Veritas Savannah

Geronimo, Amen (part 1)

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School starts on August 13.  The end of the summer homework assignment is for every family to watch a new video from the Association of Classical Christian Schools. “Geronimo, Amen (part 1)” tells the story of how the classical Christian school movement (ACCS) got started. I think you will find the video inspiring and informative.  It is very well produced.
Please continue to pray for God’s blessing and provision as we start it up once again.  The two-word prayer, “Geronimo, Amen” is perhaps appropriate at the start of every new school year. This phrase originated with WWII paratroopers who jumped from planes over the battlefields of Europe. The prayer is fitting for us, teachers and parents, as we once again jump in faith, trusting God to protect us and bless us in this battle for the hearts and minds of our children.

Summer Reading

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Summer is a great time to read books. Often the pace is slower, and we can find time for a good book or two. I just finished Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and loved it. It’s on the 9th grade Boni Libri summer reading list. I commend it to you -imagine a dystopia wherein everyone sits around watching TV and lets the State do all their thinking for them -a world in which no one reads any books. Yikes!
If you are looking for a good “Beach Read,” the latest issue of World magazine has a list of Thirty Beach Reads with some excellent titles. All of these are “light but not lightweight” summer reads -a mix of fiction, history, and a few classics. I sometimes wonder if folks who don’t read much feel like they must tackle Calvin’s Institutes or Tolstoy’s War and Peace to prove themselves. That’s like the non-weightlifter trying to bench press 500 pounds. Start light and work your way up. The World list of beach reads might be a good place to start. This issue of World has several other lists of book suggestions.

Summer 2018 Prayer Requests

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I hope your summer is going well. We are basically three weeks in with eight weeks to go until the first day of school on August 13. Enjoy the break because summer will be over before you know it. I heard once that humans have the sense that time passes quickly because we are created in the image of God (who inhabits eternity, Isa 57:15) and therefore have a sense of eternity built into our consciousness. Time flies because we are created with an internal sense of eternity. Right now counts -so enjoy your children as God’s gifts and relish the days you have. But right now is not all there is. God made us such that we long for and live for a future beyond our days in this world.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. Ecclesiastes 3:11
Please remember to pray for Veritas over the summer. The teachers and staff are working diligently to prepare for another great year of teaching your children and serving your family. As I look back over the past several years, I am thankful for God’s blessings. He has, indeed, provided for us. We’ve seen good steady growth in enrollment, exceptionally high student retention rates (families come and stay), the establishment of an excellent faculty, and stable finances. On the other hand, as I look to the years ahead I see room for improvement. There are ways we could serve our families more effectively and provide an even better classical, Christian, and covenantal education to our children. Veritas needs your prayers for God’s work, God’s provision, and God’s guidance. We are always striving to improve -content with where God has us, but never satisfied that we have fulfilled all God has planned for us.
Summer 2018 Prayer Requests
1)    Pray for our new teachers and staff: Tiffany Breckenridge (4th grade), Mary Robison (Science and Algebra), Kendall Cleveland (Humanities), Joy Fatzinger (Teacher’s Aid and PE), Barbara Rustine (Teacher’s Aid), Alison Brunson (Admissions Director), and Laura Humphreys (Office Assistant). Pray that each can prepare well for the new school year. Ask for grace and wisdom as they and their families adjust to the new responsibilities.
2)    Pray for ALL the teachers and staff, returnees and new arrivals -that God would strengthen each and equip them for a great 2018-19.
3)    Pray for the teachers yet to be hired. God has them out there. We just have not yet connected with them. Pray for God to provide teachers for Math(part-time, 6th & 7th grade), Drama (8th-12th grade), and Physical Education(1 or 2 classes per week). If you are interested or if you know of potential candidates, please contact me at staylor@VeritasSavannah.org.
4)    Pray for Veritas as we prepare for another accreditation visit from the ACCS. In February 2017 we received full accreditation from the ACCS. Their process is to revisit/reevaluate the school after two years, so they will be back in February 2019. So, we are preparing diligently this summer and fall to send in our updated documentation and prepare our classrooms. After this two-year visit, they will return only every five years.

