Mt. Sophia Ideas

Kyle Thorp (class of 2009) is an engineering student at Grove City College. He hosts a blog called Tell Your Story.

I encourage you to read the first eleven verses of John chapter 12. The passage is about the woman who annoited Jesus with an expensive perfume. Judas was angry at this reckless act the woman had done. He asked why the perfume couldn’t have at least been sold so that the money could be given to the poor. What a waste! But Mary did just the right thing.

I find myself thinking like Judas a lot. I have thought a lot about what I should be studying in college, what to do with my life. I have spent so much time worrying about whether I’m doing the right thing. I was afraid of doing the wrong thing and failing. I prayed that God would use me according to my abilities. I didn’t want to be wasted. Then I realized that my thinking was all wrong.

It is not our business to ensure that the little we have is put to good use. It’s easy to “surrender” ourselves with the condition that God use is us the way we have in mind. But we cannot say to God, “Wouldn’t my talents and abilities be better used in this setting?” We can only say, “God, here am I, all of me. Take me and use me as you please.” It is only when we pour ourselves so recklessly at his feet like this that we begin to be of use. It doesn’t matter if we feel like all our best work goes for naught. Give it to God, obey him, and he will make it something beautiful.

Christa will be a senior this year.  She has a great handle on Shakespeare and homeschooling:)

To stay homeschooled or not to stay homeschooled—that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of “real” high school’s drama,

Or to take arms against a sea of stereotypes

And, by opposing, end them.  To stay home, to sleep in—

Oh joy!—and by our sleep to say we end

The grumpiness and the thousand natural shocks

That sleep-deprived, “real-schooled” flesh is heir to—‘tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished.  To stay home, to sleep—

To sleep, perchance to learn.  Ay, there’s the rub,

For after that sleep we must study what math lessons may come,

When our parents have not studied trigonometry for twenty years;

This must give us pause.  Here’s the respect

That makes calamity of studying at home.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of trig,

Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud answer book’s contumely,

The pangs of a weary mother, the father’s delay,

The insolence of noisy younger siblings, and the spurns

That “real-schooled” friends have more time than I do,

When I myself might my quietus make

By calling Social Services?  Who would the “above-average” label bear,

To grunt and sweat under impossible expectations,

But for the dread of giving homeschoolers a bad reputation?

The uninforméd public from whose bourn

No story of un-socialization can escape strengthens the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others we know not of.

Thus stereotypes do make cowards of us all,

And we would rather stay homeschooled than—horrid thought!—

Go to “real school.”

-Christa Swafford

Sunday will be — or was (depending on when you read this) — the 4th of July.  We Americans will be — or were — celebrating our independence.

From what? you might ask.

From our oppressors, we would respond.

The English? you ask. (Poor English people. Can you imagine them watching us celebrate being independent from them every year?)

Not really, no, we respond. After all, none of us were ever oppressed by England.

I mean, raise your hand: Have you ever been oppressed by an Englishman or -woman?

Didn’t think so.

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The 4th is not about our freedom from England. It’s about freedom from tyranny — from unjust, exploitative, illegitimate force and violence.

It’s about the day when the leaders of the thirteen “united States” (not, interestingly, the “United States”) said that there are certain fundamental truths that everyone can see — truths about people and governments and God and countries — and that anybody who violates those truths forfeits his (or her) authority to rule.

But notice that they claimed these were truths everyone could see.  And notice how they felt it necessary to explain their actions to the world by writing up a “Declaration.”

And notice that they didn’t declare war on the 4th. They simply claimed to be speaking the truth and explaining themselves.

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Now, the guys who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence weren’t all good guys. But we can learn something from them, nevertheless.

The Declaration of Independence was an attempt to remind everyone of important truths (important truths they all already knew), to convince them that the government of England had violated those truths, and to convince them that the citizens of the thirteen American colonies were justified — because of those violations — in no longer seeing the government of England as their government.

The road to independence, in other words, begins with truth, reasoning, and argumentation.

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If you want to teach independence to your children, then, what must you do?

First, teach them to see truth.

Second, teach them to understand how others see the world.

Remember, the Declaration of Independence doesn’t appeal to truths that only Americans or Christians could see.  It appeals to truths that everyone could see. The Declaration of Independence tries to start its argument from “common ground.”

But even if you can’t find “common ground” with an opponent, you still need to understand how he or she sees the world.  You can’t help someone get from the wrong place to the right place if you don’t know where he’s coming from!

Third, teach them how to make a case, or construct an argument, that others will find convincing.

Remember, the job of the Declaration of Independence was to convince the rest of the world that the American colonists were right.  The Declaration isn’t a law that forced people to agree.  And it isn’t a declaration of war that threatened violence if they didn’t agree. Its job was to make a rational argument that rational people would find convincing.

