Virtue Ethics in the Classroom

Some have a natural aversion to talk of an emphasis on habits whether in the home or in the classroom. Perhaps personal negative experiences contribute to a feeling that those who focus on training children in habits may start well, but end up judgmental and controlling. The line of reasoning behind such feelings is often fairly simple: Focusing on habits is tantamount to focusing on unimportant details and not the heart. We care about the heart, therefore we don’t focus on the little things. As with all half truths, this is initially attractive but over time will bear very bitter fruit. Whether a home or classroom be repressive on the one hand, or laissez faire on the other, it is still not a good situation. God-given authority is still not being stewarded well.
When it comes down to it, the idea that caring for the heart includes not focusing on the details of habits is not true to the Bible or to experience. Faithfulness in the large matters of the heart, in fact, includes faithfulness in so called the little things: “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much” (ESV Luke 16:10). This does not mean that every little thing matters as much as every big thing: pushing in your chair matters as much as not cheating on your taxes, etc. It does mean that a host of little things add up the character, the set of virtues, that result in a person’s faithfulness in the large things of life. If you are faithful in the small matters, you will also be faithful in large ones.
An understanding of this relationship between little habits and larger virtues is a key to avoiding the extremes of creating a repressive or laissez faire atmosphere for children under your care. In my classroom this year, I have tried to keep virtues constantly in the air as the goal toward which we are running, and any work on particular habits in their proper places as means to those ends. Virtues and habits are two points to be held in constant suspension with one another; without either we fall. If we emphasize specific actions, yet have no idea of why we are doing them, they cease to have value in forming character. People often either rebel or become judgmental under such repressive environments. If we talk on about the virtues of our figures, but take no action in the direction of what is good, true or beautiful, stagnation and disinterest will ensue. No virtue is made part of a person’s character without training; no training can be sustained without a proper goal in view.
Children are naturally delighted to talk about virtue. They evaluate figures from history, literature or the Bible with ease and intuit their virtues and vices from their actions. They know without instruction that how someone acts habitually adds up to their character, that if someone commits a major act of cruelty, the vice of cruelty must be present and most likely have been present for a much longer time before. In 2 Peter we are exhorted to add to our faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge. Faith, virtue and knowledge are the natural domain of Christian education, if we are not to commit the fallacy of dividing sacred from secular. Christian children should be regularly given the opportunity to talk about virtues and about how people get there (habitual conduct and thought processes). A part of every class should be the continual exploration—in discussions, assignments and essays—of the varied pantheon of virtues and their opposing vices, each in their own sphere. In my own experience children generally respond very well to a focus on habits in the context of a continual pursuit of virtue. May God grant us to the grace to add virtue to our faith.
This was originally posted on Clapham School's blog.

Coming Back from a Hiatus

My first half-year of teaching full time, while doing an internship with the college ministry, and trying to prioritize time with Ashley and time for continued personal study, definitely knocked me out for the count on this blog endeavor. But after a several month hiatus I think I'm coming back with a few more planning tricks up my sleeve.
A great piece of planning advice that I've been gaining loads from came from a sermon by Mark Driscoll from the book of Proverbs. Driscoll suggested that you have to write your plans down in order to really have them. And not only that, he explained that everything needs to be written down in one place. This was really helpful for me because I've always tried to build some elaborate system for what to write where, which ended up taking more time than it saved, resulting in my abandoning the system. Now I'm using a single small notebook that I already had and filling up the pages with plans and ideas for anything and everything! Hopefully, this we help me focus my thoughts, as I continue my training as a teacher-pastor-scholar, so that you can share notes with me on this blog.

Habit Training: The Path to Maturity in Christ

Do we really do habit training at Clapham? It is undeniable that some clear effect is gained; observing a Clapham classroom is an altogether different experience from any other school. Yet it is also true that the methods we employ in habit training are often not what immediately comes to our minds when we hear the phrase ‘habit training’. This is in large part due, no doubt, to the reality that incredibly few of us have actually been trained by a healthy version of it. I certainly did not!
However, there is another reason: the under-cover character of much habit training. You see, habit training is not to be isolated from the rest of the learning process that goes on at Clapham. It is secretly lurking throughout all our subjects as we facilitate their interaction with living ideas. The intellectual and moral power of distinguishing between good and evil—and loving the good—is a natural twin of habit training. And both have the ultimate goal of maturity. The writer of Hebrews implies as much in an aside to his readers in 5:11-14:

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

At Clapham we are endeavoring, by the constant use of all knowledge in a morally committed way, to train our students to distinguish good from evil, in order that they might grow up into maturity and not remain infants. In spiritual terms maturity does not come naturally; time itself will not bring it as a matter of course. An education, defined as the coupling of spiritual interaction with living ideas and habit training, is the thing that is suited to that purpose in the life of the Christian child.