Smartphone Usage is Altering our Mental Capacities

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Photo by Anete Lūsiņa on Unsplash

I want to point you to a couple of articles this week.  In the Christianity Today article, Screen Time is Changing the Way We Think, Focus, and Memorize, Chad Meeks, provides helpful information and insight about the impact of smartphones on our thinking.  It seems that new research comes out every week suggesting that increased smartphone usage is altering our mental capacities.  Digital technology, like all tools, has many helpful benefits, but like all good things, its misuse can bring adverse consequences.
And along the same lines, Philip Yancey, in a recent Washington Post article, laments that The Death of Reading is Threatening the Soul.  Yancey says that while he used to read deeply, widely, and voraciously, and his reading was integral in shaping his soul, now he finds that, “The internet and social media have trained my brain to read a paragraph or two, and then start looking around. When I read an online article from the Atlantic or the New Yorker, after a few paragraphs I glance over at the slide bar to judge the article’s length. My mind strays, and I find myself clicking on the sidebars and the underlined links. Soon I’m over at CNN.com reading Donald Trump’s latest tweets and details of the latest terrorist attack, or perhaps checking tomorrow’s weather.”  I think everyone can identify with this problem.  Yancy goes on to describe how he and others must build a “fortress of habits” with “walls strong enough to withstand the temptations of that powerful dopamine rush while also providing shelter for an environment that allows deep reading to flourish. Christians especially need that sheltering space, for quiet meditation is one of the most important spiritual disciplines.”

Tolle Lege! (Take up and read) – 2017 Book List

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Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Only eighteen shopping days until Christmas!  Yikes!  And if you exclude the three Sundays, which all good Sabbath Keepers will do, that leaves only fifteen more shopping days.  And so, in order to make your gift decisions easier and to encourage your family to read more books in the upcoming year, I am attaching my annual reading list: 2017 Book Recommendations.  Each December for the past six years I have compiled a list of about ten books that I have enjoyed that year and recommend to our families.  These are not anyone’s all-time favorites or the year’s absolute best, but they are all books that I propose reading.  I try particularly to suggest books for folks who are not serious readers but might be looking for a good place to start.  So, look over this year’s list (and past lists: 2012-2016 Book Recommendations) ,and veni, vidi, visa (I came, I saw, I bought it with my card), and then tolle lege! (Take up and read)

Profound Ways to Change the World are Pedestrian

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Finally, I want to direct you an excellent article from Matt Whitling, principle at Logos School in Moscow, Idaho.  Logos School is generally viewed as the “mother school” of classical and Christian schools.  Mr. Whitling speaks every year at the annual conference of the ACCS.  This article, Eternity in a Span, is the transcript of his plenary session talk at this summer’s annual conference in Pittsburgh.  The article is directed to teachers, all he says applies to teachers and parents alike.  Here, in powerful and encouraging words, Matt Whitling calls us to a vision that sees God at work in all we do –even in the mundane little things –and sees God at work in our little world to do something with far reaching implications in His kingdom.  [But] sometimes there’s a mom and she thinks, “I’m not changing the world, I’m changing diapers,” or “I’m changing laundry again.” It’s kind of the monotony. I believe that some of the most effective and profound ways that you change the world are pedestrian. It’s the little things. Love your kids well. And sometimes it’s hard because we’re short-sighted and we just see what’s in front of us, we just see the little picture. I was reading this morning in Genesis 22 where God says to Abraham, “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies.” (Gen. 22:17 ESV]  It is one grain at a time. And in this passage God says, “Look up, you’re at the beach, look at the shore, count them.” And we say, “Okay, I see it.”

Teach, train, and love those little grains of sand as unto the Lord.  You are laboring on God’s seashore.

Have a great week and a Blessed Thanksgiving!

