Author: Kolby Atchison
-
5 Elements of Faculty Culture for a New School to Implement on Day 1
With the skyrocketing number of new classical schools opening each year in the United States and beyond, the launch teams for these schools are no doubt busy working to prepare for the first day of school. On the one hand, this inaugural day probably feels far away yet. But on the other hand, for these…
-
Discipleship in the School, Part 2: Spiritual Formation
In my first article in this series, I explored the idea of discipleship and what it means for the Christian school to make disciples. I noted from the offset that the Christian school and local church have different purposes, and therefore, we should expect their discipleship approaches to look different. At the same time, both…
-
Discipleship in the School, Part 1: An Introduction
What is discipleship and how does discipleship happen in a Christian school? Like most good questions, we must begin by defining our terms. What is discipleship? According to Mark Dever, a pastor in the Washington D.C. area, we can define discipleship simply as helping someone follow Jesus. As an expanded definition, he writes that discipleship…
-
Preserving the Inheritance: Christian Education in the Post-Christian West
In The Air We Breathe (The Good Book Company, 2022), author Glen Scrivener explains how western society came to believe in the core values we now take for granted: equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, freedom, and progress. He contends that belief in these values is not self-evident, trans-cultural, or historically necessary. So where did these…
-
The Goal of School Education
What is the goal of school education? This is a foundational question that demands an answer. Organizations are complex entities with moving and disparate parts. Schools are no exception. Facilities, insurance, safety, technology, admissions, marketing, communications, and development are all essential functions of school operations, and I have yet to even mention academics. Each department…
-
Paul’s School of Mentorship
Classical school leaders often emphasize the centrality of mentorship in the educational process, particularly in grades 6-12. They have wisely observed that the junior high and high school years are a pivotal phase in a person’s development. As students gradually spend more time with peers in settings without their parents, small yet formative opportunities emerge…
-
Classical Education and the Rise of A.I.
Since the early days of the classical education renewal movement, one of the primary distinctives of a classical education has been strong academics. Through books like The Well-Trained Mind and Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, classical educators have sounded a clarion call back to a tradition that offers a challenging yet rewarding academic program…
-
Towards a Philosophy of Nature Study
And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed,…
-
Why Gender Matters in Education
We often take for granted the givenness of the world we live in, that is, the things in life that are not questionable. For example, I have never questioned that the sky is blue or that I am the son of my parents. These aspects of reality strike me as matter of fact and have…
-
Proclaiming the “True Myth”: Tim Keller’s Ministry and Classical Education
I was first exposed to the ministry of Dr. Timothy Keller in college while pursuing a degree in philosophy and reading through the western canon of Great Books. Immersed in the intersection of Christian discipleship and the life of the mind, I found in Keller a comforting voice that resonated with many of the questions…