My third son has finished high school! Because we homeschool our kids through Mother of Divine Grace School, in California, we made the trip down so Elijah could receive his diploma in person. If you knew the effort it took Elijah, having muscular dystrophy, just to walk across the stage for his diploma, you’d know why I’m very proud.
Some people are surprised and even critical when we mention that our kids graduate outside of B.C. It is interesting which things do and don’t bother people. Where a child receives his diploma isn’t something I worry much about. We’ve been “accused” of choosing “elite” schools, which is also interesting, since I didn’t think it was an insult to consider something superior.
That being said, anyone using the word “elite” to mean “rich” is greatly misled and hasn’t noticed the Value Village stickers on the bottom of my shoes. But if they mean, “superior in terms of ability or qualities,” I’ll happily take the compliment, though it is still so very untrue if referring to us as individuals.
That being said, Elijah graduated. I am proud of him. The question most kids get at this stage of his life is, “What are you going to do?”
The question is a good one, and I’m not at all criticizing it, but because it is the topic of many conversations we have at home, I will comment on it.
“What are you going to do?” It’s the equivalent to the childhood question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
They are good enough questions, but not the right ones, philosophically. My husband Scott is often asked to speak on education and formation, and one of his main points is that we ought to be asking our children, and ourselves, “Who (not what) do you want to be?” One implies a job, a type of work, and the other is a question of purpose.
Who are you? Who do you hope to be? Who are you meant to be? These questions address the inner core of a person, the dignity, calling, interior life, and mission. A job may be a part of this, but it is a secondary question.
When I chose to homeschool, I felt a great sense of relief when I found a program that intentionally ordered itself to the finding of truth. (Yes, there is still such a thing as truth, and a child can find it regardless of income or levels of superiority!) The desire for truth is part of our design, God placed it there to help us find Him. Goodness and beauty lead us there, but we must have minds that have been intentionally formed in discernment.
If my child came home from school saying that perhaps there are more than two genders I would know without any doubt that they had been failed by their tutors—more than failed: betrayed. If they came home saying that grammar is racist, and that anything self-expressed, no matter how hideous or disordered, is art, I would know the same. If my child has no interest in the difference between good and evil, truth and falsity, beautiful and ugly, then they are less than they are made to be.
In the forward to the book, Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum by Laura Berquist, Donna Steichen writes, “An appetite for achievement is built into human nature. What men and women seek is not a life of easy luxury but a lifework deserving of the expenditure of all their gifts... Catholic parents (can) find that kind of joy in the work of leading their children to God within the shelter of a living Catholic culture… built up over centuries out of a faith expressed in the ordinary and extraordinary events of life: the love of God, scholarly reflection, the language of prayer, sacred Scripture and sacred music, of domestic customs, memories of saints and heroes, repentant sinners and answered prayers, legends of courage and loyalty, honor and charity.”
Berquist comments that this is the culture “which is ordered to eternity; and that culture necessarily includes intellectual formation, as the perfection of reason is most of all what defines human development as human.”
So, if you ask me what my son wants to be, I’ll tell you he’s still not sure.
But if you ask me who my son wants to be, I can answer with some level of confidence, that he might say, however he expresses it, he wants to be fully human, fully alive, and pursuing the truth. He wants to be all that God made him to be, even if it takes him his whole life, and more, to be that. The search and discovery of truth, of God, is the purpose of any education.
This education and formation is the right of every man, rich or poor, at home or in a schoolroom, and of any intellectual ability. Yes, it is designed to be better than the rest. So, maybe it is “elite.” I’ll take it as a compliment.
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