A Time to be Thankful in All Things

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I trust you are having a great week. It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week. Everyone is looking forward to the break, to feasting with family, and to this season of special thankfulness for God’s goodness to us. We will hear much about gratitude in the next two weeks, much of it profound, but some of it clichéd, perhaps. I have often thought that God gives us particular holidays, holy-days, and special seasons so that for a few days we would reflect intently on the things for that we ought to be possessed by every day. We remember the incarnation at Christmas, because the gift of Christ should occupy our minds daily. We contemplate the cross and resurrection at Easter because the realities behind those events should own us moment by moment. God gave us Thanksgiving because most of us forget to praise and thank God for the thousands of gifts He gives us every hour. Most of us tend toward grumbling and complaining rather than thanking and praising. Hence, the apostle Paul challenges us to, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 5:19-20) and to give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thess 5:18). I am grateful for the season of Thanksgiving to remind me to be thankful always and in all things.

Make Way for the Classic Learning Test

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Veritas Academy will administer the Classic Learning Test on Saturday, November 11 (also on February 3, April 21, and May 19).  I want to encourage you to read up on this new college admissions test.  It is being developed for use alongside (and even in place of) the popular SAT and ACT tests.  While there have always been concerns about the ability of the ACT and SAT to truly assess college readiness, in the past decade the concerns have grown exponentially as these tests have increasing become “values neutral” and tied to “Common Core” standards.  There is a groundswell of interest in replacing the SAT and ACT with a test that looks at more than a student’s ability to regurgitate academic content.  The CLT is based on the concept that virtue, ethics, maturity, sound thinking, and a grasp of great ideas are all critical in measuring a student’s academic formation, accomplishment, and potential.  Even if your child is not yet in the college testing and application mode, it will benefit you to read about the issues surrounding the SAT, ACT, and the CLT.  The issues with these tests reflect the greater issues with education in our country.  The attitudes, mindsets, and worldviews that have reduced education to vocational training, that view our children as mere cogs in the economy, and that have turned our high schools into assembly lines for the accumulation of credits, are the same attitudes, mindsets, and worldviews that shape the ACT and SAT. 
Here are three links to helpful articles about the CLT and college testing.
–A Test for Classical Christian Students by Mark Bauerlein at FirstThings.com.
–Get Ready to Ditch the SAT and ACT by Robert Holland at TheFederalist.com.
–Reclaiming Intellectual Freedom with a New Alternative to the SAT by Jeremy Tate at the National Association of Scholars (NAS.org).

“Successful Kids Have Parents Who Do These 9 Things”

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In a recent post I encouraged you to read The Vanishing American Adult, by Ben Sasse.  The book calls parents to be intentional, tough-minded, and forward looking in raising their kids.  If we want our kids to grow up to be responsible and mature adults -who can climb life’s mountains –we must demand certain things of them when they are children -some things which run against the grain of what Sasse calls “soft parenting.”  I ran across a short article at the business magazine, Inc.com, Science Says the Most Successful Kids Have Parents Who Do These 9 Things.  While I am always a bit cautious about articles that claim “science says” and do not agree with every point in this article (i.e. #4), the article reinforces much of what Ben Sasse asserts.  It is okay, in fact, it is wise and good, to make your children work hard, to allow them to fail, to limit screen-time, and delay gratification of their desires.  The links in the article will take you to some fascinating articles and videos. (Every parent should read about the marshmallow study!)

ACCS Podcast: BaseCamp Live

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I know many of you are avid podcast listeners.  The ACCS has begun recording BaseCamp Live, a weekly 23-minute podcast on classical, Christian education and parenting.  Our “greatest challenge is how to shape young people who will encounter a culture that is often working against them and equip them to become flourishing adults who love Jesus Christ, think with confidence, believe with courage and serve with compassion . . .BaseCamp Live will equip you, the parent, grandparent, educator, or mentor, to climb that biggest mountain.”  You could start with the July 26, 2017 episode titled “I Was Robbed.”  The interview with George Grant will be a great encouragement to you.  You can listen to these podcasts directly from the website or you can subscribe to BaseCampLive in iTunes or from your Android podcast manager.