Real, Actual, Lasting Education 🍎

spoiler: it's about rightly ordering our loves

School is Out, by Elizabeth Forbes (1859–1912) #

Starting a new homeschool co-op is brand-new to me (especially when we have 82 kids taking at least one of our classes in our first year!), so my learning curve this year has been Steep-with-a-capital S. However, it’s my seventh year teaching high schoolers and I’ve learned a thing or two in the trenches. I’ve also cannonballed into the deep end in the philosophy and history of classical education the past few years — so mid-summer when parents began emailing me what they should be doing to prepare for my classes this fall, I decided to write a longer letter-turned-essay.

Removing a few specifics to our particular community, I thought it might be worth dusting off and sharing with you as well. Take heart! As a parent, you’re the primary educator of your children, no matter where they “do school.” I hope these thoughts leave you encouraged, regardless where your kids learn.

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Dear Parents,

There’s not much to do to prepare for my classes this upcoming year that could fit on a to-do list. I know a straightforward to-do list is usually easier than what I’m about to encourage you to pursue instead, but it’d be dishonest of me to pretend like the most important thing to do is buy the right color binder and use a label maker for the dividers therein (though please do put your student’s name in clear, dark lettering on the outside of all his or her class notebooks/binders — that goes a long way in making me weirdly happy).

In my estimation, there is no more important subject in the adolescent years than the humanities. What we read leads to what we think about, how we think, and how we form our ideas, and these things ultimately shape who we become. I’m also entirely in the school of thought that laser-focused effort and a less-but-better approach to academic work equals a deeper, more satisfying, longer-lasting (dare I say permanent?) education.

So — on to your parental requirements for my classes, none of which fit on a handy to-do list. (Keep in mind that these are my requirements for myself, too, as a fellow parent in the trenches.)

1. Embrace real education.

First, continually remind yourself both the definition and purpose of education. It is not career preparedness (though done well, the natural side effect of a good education is job readiness beyond that which is done in a model that focuses on career prep as its end). It is not intelligence (though done well, good education delivers highly intelligent citizens, since the etymology of the word ‘intelligent’ is ‘to read between the lines’ — that is, someone who understands things beyond what’s merely on the surface). It is not box-checking and hoop-jumping and pleasing the teacher in order to get on with the day (because, regardless whether we’re aware of the phenomenon, education happens 24/7, inside and outside a classroom, whether we want it to or not).

Here’s the correct definition: true education is the formation of loving the right things in the right way (sources: Plato and St. Augustine). To keep this from turning into a book, and to keep this helpful, simply remember that the goal of any education is to order our loves. We can wish it were otherwise, or we can write this off as hoity-toity or too lofty an ideal, but it doesn’t make it not true (because what’s true is simply what is; our belief or lack thereof doesn’t make it so). Bad education orders our loves poorly. Good education orders our loves rightly.

Therefore, the purpose of education is to rightly order our loves, and as parents, our divinely-appointed goal should be to provide what we can to help rightly order our children’s loves. This is my goal in all classes I teach: to invite the pursuit of an atmosphere, discipline, and life resting on a foundation of rightly-ordered loves. The happy by-product of this endeavor, Lord-willing, is a young adult who’s indeed ready for college or the job market or some other noble pursuit, able to better read between the lines as the world presents its ideas to them. That is to say: a responsible adult and engaged citizen of the world.

As we start this new school year together, please remember: real education is the formation of loving the right things the right way, and your goal as a parent should be to help this happen for your child.

2. Embrace reading.

Second, do not underestimate the value of reading. All the current statistics show that fewer and fewer people are reading, especially those in our kids’ generation. Attention spans are growing shorter and language fluency is dropping annually, to the point where more and more schools are no longer even assigning full books. This means that one of the greatest — and simplest — gifts you can provide your student is books: full-length, unabridged, old and new, easy and challenging, honest-to-goodness books. In some ways, this is a sad commentary on our culture: we can change the trajectory of our kids’ lives simply by having them read more than Instagram or TikTok captions. But in other ways, this should remind us of how we so often make things more complicated than they need to be, and that we humans really are innately hardwired to learn. We’re also hardwired for stories and have been telling them since literal recorded history.

I’ll spare you all the statistics floating around out there, even though they’re compelling, because I want to emphasize the heart of the matter: the best thing you can do to help your student do well is provide the time, atmosphere, and family culture of reading. This doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s simpler than you might guess (not easy, necessarily, but simple). It’s imperative we help build stronger attention spans for Gen-Z. In fact, it’s been said that those in our kids’ generation who can simply read a book will become the stand-apart leaders.

Here’s how to help do this:

1. Create a home environment that values reading. Slowly build a home library and keep books in your home’s shared spaces.

2. Have family reading nights. It doesn’t need to be every night, but instead of defaulting to nightly gatherings around the television, declare a weekly reading night — everyone can bring a book of their own choosing to the living room for some shared quiet reading (a good way to do their class reading assignments!), or do a shared read-aloud. No one is ever too old for story time (even you).

3. Let your kids see you reading. In fact, I encourage you to read what your kids are reading for their classes.

4. Talk about what you’re reading over the dinner table. It doesn’t need to be complicated. Simply take turns sharing what you’re reading and what you’re learning from it. It’ll feel awkward at first if it’s new, but it’ll become more natural with time.

5. Put away the screens. They’re the primary competitors to the act of reading, and they’re intentionally addictive. Designate a parking spot at home for all screens and turn them off at least one hour a day.

