What Happened When I Abandoned CCE
Based on actual events shared with Dr. Ryan Smith.
I did the “classical Christian thing” in high school. I already read Homer, Shakespeare, and Dickens. I wanted “regular school,” a state university, like all the other kids.
During my freshman year at the university, I was surprised how easy classes were. My English class required short essays that talked about “what I think about such-and-such.” No citations. No references. No sources. Just my opinion. As long as I didn’t disagree with the status quo too much, I got good grades. I quickly realized that I was not being evaluated on the quality of my arguments, but on the degree to which I agreed with the TA’s position. The only skill I developed is writing what someone else wanted to hear. No wonder so many of my classmates stopped thinking for themselves!
When I was in high school, my English teacher emphasized that language is a tool to move the reader’s soul; you cannot move hearts or persuade your audience when your commas, spelling, and sentence structures lack craft and beauty. She convinced me that anything that I put on paper could be meaningful. My readers deserved it. I missed that perspective in college.
Not surprisingly, the readings for classes did not inspire me, either. Many of our books were godless, deconstructionist, poorly reasoned liberalism.
In one class discussion, the TA discouraged everyone from getting married. As a young man who wanted to get married and raise a family, my view was mocked. Here’s one discouraging quotation from an article that I saved: “Marriage, we have found, is a ‘greedy’ institution: it has a tendency to consume the bulk of people’s energies and emotions and to dilute their commitments beyond the nuclear family.”[1]
It makes me sick that people believe that sacrifice is never virtuous or worth pursuing. Not one idea in that textbook was edifying. The book’s subtitle, “cultural contexts for critical thinking,” was Leftist speak for “how to become a card-carrying progressive.” It’s the standard textbook in English classes across the country.
It turned out that it was not a hard sell to convince self-gratifying young people to avoid marriage. The class conversation encouraged us to hook up with each other to avoid commitments, and someone even mentioned the quick fix of abortion if “something happened.” Your happiness is the most important thing to protect, according to the TA.
At the end of the first year, I made all As without working very hard. I didn’t learn much, to be honest. In fact, I spent the whole year trying to filter everything, unsure of what to believe and what to ignore. I found that when Christians weren’t suspicious, they inevitably left their faith.
As a college student, I expected meat; all I got was gristle.
What made me sad was recounting these stories to my parents. Dad replied, “That’s the way it was when I went to college, too, son.”
I couldn’t believe my ears.
“I guess it’s just the rite of passage that we have to go through in order to get a degree and then a good job, son.”
After I processed our conversation, I arrived at a different conclusion. Classical learning isn’t something that you do for a while, it is a mode and canon that you embrace your whole life. What other education promotes virtue, along with intellectual rigor, and the ability to cultivate meaningful leisurely activities? Being pragmatic was wearisome.
If you cannot commend a Classical Christian Education for college, then you probably are not commending it well for high school. Sadly, my high school college counselor was not herself sold on the vision of classical education – she seemed more interested making sure our high school grads got into “the best schools that money could buy, but on full scholarships.”
I wish that I had been paying better attention.
Now that I’m a little bit older and can see more clearly, I realize that high school, at its best, was a springboard, not an arrival point. I thought that by reading Hamlet as a seventeen-year-old, I never needed to read it again. Who knew that Shakespeare has so much to offer about human nature, and these lessons take time and experience to appreciate? I thought that by reading Paradise Lost in two weeks, that I could not just cross it off my list. But on that first reading, I walked away without experiencing the deviousness of Satan or the goodness of God to man.
My high school education only scratched the surface of these remarkable texts. I needed to reread these gems and receive more advanced instruction to master these great texts. I also needed teachers and role models who cared about my spiritual life.
My professors and classmates denied and mocked the sanctity of life, marriage, and sacrifice. Being on defensive at the university wore me down. There is rarely a prize on the other side of that battle that ever makes the fight worth it. I needed to surround myself with like-minded people during this season of life. They sharpen me and offer a more reliable friend group.
And ultimately, returning to a Classical Christian Education did something surprising. My job options for post-college were more expansive than I could have imagined. Seminaries, law schools, and business schools were all on the table. I landed internships that I never expected. Classical education wasn’t confining like some people predicted; it was the exact opposite.
As I think back on my experience with the TA, I’m more thankful for my classical education than ever. There’s an old hymn that says, “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” I knew that this happiness in Jesus is the most important thing to protect. And so, I recovered my love of learning in way that rightly orders my loves toward Him. I encourage you to do the same.
[1] Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian, “The Color of Family Ties: Race, Class, Gender, And Extended Family Involvement.” In Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking, 12th ed., 122.
