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Is classical education for everyone? What if your student wants to build a life as a stay-at-home mom or work in the trades? Today we discuss these questions as well as how the Industrial Revolution has influenced how we perceive mothers and home life with guest Chris Schlect from New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho.

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.

Marlin Detweiler:

Welcome again to the current episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us an, I won't call him an old friend. I'll call him a dear friend. He's not that old, at least compared to me. but I've known him for a long time, and he's been on with us before. Chris Schlect. Welcome, Chris.

Chris Schlect:

Marlin, it's great to be here once again. I'm hoping that I can be frequent enough so that I get some sort of plaque or, like, a jacket, like they get at the Masters!

Marlin Detweiler:

We don’t do the green jackets. So it'd be kind of sacrilegious to copy them, I think!

Chris Schlect:

Yeah. So what's the what's the Lankester version of a green jacket? That's what I that's my aspiration.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah. You can't go wrong with a blue blazer with and maybe a little, crest. Depends on that. That's something we can talk about. But do be back. Introduce yourself again. For those that may not have met you or heard the first episode.

Chris Schlect:

Well, most importantly, I'm the father of five. Grandfather of 14. All the progeny that I have with some classical education or our rising products of classical education. But professionally, I teach at New Saint Andrew's College. I've been there for many years. And there I'm senior fellow of history on the faculty. I also direct one of their graduate programs, a graduate program in classical and Christian studies.

Marlin Detweiler:

Before going to NSA exclusively, you also taught at Logas School. Tom Garfield, of course, was the superintendent there when you were there. And he now works with Veritas. And there, one of the things in addition to teaching history, you, headed up, the, mock trial team. Tell us a little bit about that before we jump into the topic of the day here.

Chris Schlect:

Yeah, well, you're forgetting one of the most important things on my resume, which is my introduction to Marlin and Laurie Detwiler.

Marlin Detweiler:

Oh, gosh!

Chris Schlect:

You know. I owe a whole lot of what I where I am today to them, but mock trial is a it's a fantastic activity. It's a contest in rhetoric that the way the Romans, I think, would have understood and appreciate, appreciated rhetoric, it's a it's a courtroom exchange where you have, one party over against another party, and the two parties would be the two schools.

So one school against another school representing the plaintiff side representing a defendant. And there's a scenario some of these scenarios are pretty complex. And you basically need to litigate from the point of view of your side in the case, and we and the team that I coached, Logos School for 24 years, we were privileged to enjoy, a fair bit of success.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, I think it's important for our listeners to understand that ability to communicate, to argue and argue in the best sense of the word. It was a product of the education that you and your peers were providing at Logas School. And it really is a very clear demonstration of the qualitative difference of a classical education, don't you think?

Chris Schlect:

Oh, I definitely think so. The Romans understood these kinds of exercises as really the capstone exercise of an education because they most closely resemble real life, in real life persuasion, and it's not that they thought that the courtroom was the most important arena for oratory. They valued political speeches. They valued ceremonial oratory.

But they understood, I think that the courtroom is pedagogically important. If you can succeed there, it draws together. And this is to your point. It draws together the whole array of thinking, reflection, analysis and communication, the whole panoply of those skills, so that if you can succeed in the courtroom, it's not that you've succeeded in the most important thing. What you've succeeded in is that which demonstrates that you're equipped to do anything else, to move on from there.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, that's that's very well put. And I couldn't agree more. But you, you have been involved in classical education ever since I have known you.

We first met in the summer of 1992, where you were then teaching, and you were part of a conference and speaking along with your peers. And that was when we were just first dipping our toes in the idea of classical education plus coeducational waters. But what attracted you to classical ed?

Chris Schlect:

Well, classical education, my story is unique. I think that classical education was my first exposure just to Christian education. I was being in Moscow, Idaho. I happened to be at a place where classical education was burgeoning and nascent and Logos School. So that was my first exposure. I didn't really come from outside the camp, if you will. So it wasn't a convert to it.

Marlin Detweiler:

You were you there for college?

Chris Schlect:

Yeah, I was there. I went to Washington State University, which if you know the geography of this area, it’s just across the state line. It's only eight miles away. And so I got acquainted with the Christian community. I was preparing what I thought to be a history teacher. I thought I was going to be a history teacher and, wound up substitute teaching at this Christian school because there were folks at church who were involved in the Christian school and through that one thing led to another. And I just became convinced the really that this is the way to go. And I couldn't see myself, in the public schools. So that's that's my origin story.