Rembrandt van Rijn's "The Return of the Prodigal"

“Rembrandt van Rijn was the greatest Dutch artist of his time, and ranks as one of the master-painters of the world. He worked within the pious Protestant ethos of the 17th-century Netherlands, yet his art has a rare universal quality that is capable of appealing to all men and women,” opens Douglas Mannering’s The Art of Rembrandt.
Thus far we’ve been studying for Picture Study in my class at Clapham one of his most well-known and celebrated biblical paintings, “The Return of the Prodigal,” which portrays the touching moment from Jesus’ parable when the wayward son is clasped by his loving, waiting father, even as the elder brother and servants look on. While it is not how many of us might have pictured the scene, Rembrandt’s vision is undeniably vigorous in its expression and its message must have been powerfully felt by Rembrandt himself.
John Durham provides moving a moving interpretation from the perspective of faith in his book The Biblical Rembrant: “it is the father’s face that is the heart of this painting: a face of such compassion and tenderness, a face suffused with so much relief mingled with love, a face glowing with a transcendent light.”

Elementary English Composition

At Clapham School I am using this as our textbook for teaching composition. This marvelous composition course of study published in 1902 is no idle compilation. Written by Fred Newton Scott, Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Michigan, and Joseph Villiers Denney, Professor of Rhetoric and English Language in Ohio State University, this is a textbook that has been rigorously and painstakingly planned out. EEC aims to build great writers on a solid and comprehensive foundation, beginning with overviews of oral and written composition, proceeding to description, narration, explanation and argument both oral and written.
The preface explains its unique methodology, which beautifully complements Clapham’s reliance on Charlotte Mason’s pedagogy: “the indifference of the pupils to their English composition is due in part to the isolation of written from spoken discourse. The artificial separation of two things which naturally belong together takes the heart out of both of them. Hence we find in the schools writing that is feeble and impersonal, and oratory that is flamboyant and insincere. That the simple utterances of daily desires and needs are as truly compositions as the most labored essays, that essays are best when they are the simple utterance of daily desires and needs, are lessons which pupils, if they have not already learned them, cannot learn too early in their secondary education.” Scott and Denney have laid out a plan to raise the level of all of students’ discourse, so that composition becomes for them as natural as life itself.

Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism"

Alexander Pope represents one of the greatest poets of the period known as the Restoration, as well as the Eighteenth Century. His work stands at the pinnacle of a whole classical tradition of poetry, shortly before the Romantic period subverts almost everything that came before it. At Clapham School our class is navigating that transition this year by studying Pope for the first half, and following up with William Wordsworth for the second.
Pope's "An Essay on Criticism" is a poem on a grand scale, an essay of heroic couplets in fact, reaching the length of 18 pages in Times New Roman font on a Word Document. Pope boldly and humorously criticizes the critics and scholars of his day. At the same time, he presents a whole philosophy of what makes for good poetry, good criticism, good sense, and good art.
We've been memorizing the first 3 paragraphs in class, and I've been quite pleased with how much the students have grown in their ability to understand Pope, as we've studied this poem. Take a moment to read through the first three paragraphs and see what you can make of it:

'Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill
Appear in Writing or in Judging ill,
But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' Offence,
To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense:
Some few in that, but Numbers err in this,
Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss;
A Fool might once himself alone expose,
Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose.

'Tis with our Judgments as our Watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
In Poets as true Genius is but rare,
True Taste as seldom is the Critick's Share;
Both must alike from Heav'n derive their Light,
These born to Judge, as well as those to Write.
Let such teach others who themselves excell,
And censure freely who have written well.
Authors are partial to their Wit, 'tis true,
But are not Criticks to their Judgment too?

