Last week I heard a sportscast and the topic was “Which quarterback, X or Y, gives their losing team the best chance to succeed?” This is a typical sports debate. Nothing is ever decided, and if the media pundits agree on someone then that player flops, they all claim to have known all along it would be a lousy idea to let him play.
Such is life with humans.
Still, we each must make choices that we think will give us the best opportunity for success. And what is success? The simple definition is “Accomplishing the purpose”. That means there cannot be success unless you’ve already decided what you’re trying to achieve.
One way the world measures a school’s success is How do the students perform on standardized tests? For American teens that means their score on the SAT, ACT, or CLT. There’s a lot of pressure to get a good score, to “succeed”. These tests have the reputation of being high-stakes although most well-prepared students are going to get into respectable colleges anyway. It won’t necessarily be a teen’s first choice school but at that point we have to put a certain amount of trust in Providence, don’t we?
Is a school’s value measured by testing? If so, The Academy’s having 2 of our students score in the top 5% of the Classical Learning Test is a good sign! Of course, those kids worked for that achievement but their school environment was a major contributor. Arguing with Aristotle and wrestling with Rousseau certainly helped prepare their minds! Our adding a retired Chemistry professor and a teacher who went to Notre Dame to study Mathematics & Philosophy makes us even stronger. The Academy is scholastically robust.
But, actually, standardized tests aren’t the true measure of education. Nowhere does the world’s most important Book ask how smart you are. Rather it calls us to examine who we are and what we do with the gifts and opportunities God has given us. In Matthew 25 the returning King does not ask His servants “How much did you earn?” but “What did you do with what I gave you?”
The Academy will never be a place where simple intelligence = worth. Discipling people in service to the King is the value of any Christian institution. I’m proud this school joins you parents in intentionally shaping the heart as well as the mind; that’s what we do with the gifts – the children – God gives us. So parents, some Tuesday when you’re wondering if the hours, the home lessons, the temper tantrums, are worth it, call to mind it’s not about “going to school”. No, we are partnered in growing clear-thinking, deep-reading, God-loving, world-shaping, Spirit-following future adults who will make us all proud. That is success. That is worth it.