Marlin Detweiler:

What attracted you to history? And let me just say, you started you had an interest in history before you started thinking in terms of any type of Christian education, did you not?

Chris Schlect:

That's correct. I got drawn to history. I think, you know, the Lord's work in my life. Some of it was fairly shallow reasons. I liked history, but what pushed me to go more deeply is that as a young Christian punk at the State University, I wanted to be that smart kid, that smart Christian kid who could raise his hand and set his professors back. These unbelieving professors. There's a there's a lot of youthful, youthful punk just in this. And yet the Lord uses it in interesting ways.

So I had this mistrust of my history teachers, many of in many respects I think was shallow and misplaced. But in certain respects, I think were well placed. I was just a mixed bag like all of us are.

But that took me to the library to actually read sources rather than just the textbooks that we were going through. And that activity really congealed my love for history. And it's taken shape and I'd like to say I've matured in the way I pursue love and pursue history and regard it today.

Marlin Detweiler:

Your response to the history from a secular high school was very different than mine. Mine was, I saw no value in it because all it was was names, dates, places and it wasn't a relevant conversation. And that might have been on your own initiative. And the difference between us, there I have come to appreciate history very much in understanding God's providence.

Chris Schlect:

And its relevance. I think that's probably true. I just think we located its relevance, maybe in different places. So interesting.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah. Well, the topic at hand here, I wanted you to answer the question. For whom is classical Christian education a good thing? Some might argue it's not for everyone. Some might try to argue it's for everyone. Some might say it's for these and not these. I want to hear what you think.

Chris Schlect:

Yes, I do think that classical Christian education is for everyone, but you're bringing forward the question because we both know it's not quite so simple as that. So if you're asking for a simple headline answer, I'll say yes, it's for everyone. But there's a but and some caveats.

What do we mean by for everyone for and to what degree? You know, are hamburgers for everyone? Well, yes. But an exclusive diet and a professional vocational pursuit of hamburgers, no.

Marlin Detweiler:

I don't know what that is!

Chris Schlect:

I don't know, Ray Kroc or Dave from Wendy's, I don't know –

Marlin Detweiler:

Dave Thomas.

Chris Schlect:

Yeah. Dave Thomas. Or is my is my laptop for everyone or laptop computers for everyone? Yes. But that doesn't mean that everyone needs to become software engineers. Right? I think then that this points to an optical illusion. Oftentimes in classical Christian schools, particularly in day schools, less so I think in homeschools.

But in day schools where the the people who are delivering the education are there earning their keep by delivering that education. And so and of course, as good teachers, we want good teachers are also going to be models of Christian practice in their everyday lives and certainly in their professional lives as teachers as well. You know, we want them to be well-rounded individuals.

And so then when we bring students into that day school there, I think some people are apt to think that classical Christian education means that I need to pursue the life trajectory of my teacher, and I think that's only partially true. You need to pursue your calling before God, in the way that your teacher has pursued his calling before God.

But you may have a different calling, so I'll say that teaching at the college level as I do, and especially directing a graduate program which is even beyond undergraduate, you see that New St. Andrew's College is not for everybody.

Chris Schlect:

And certainly, my graduate program is not for everybody. The graduate program is much more professionally oriented, professionally tailored. But in K-12, I think it is for everybody because it and at that level because it's tailored to take you to other domains outside of itself.

Marlin Detweiler:

Okay. Well, let's, let's press down a level here, for what reason– what are the what is the essence of the classical Christian education that you are saying is for everyone, and why?

Chris Schlect:

That God revealed himself, of course, preeminently in his Son. who is the Word of God. But then he's revealed to him and he's revealed himself in his works. But then the scriptures are the very Word of God in text, which is a reliable and authoritative account of teaching, of an account of God's works in time, and so forth.

And it is every Christian's call, every Christian's call to understand and master that revelation from God, which is his self-disclosure to us, and to understand and master that brings upon us certain duties of understanding both language and the wider world. And I think classical Christian education, when it's when it's firing on all cylinders, so to speak, is answering that call.

Marlin Detweiler:

Restating it back to you, because we want our children to get an education that honors God, Classical Christian education is what we know to be the most effective way to follow what we ought to be doing because of our faith.

Chris Schlect:

Yeah, I think that's well said. And one of the interesting things about this, this is something that Augustine highlighted in his work, which is one of the great pillars in the legacy of classical Christian education, is Augustine pointed out something that a lot of Christians overlook, which is that in order to understand the scriptures, you need to actually understand some things that are not in the scriptures.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah.