Will you do all this perfectly? No. I still look at my phone more than I like, and have a feeling it’ll be a lifelong battle as long as I live in this culture. But don’t succumb to the limiting belief of “I’m just not a reader” or “my kid just isn’t a reader.” In our culture, cultivating a habit of reading isn’t a nicety — it’s essential.

(By the way: audiobooks count! That’s just reading with your ears vs. your eyes.)

3. Embrace writing.

Third, do not underestimate the value of writing. Now, I know not everyone loves to write. I’m a writer by trade, but all three of my children run the spectrum of writing skill and desire, so I don’t say this to pretend like our collective goal is to produce children who become authors. The simple reason that writing is so essential is that writing is communication, and a well-educated person loves the truth. But in order to communicate truth, whether that’s in story form or in a conversation at the coffee shop, we need to communicate well. Writing is the primary conduit for learning to think, and ergo communicate, well. (If you’ve ever experienced the phenomenon of not knowing what you think about something until you start writing, this is why.)

In a world ever-more saturated by AI, shortcuts abound to bypass the human need to write. Soon, human beings will default to letting robots do their monotonous work of writing emails, to-do lists, or fan mail unless we intentionally do the hard work of learning to write well.

Just like it’s good for children to learn math even though (thanks to smartphones) they could ostensibly always carry around a calculator, it’s good for children to learn how to write even though (thanks to smartphones) they could soon ostensibly always carry around an AI tool that will do the work for them. Why? Because we need to be people that have done the work of learning how to do these hard tasks. Like a workout, we need to do tasks that form stronger minds that lead us into deeper maturity and formation. We need our children to learn how to communicate so that they become the culture’s truth-tellers. The act of writing helps us love telling the truth. If you like: we need our kids to write well so that the robots don’t win.

When (not if) your student complains about writing, don’t fret, commiserate, or push back. Just acknowledge that it is, indeed, hard, remind them that writing is simply communication, and still have them write a little every day. I assign Charlotte Mason-style writing, which is to say I mostly assign frequent, short, writing usually by way of narration. The more they write, the easier it’ll get. Be patient.

4. Embrace the long game.

Fourth, remember that you’re playing the long game. Sometimes students need a detox year, especially if they’re in a new learning environment, which is to say: the entire purpose of a school year for them might be simply to not hate learning. Previous school years might have been rough — either too needlessly rigorous and full of busy work, or too painfully easy and also full of busy work, or simply taught with a different definition of and objective for education altogether. Unlearning old beliefs, habits, or attitudes may be just as essential as learning new ones this year, and it’s okay if this is the bulk of what happens.

I tend to have the same students over multiple years because my class topics rotate, which means I get to see these young men and women slowly grow and mature. I’ve had a student who could barely write and hated to read in freshman year; by senior year he was writing twenty-page stories and reading Dostoevsky for fun (and going on to an honors program at his university of choice). This trajectory isn’t a guarantee, of course, but it’s an anecdotal observation to remind us parents the thing we so often forget: parenting means playing the long game.

Keep your expectations reasonable, remember your ultimate goal for their education (see number one), and embrace the reality that this school year might look more like shedding old beliefs than taking on new ones.

5. Embrace your role as primary educator.

And finally, embrace the truth that you, the parent, are in charge of your student’s education (and always have been). We humans learn 24/7, we’re meant to be raised in families, and we’re slow-growing mammals that take almost two decades to mature. Parents are divinely-appointed stewards of their children, and “training up a child in the way he should go” during these years is our primary mandate.

Yes, this means that even when your students take classes, you’re still in charge of this part of their education — you’ve simply outsourced their learning in this subject matter to tutelage under someone’s mentorship. The potentially “bad” news here is that the responsibility falls on you: you need to create a home atmosphere, discipline, and life that fosters true education. Attending the best class won’t magically make your child love reading and writing if they’re not being fertilized in good soil at home.

The very good news here is that the privilege falls on you, too: you get to create a home atmosphere, discipline, and life that fosters true education. Welcome to arguably the best reason to homeschool! Your child gets to learn without the constraints of long days tethered to an uncomfortable desk, under the weight of needless administrative classroom management, and staying up way too late night after night doing busywork disguised as homework. You get the privilege of providing your children the environment in which they can grow in the most natural way possible, the way we were each made to learn. You get the privilege of surrounding them with great books, beautiful art, good conversation, as well as a truly scholé approach to learning. What a gift! And with a delightful bonus: you get to join in on this with them.

My youngest, a freshman boy, this past Friday afternoon: up in a tree in a hammock reading A Tale of Two Cities.

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If I were to contradict how I started all this by giving you a simple to-do list, it’d be this:

1. Write out the definition and purpose of true education, then put it somewhere prominently where you’ll be reminded of it daily.

2. Take a few steps toward making your household one that loves reading: add some bookshelves in the living room, remove tech devices and screens from the bedroom, designate a weekly family reading night, or begin a read-aloud. Go easy at first (and go easy on yourself), especially if it feels awkward.

3. Begin reading something assigned to your student.

4. Talk as a family about any of the five points I’ve mentioned above. Ask your students if they agree or disagree with any of them. Ask them to back up their responses with reasons.

5. Pray and take a deep breath: because you already care a great deal about your child’s education, chances are slim you’ll radically screw them up. God’s given you your specific children specifically to you for a reason. Trust in God’s sovereignty over all details, big or little.

Be encouraged! We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Lord-wiling, may this next generation grow more in virtue and better order their loves, specifically in this niche of the magic of really good books. May it be true for us all.

In the trenches with you,

Tsh