it is cultivated in the daily process of navigating relationships and overcoming hurdles. 

One of our main catechism questions is, “What are you?” Gentlemen answer, “I am a king, for I rule myself,” and the ladies give the same response as queens. When issues of virtue come up, this is our first refrain: rule yourself. Emotions cannot rule you, nor can self-sovereignty be scapegoated by blaming others for the individual’s intemperate responses. Our students must learn to be self-possessed, as this is the beginning of virtue. The Scriptures frame it as fearing God. The fear of the Lord is knowing that we are accountable to him for our actions, thus we must rule ourselves and make it our aim to please him. 

This might be the most difficult adjustment for most families. As we press virtue in our own children, we often see the areas of our own souls that need formation. It is also part of our culture at RCCA that we benefit from the most: all of us moving in the same direction and creating an ethos of growth, optimism, and repentance. Seeing imperfections, immaturity, and outright sin is part of the process; failure is not antithetical to growth but is often the most necessary part of it. Temperance and fortitude require temptation and opposition to be manifest. We embrace the challenges, accept our failures, and move forward— all with joyful repentance and increasing humility.

Two ways we teach virtue:

1. A commitment to the liberal arts, like arithmetic and geometry: long, long before STEM was the means to reliable income, these arts were seen as soul formation. They taught students to submit to the order of the universe—math and physics aren’t known for being forgiving; and they teach abstract, logical thinking. 

2. Through frameworks and narrative: we use a resource that frames 52 virtues with their vices of excess and deficiency. This paints a grid for students to understand what virtues are and how they affect ethics; then we task students, even young students, to identify these virtues and vices as they read literature and historical narratives. God uses these two to teach us by proxy, and so we employ the same method. We shape our moral imaginations through the stories, successes, and failures of others.

As students (and families) submit to the process of the liberal arts education, we expect growth in virtue, and we aid it along by giving opportunities to identify and appreciate them in others. By focusing on soulcraft, Rose City makes education meaningful year over year. In the next installment, we’ll show how even our academics build on a recurring mental framework.