Chris Schlect:

For example, when Jesus – you're reading in the Gospels and Jesus is asked whether or not we should pay taxes to Caesar, he says, hand me a denarius. Whose image is on the coin? You can't understand your Bible unless you know what a denarius is, or what a mustard seed is, or what you know a variety of other things. The scriptures themselves call us outside the scriptures in order to understand the scriptures.

Marlin Detweiler:

The impact of a reference to Mars Hill.

Chris Schlect:

Exactly, exactly. Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. So there's a whole in culture. We have to have an inculturation even in order to understand the word, the word of God. I mean, Bible translators, for example, understand this, but I think we seldom reflect on its importance. When, when Bible translators go to basically bring literacy to a community that’s not served with the scriptures, they not only need to translate the Bible, but they also need to translate primers.

Look, See, Dick Run. You can't just give one text and expect that to function within society. You need to have a whole orbit of learning that you need to give to this culture in order to even understand the one text.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's really true. And I would list that and I expect you would too, by having, said it first as, priority point number one. Then we have people who say, “My kid's not going to be the college professor. My kid's not going to be maybe even they would say a business owner. But, my kid is being educated and expected to follow in his father's footsteps for being a trim carpenter. Or an electrician or a plumber or, somebody that is an auto mechanic.” These trades and the training of tradesmen is also something I've heard you talk about in terms of the value of a classical education for people who think that's where they're headed. Why or what would you say to someone that says, well, my kids going into the trades, why should they get a classical education?

Chris Schlect:

Yeah. There are a number of but there are a number of angles. Let me count the ways. It's hard to know. Like, where do I start this? First of all, it's a good question. And maybe I'll reflect on the fact that you're posing the question itself. This comes back to what I call the optical illusion when all of your teachers are actually teachers who are more advanced in classical education by virtue of the fact that they're delivering it.

Sometimes it presents this little sort of crisis of calling. And teachers in classical Christian schools need to understand that they don't have exclusive purchase on the Deeper Life. And when teachers present themselves that way and because you get into what you're into and I can appreciate that we need to be aware of.

Marlin Detweiler:

I've had to just pretend I was listening to you talking about history from time to time.

Chris Schlect:

Yeah. But there's also a formation that's happening in young people where they might come away thinking that, well, what I'm interested in and the things that I love are kind of chump change in second class. And so that's the first – I'm just reflecting on what provokes your question. Your question is an important one. It's one that gets provoked a lot.

And I think that we need to actually look upstream in the we who deliver a classical Christian education need to be careful about miss-signaling what as we talk about the importance and centrality of classical Christian education, I think we need to be careful that we don't oversell it, like with the atomic bomb that becomes that destroys all the other callings.

Marlin Detweiler:

It also begs another question, and I wonder if you could touch on the answer to this, and that is, is there a benefit to a classical education?

Chris Schlect:

I didn't answer your question previously in your pressing which is good. But starting with just the question itself, it's such a good question. And in classical educators are actually the reason why the question gets asked. We need to do better at this. So I would say that, when you keep coming back to the Word of God, we are called to be kings and priests. We are nobility in Christ and in Christ all authority in heaven on earth is given. And to be in Christ we are to be lordly in our deportment, in whatever calling. We have to be lordly to be nobles rather than to be subservient rather than being extensions of some other person’s program I am, you know, I'm I'm just taking orders from the Watchtower.

We don't, you know, we might say religiously, it's kind of weird to take orders from the Watchtower, like Jehovah's Witnesses do.

Well, professionally, isn't it a little likewise, I would suggest, you know, selling yourself short as a Christian if you're simply following the dictates of someone else's program. And so we can go through example after example. I mean, you might remember a dozen years ago, just a dozen years ago, during the Obama administration, you might remember that social media was fairly new, and we had the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East. In Libya, in Egypt, and Syria. The antecedents to what's now the Syrian civil war broke out. And what we had were these young people taking to the streets in these Arab countries, clamoring for democracy. But they found one another through social media, and that was how they were networked. That was and that was the amazing thing.

And people, including Barack Obama and on the other side of the political spectrum, were talking about how social media is going to inaugurate this new golden age of connectivity. And it wasn't just Mark Zuckerberg who was saying that. And now, 12 years later, when we look at social media, we think it's one of the curses.

