Dr. Crain's Classical Comments
An Education You Can Be Proud Of Part I
Posted by Administrator (admin) on Jan 10 2008 at 1:44 PM
Right before my senior year I had my wisdom teeth pulled. I remember the experience vividly. My mom was with me in the waiting room as the nurse and dentist came and gave me some medication that made me drowsy…and very talkative. I’m not sure all that I said to my mom, some of it might have been embarrassing!
Then they gave the real medication that put me out. During the procedure I remember waking up and I could sense that my teeth were being crunched, but it did not hurt. I think they upped the medication because I went back to sleep.
Throughout the process I felt like I was being acted upon. People were doing things to me but I was doing nothing but sitting there in the chair. They worked on me; I sat there, literally asleep.
When you think about going to school, do you think that that is what school is like? The headmaster and teachers are like dentists who do things to you like putting you to sleep and trying to pull things out of you? I think that you are tempted to think that way because I know that I was.
Or, you may be tempted to think that coming to school is like going to prison. I’m the warden of the prison and other teachers are the prison guards. Our job then is to make you as miserable as possible. You’re in prison after all and we want to punish you. You may be living out your own version of Fox’s T.V. show “Prison Break.”
But I’d like to suggest that a different metaphor is appropriate and I’m not talking about any school but about this school—CCCS. Coming to this school is like joining an elite sports team. I, as headmaster, am like the coach who is in charge of the day to day program for the team and who hires assistant coaches. My fellow teachers are like assistant coaches who help train the team. You, then, are the players.
I like this metaphor because it highlights several things that you, as students, can be proud of.
You should be proud of our mission. Every sports team has a goal, usually to win, and our team is no different. We want to win, but how? Our goal is simply this: to train students to serve the Triune God, using a classical, Christian approach.
That’s it: we want to train you to serve God. In our definition of what it means to win no one wins unless he uses his gifts to serve the Lord. No matter what you do in life, if you serve the Lord then you are winning.
But just like any sports team you need to be trained to win. Every sports team, if they want to succeed, has to have a workout regiment and learn the craft of their sport. How do we do that at CCCS?
We offer you a chance to grow in your Christian faith. Remember: we want you to serve God and one way we do that is by using a Christian approach.
Really, this is the bedrock of who we are. If you were to ask someone here: “What is your favorite thing to do to relax and have fun? Your most favorite thing in the world?” They might have a difficult time answering that. I would have a difficult time answering that. I might say, “running, reading, or spending time with the family.” But at CCCS the coaches would say: our favorite thing as coaches (i.e., teachers) is to train students to serve God, using a Christian approach. That’s what energizes us as coaches.
And, like all good coaches, we try and do this in a variety of ways.
Why do we have devotions and prayer in the morning? To start the day off right by hearing from God and by talking with him, asking for his blessing.
Why do we have chapel? To pull out more teeth? Again, to come together as a team, huddled around God’s unchanging play book, which gives the surest game plan on how to live the sport of life, and to worship the Lord, who gave himself for us.
Why do we have Bible classes? Why do we have the ground? To walk on. Without the ground, walking would be pretty hard. Without the Bible, walking before is not just hard it is impossible. The Bible is that important—it is the ground upon which we walk. If you’re not walking on the Bible then you are walking over a grand canyon of destruction—eventually you will fall! We have theology classes because the Bible is God’s Word and because as Christians we need to know it better and better.
Why do we teach from a Biblical worldview? I hope you know that every class is taught based on the Bible. We want to teach you to examine science, history, math, and literature from a biblical framework. That’s why teachers have you compare what an author or theory says to what the Bible says.
We want you to know that the Bible is about all of life, not just about getting your soul saved and going to heaven. God made the whole man and he made the whole man to be involved in all sorts of activities: sports, arts, government, family, commerce and industry, education and so on. Since God made the whole man and he came to save the whole man then he’s given us a game plan on how to act out what the whole man should do.
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