Fourth, teach them how to write.

The Declaration is extremely well written. It wouldn’t have had nearly the force it’s had for 200+ years had it not been.

But also, the secret to the Declaration of Independence is John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government.  Everyone had already read John Locke’s book, and been convinced by it.  All the Declaration had to do, then was to remind everyone of what John Locke had said about people and governments and God and countries, and then convince them that what Locke had said applied to the American situation.

John Locke’s book was a culture changer. Without it, there would have never been a Declaration of Independence.

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As homeschoolers, you have already declared your independence from the “normal” school system.  And that means you have the freedom to teach independence to your children.

The 4th of July is here to remind us not to let such opportunities go to waste!

-Micah Tillman

^{[Micah is a Mt. Sophia graduate who is working on his doctoral dissertation at The Catholic University of America. He also gets to teach philosophy (as a "teaching fellow"), which he loves.]}

You can do more than pray AFTER you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray UNTIL you have prayed. Prayer is striking the winning blow. Service is gathering up the results. – Dutch Sheets

I think C.S. Lewis wrote an essay with that title once. So I decided to borrow it.

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I was thinking, the other day, about the Classics. You all make your children read them during the school year, and maybe even over the summer. And I bet you’ve all heard some complaint to the effect of, “Why do we have to read this book? What’s so important about it?”

Where I teach philosophy, we are very much “into” the Classics.  We teach the Classic Philosophical Texts. That is our approach to teaching philosophy.

Other schools might focus on Classic Philosophical Problems, or Recent Philosophical Problems, or Contemporary Questions in Philosophy, or Historical Debates in Philosophy. And we do that too. It’s just our specialty is in teaching the Classic Texts.

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But why focus on classic books?  What do you tell your children?

Here’s some of my thoughts on the subject:

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The classics are, for the most part, very old, and very well-known. They’ve been popular for a very long time, in other words, and have been read by many, many historically-important people

When you sit down to read a classic book, therefore, you’re doing the same thing that countless other people have done before you, are doing right now, and will still be doing in the future.

You’re joining in an activity that spans the ages and the globe. You’re participating in an experience that is shared by thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people across time and space.

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You’re having the same experience now as the George Washingtons, Winston Churchills, Abraham Lincolns, etc. of history had when you read Shakespeare today. You’re having the same experience now as Cicero and Julius Caesar and maybe even the Apostle Paul had when you read Homer.

When you pick up a Jane Austen novel, you’re joining with a whole sea of unseen others who have picked up the same novel. When you read a C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkein story, you’re living through the same events that many great people have lived through as they read the same book.

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When you read classic books, therefore, you’re helping to tie history and the world together. You’re participating in the same activities and experiences that many others have. The experience you have, and activity in which you engage, of reading the story is the same as the experience others have had, and the activity in which others have engaged, around the world and through the years.

Furthermore, when you read classic books, you’re becoming part of a tradition. You’re participating in something larger than yourself.

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And, when you read classic books, you’re enabling yourself to better understand the people who have shaped your world, because (a) you’ve now shared some of their experiences with them (the experience of reading the book you’re reading, and of living through the story with its characters), and (b) you now know the characters and plots and stories that helped them to see the structures in their world and to understand the events in their lives.

The stories we read and hear and watch begin to act as metaphors for the events in our lives. We begin to see our world through the stories we’ve experienced. The stories we’ve lived through help us to see the organization and structure of what we live through in the real world.

There’s an important sense, therefore, in which you cannot understand another person unless you understand the stories they see the world through.

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So, we read the Classics in order to participate in the connecting of different times and places with each other, in order to participate in a tradition larger than ourselves, and in order to better understand other people (especially those who have helped to shape our world).

But there are other reasons as well.

What do you think?

-Micah Tillman

^{[Micah is a Mt. Sophia graduate who is working on his doctoral dissertation at The Catholic University of America. He also gets to teach philosophy (as a "teaching fellow"), which he loves.]}

Mt. Sophia Academy- Intentionally maximizing our students’ unique abilities, creating a culture for Christ.

Students’ Unique Abilities

We firmly believe that God has placed into each child unique and beautiful abilities. No two students are alike, but they are all placed here on purpose by a purposeful God. At MSA, we want to help our kids find and develop those gifts as they learn, love, pray, socialize, serve, and grow.

Creating a Culture for Christ

Our unified and clear purpose is to create a culture that will look like and advance Christ’s kingdom. As the students (and adults) grow, so will that culture. There will be a culture for Christ within each student. Then through those students will come a culture for Christ around them.