We all know of all of the dangers. It's a it's a byword now that you need to be careful with this because it's all it's fraught with all kinds of challenges and problems. And what that shows us is that technically proficient in Silicon Valley, who masterminded this, did not have with all of their imagination, did not have the foresight to see what it could become in the hands of ordinary human beings. And a much more lordly approach would have. You know, if I just become trained as an electrician, I want to learn the task. I want to learn how wiring works. But then I should want to do that in a way that can reimagine how wiring could work.

Marlin Detweiler:

How can I do what I'm doing even better?

Chris Schlect:

Exactly.

Marlin Detweiler:

And it applies everywhere.

Chris Schlect:

Right. And then become a leader in it so that you could reimagine what it could be, rather than simply following what it is. And the mere technician is not trained to do that. If you're trained in technical proficiency, that becomes important. And I so appreciate technical proficiency, whether it's the surgeon who's working on a family member, I'm so grateful for that or the person who's repairing my car or wiring my house.

And I rely on those people. But Christians should aspire to think bigger even about these little things. Imagine the mother changing diapers. So yeah, there's a technique to changing diapers and any mother, any new mom masters that technique. within a week of changing diapers. But then do you want the mom to think all I'm doing is changing diapers?

Or do you want her to see how she's changing the world when she's doing that? And we should want that for every task that God puts before us. And classical Christian education delivers that outlook and a way of seeing what's in front of you in light of a much bigger picture.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah. Well, my next question is, so you've already actually got into it. Yeah. We talked about what about the trades. But what about, people that are women that say, “Well, I'm planning on being a stay at home mom, so I don't need that.” And you've given an example. You want to unpack some more thinking on that?

Chris Schlect:

Yeah. Well, okay. Look at the mom in Proverbs 31 who considers a field and buys it. And, she is praised at the gates. I mean, consider. So she's testifying before the Board of Adjustment, on zoning about tracts of land. And it's right there in the text. And I think, what a truncated view of motherhood. Alien to the presentation of motherhood that we see in the calling of Eve in Genesis chapter two. Alien to that calling is this notion that I don't need to have a lordly pursuit of my vocation as a mom. I just need to follow the technique.

Marlin Detweiler:

Where did that come from, Chris?

Chris Schlect:

I think it it came from, it's a long trend. It's a product of the industrial revolution. It's a modernist notion that downgrades the stay-at-home mom and the way this works out, I mean, we're all familiar in broad outline with industrialization, where we move from the craft culture, where somebody is making carriage wheels. But the guy who makes carriage wheels is dealing with customers taking orders, managing his books, his supply, his outflow that, you know, the whole product of making a carriage wheel versus on a factory assembly line where the worker is simply twisting a wrench to a put up the left rear quarter panel on the chassis. What I'm highlighting is specialization.

In pre-industrial times, like, you know, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, pre-industrial times, home was a place of work. Home was a place of instruction and education. Home was a place of economics and commerce. Home was a place of worship. Home was a place of health care. But when in the industrial revolution, we see people going away from home off to work.

Marlin Detweiler:

And I mean, and we thought that thinking in terms of life being about, necessarily being about specialization, you have business owners and entrepreneurs that separate category. But most of life, most people are not in that category. And so they, they, they have bought the idea that specialization is what is what we're for. And it really has – it's interesting. I would never put that welcoming is the beginning of the end of the honored position of mother.

Chris Schlect:

Oh, it it really is. And then as we get the suburbs into it which is a way of life dictated by the automobile. So we're no longer walking to where we need to do things, but we're driving so we wind up with specialized spaces. So we drive to where we get our health care. We drive to our school, we drive to our other things.

And so now, all of these different arenas become areas of specialization that are not the home. So when you say home is not a place of education, home is not a place of worship. Home is not a place of commerce. Home is not a place of health care. And then you say a woman's place is in the home, what have you said? The problem is that we have adopted the unbiblical anti-Genesis 2, anti-Proverbs 31 notion that June Cleaver is the calling for a woman.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's really good. And we've run out of time. But that is a really good place for us to end. A classical Christian education is not for everyone for the same reasons, but it is for everyone.

Chris Schlect:

Yes, it is for everyone, and then some should go pursue it much further in this way.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah. Very good. Chris, thank you so much for joining us again today, Marlin.

Chris Schlect:

It's always a pleasure. And I always feel like we're just barely getting off the runway and then it's time to stop. So we need to get together more.

Marlin Detweiler:

Absolutely, folks. Thanks for joining us again for this episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Hope to see you next time.

Chris Schlect:

Take care.