Now, let’s return to our reason for this endeavor, and to three specific goals for an 8th-grade graduate.  Let me paint a “Portrait of a Graduate.”

 

Imagine first a Virtuous Scholar. Theodore Roosevelt once said, taking Aristotle’s quote on our wall one step further, that “to educate the mind without also educating the morals is to create a menace to society.”

 

The Academy teaches virtue and knowledge simultaneously. For example, our teachers draw models of courage from Beowulf in literature; inquisitiveness from Sir Isaac Newton in science; or intellectual humility from Thomas Aquinas in Medieval History. Using the models of the past, students study, discuss and analyze actions of great heroes and ask the question: “Why did he act the way he did? What were the circumstances?   Did he do what was just and right?  What could he have done differently?”  This process gets etched into their minds as a framework, creating a habit, of always asking:  What should I do?  How should I act?  And why?   An 8^th Grade Graduate of JH Classical Academy is a virtuous scholar that leaves our school with the ability to think truly, and act rightly. 

 

Second, this upcoming generation will one day be charged with preserving and continuing the culture of Western Civilization.  Thus we seek to create Equipped Stewards, who will preserve the best of what has been thought and said.  To achieve this, we give them direct access to these authors, artists, musicians and thinkers.  We don’t read about Homer, Plato, St. Paul, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Bach – we go right to the source and let the students encounter them for themselves.  And then, we will challenge them to hone their speaking and writing skills, to become eloquent in their ability to express what they have learned.

 

Third, the Virtuous Scholars and Equipped Stewards need also to become Humble Servants of the communities in which they live.  A well-educated person should benefit friends, family, and society.  In my weekly address each Monday morning, I tell stories of men and women who sacrificed for and served others -- individuals like John Wesley, Rosa Parks, and Ernest Shackleton.  I have been sharing those with you in my Head of School updates, and I hope you have time to read them.  These individuals, and many others our students will study, gave their lives and talents in service of a higher cause. They served a community by acknowledging their place as a servant of the higher good, the noble pursuit, the will of God.

 

The three goals of a graduate I have just described: Virtuous Scholar, Equipped Steward, and Humble Servant, are lifelong goals. The student will have begun the process here, but certainly not completed it, at the point of graduation. Aren't we all on this journey?!  But these three goals begin with something that can be instilled deeply in even the youngest student: a love for what is true and beautiful.

 

The love of the beautiful is not just an idealization. It is the starting point of all the rest. It is the result of what happens every day in our classrooms. Last year, we graduated our first class of 8^th graders.  One young lady showed an amazing transformation in just one year with us. As she expressed to one teacher in a thank you note: "My mind was opened to the beauty and knowledge that classical education has to offer.”  There is a freedom in this way of learning.  A student is a person who seeks to be liberated by knowing the truth in all of its beauty and complexity.  

 

So, the aim, the desired result of this education, is human flourishing. Complete human flourishing takes place when the intellect and the heart are aligned in the same direction, towards the same purpose.  Because, we are what we love.  Most of what we do is driven, fueled by what we love.  We must love what God loves.

As Plato says, “Education is teaching children to desire the right things.”