Yet if we look more closely, we shall find
Most have the Seeds of Judgment in their Mind;
Nature affords at least a glimm'ring Light;
The Lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right.
But as the slightest Sketch, if justly trac'd,
Is by ill Colouring but the more disgrac'd,
So by false Learning is good Sense defac'd.
Some are bewilder'd in the Maze of Schools,
And some made Coxcombs Nature meant but Fools.
In search of Wit these lose their common Sense,
And then turn Criticks in their own Defence.
Each burns alike, who can, or cannot write,
Or with a Rival's or an Eunuch's spite.
All Fools have still an Itching to deride,
And fain wou'd be upon the Laughing Side;
If Maevius Scribble in Apollo's spight,
There are, who judge still worse than he can write.

The Armor of God: How to Put God's Armor on

This is the sixth and final segment in my sermon entitled, "The Armor of God", delivered to Marion Park on 8/15/09. Before reading on make sure you've read Ephesians 6:10-20.

III. How to Put God's Armor on

Well, this leaves only one question to be answered, that Paul goes on to make clear for us. And that question is, how do we put this armor on? If it is really God's armor, how does this get applied to us in our daily lives? How do we put on Jesus' armor, with all its various pieces? Look with me at Paul's answer to this in verses 18-20.

(Eph 18-20) "Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak."

The chief way that we are to invest ourselves with God's armor, to put it on, to strap on all the various pieces, is to pray it on. Pray on the armor of God. This is mystical, spiritual armor that we have been talking about, and the only way to put it on is by something as mystical as prayer. There's no five-step method for putting on God's armor. It doesn't work that way. You must pray on God's armor. So Paul gives us four instructions about how to pray on God's armor: 1. Pray in the Spirit Always, 2. Keep Alert with all perseverance, 3. Make Supplication for All the Saints, 4. Pray for the Advance of the Gospel.

1. Pray in the Spirit Always

Paul tells us to pray at ALL times in the Spirit, with ALL prayer and supplication, in order to emphasize the fact that there is no time when prayer is not essential. All days, all hours, all moments are evil, and therefore we should always be praying in the power of the Holy Spirit. We need always to be relying on his strength and not our own, because it is only in HIS might and on the basis of HIS victory that we will be able to withstand the onslaught. Pray in the Spirit always.

2. Keep Alert with all perseverance

Think of the disciples, who could not watch with Christ and pray one hour, but fell asleep. Aren't you grateful that Jesus stayed awake, even when his disciples did not, so that we might be able to follow his example rather than theirs. If they couldn't stay awake, how can we? Unless the Lord by His Spirit gives us supernatural resources of alertness. May we be found on our knees and not on our backs when the hour of testing comes. Do not let the evil day find you in spiritual slumber, but awake and watchful. Keep alert with all perseverance

3. Make Supplication for All the Saints

Jesus knows the liberating joy of praying for others right in the midst of our own evil day. Remember how moments before his own betrayal he said to Peter, "Satan has asked to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail." There is a steadying in our faith that comes when we pray for others. It leads us out of being consumed with ourselves, and at the same time it applies to ourselves the very things that we are able to pray with so much more surety for others. Make supplication for all the saints.

4. Pray for the Advance of the Gospel

When we pray for the advance of the gospel, we get a vision for the bigger picture. It is hard for a soldier to man his post with watchfulness when he does not see the big picture of the war he is fighting in. We should often remind ourselves of the great advances of the gospel all around the world, and we should pray for the furtherance of God's purposes for the whole universe, in addition to their furtherance in our own heart. Pray for the advance of the gospel.

I'd like to close with a quote from Kent Hughes, the former Senior Pastor of College Church. He explains the importance of prayer for the spiritual battle we're in in this way at the beginning of the chapter on Prayer from his classic book, Disciplines of a Godly Man. Speaking of this passage from Ephesians he writes:

"The Scriptural setting for the classic text on petitionary prayer could scarcely be more dramatic -- it is a soldier preparing for battle. His heart pounds ka-thump, ka-thump under his metal breastplate. As he steadies himself, he hitches up his armor belt and scuffs at the earth like a football player with his studded boots, testing his traction. He repeatedly draws his great shield across his body in anticipation of the fiery barrages to come. Reflexively he reaches up and repositions his helmet. He gingerly tests the edge of his sword and slips it back into his scabbard.

"The enemy approaches. Swords pulled from their scabbards ring in chilling symphony. The warriors stand motionless, breathing in dreadful spasms.

"And then the believing soldier does the most astounding thing. He falls to his knees in deep, profound, petitionary prayer."

Kent Hughes is right. In a battle, not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of evil, nothing makes more sense in the evil day than to pray. Let's do just that now.