Our desire for our students is that they would readily acknowledge when they don’t know something and that there would be no shame in such an admission. But we also want to see them hunger to find it out. In other words, it’s okay not to have the right answer. It’s not okay not to want the right answer.

We have all heard it said that “humans are social creatures,” but what does that actually mean? Yes, even we introverts can enjoy a good get-together, but humanity’s social nature goes much deeper than that. In the garden, God saw that it was not good for man to be alone (Gen 2:18). This is one of the first statements made about humankind in Scripture, and it was true even before the Fall. Man is made to be in community.

Since Pinnacle Classical Academy was founded in 2010, it has always been private. That was an intentional decision made by the board, knowing that their mission and vision for the school would be compromised if the school attempted to operate as a public school. Due to the school’s Christian mission, being private probably seems like a given. That does not, however, make it any less important. Neither does it mean that schools with Christian convictions always choose to stay private.

Never has this relationship between affections, behaviors, and cognition been more important than now. The culture presupposes that our feelings dominate the rest of our being. In reality, our affections can be nudged, shaped, and even extinguished by the decisions we make. They can be trained. Our school’s online “catchphrase” is “Training minds. Shaping hearts.” Contrary to the culture, we know that people can be trained and hearts can be molded like clay.

People tend to hear the word “classical” and think things like “elite” or even “elitist.” For many people, our model is associated with academic rigor that only students with the most extraordinary academic gifts can ever hope to achieve. Yet this is neither the goal nor the reality at Pinnacle. On the contrary, Classical Christian Education is for everyone.

One of the hallmarks of classical Christian education is that we teach Latin to our students. Why Latin and not a modern language? Cheryl Lowe insists, “Latin is not dead, it’s immortal!” Extreme as the statement sounds, my studies thus far have inclined me to agree with her. Studying Latin means studying the foundations of Western civilization—law and civics, philosophy, science, and history. It provides excellent mental training and a vast array of vocabulary in English and beyond.

It is Christ’s advent—his arrival—that we celebrate at Christmas. But for the believer, God did not simply come once in a miraculous incarnation only to leave again, nevermore to be found in the world. He remains present in the everyday, and that is exactly what should call us to continue learning. The education of children, the sanctification of each believer, and our growth as individuals are a process marked by many small arrivals on our way towards a final arrival in Christ.

The truth is that this is one of the primary aims of modern education: to prepare the student for the workforce. This is perhaps the single most fundamental difference between modern education and the traditional liberal arts education (what we now refer to as classical education), whose stated purpose was to prepare the student not for work, not for leisure, not even for that coveted prize of the six-figure salary, but for freedom. It sought to endow the student with the capacity of thought and the moral integrity needed to live as a member of a free society.

Ultimately, your student’s literature assignment will pass away. But the child who is being shaped by it will not, and because we believe it does have the power to shape her, it nevertheless has eternal significance. It is with great humility and by the grace of Christ, then, that we must embark on the task of educating your child, of giving them a paideia—training his mind and shaping his heart.

This weapon scatters its enemies with ease and elegance, but it is not made of wood, metal, or stone. Coincidentally, it appeared in at least three of my 5th and 6th grade literature books last year: The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’engle. The weapon in question? Poetry.

In order to build a culture that withstands the onslaught of the shifting thought of the current age, the people that make up that culture must find something with which they all deeply agree. The strength of that transcendental common thought is what will bind them together. There also must be a framework to which that commonality attaches, like sheetrock to studs. This is why the Christian faith has endured throughout history. This is why we hope to help build a school that will last longer than ourselves.

It is true that curriculum is incredibly important and that it is the main source of instruction, but there is something that is more important, more substantive, and more transcendental than the curriculum of the school. It is the characteristic that all other things must flow into and out of; it is the ethos of the school. There are several key factors that contribute to the ethos of Pinnacle. We desire high academic achievement, the development of character and virtue in our students’ souls, and the formation of students’ worldviews through an understanding of their place in God’s plan for their lives. To achieve these crucial goals, we must foster an educational experience that supports them. We must develop a community of faith and learning.

To be ignorant of good writing would be to throw down our weapons and betray others and ourselves to be led astray by its cheap imitations. In a culture that clambors for acceptance while demanding outward beauty, our students need to learn what beauty and goodness are and what they are not. In exposing them to beauty in literature, which is both ordered and creative, logical and emotional, engaging the mind and the heart as one, we begin to build in them appreciation for beauty that lasts.

In the Christian life, if we speak or write in one way and mean something else, we have become no better than the son in the parable who says to his father, “I will go” and does not go (Matt. 21:28-32). Virtue dictates that we remember both what we wish to communicate and how we ought to do so. Do we disagree with respect? Condemn with courage? Praise with sincerity? As we study the works of skilled wordsmiths, we are reminded that what they do with language, we ought to do with our lives.

As I write this, I’m on day two of snow days trapped in our home with our four young children. We’ve watched more TV than I can stand. I can only say no to hot chocolate so many times. But the true struggle has been the challenge of my spouse faithfully working her night shifts these last two evenings. She is caring for the homeless, the poor, and all those that are unable to get to their primary care provider during these ice storms. The challenge is sleeping at six o’clock in the morning while the four young children continue to exist loudly downstairs. It falls to me to ensure that we have a quiet home and children who do not hate one another, or their father for that matter. Challenge, nervously, accepted.

Pinnacle’s staff was quickly drawn to this idea. We had experienced the same frustration of our students’ failing to remember the most basic facts that we had spent so much time on. Sure, we had done memory work with them. We had even recited facts with them daily, but it didn’t stick. Why? Because without a question, an answer is just an out-of-context statement. Without a question, the statement has no use for application. The value of a statement is predicated upon its relationship to the question that it answers.

Catechism has a long history of use in the church, but what was its purpose? Why would Christians spend time daily reciting the same words over and over again? It was for this simple reason: so the church would faithfully endure. Remembering the most fundamental aspects of the faith sustained Christians through an ever-changing world and helped pass that faith to the next generation. While the church upheld divine sovereignty amid suffering, reciting catechism was their response to the doctrine of human responsibility. Christians understood that their faithfulness in obedience did not grant them salvation, but faithful obedience is a means through which God preserves his people.

The word “catechism” may elicit visions of dry, rote recitation of old sayings that are disconnected from life today. Some readers may think of catechism as lidocaine for the brain, inducing numbness of thought and profuse boredom-ridden drooling as students murmur like zombies in the classroom. A student whose heart and mind are ill-prepared will not truly benefit from catechism. The students at Pinnacle Classical Academy though are being trained up in the admonition of the Lord through this wonderful tool for remembering the most foundational truths of our existence.

Pinnacle Classical Academy is proud to open a new avenue of communication to those who have any interest in our school. We are a school founded on classical Christian education. We will produce much more content regarding this educational model, but for now I will begin with the heart of it. Our desire is to fulfill a goal that exists in all of Christendom but especially in the education of children: namely, the desire to seek, receive, and share wisdom.