Well, Matt is always telling me to post “personal” updates, so here’s one: I’ve recently accepted a position Biola Youth’s Torrey Academy program to teach high school this year. Torrey Academy is the same Educational Supplement Program for homeschoolers that Matt had been working with for several years.
I have students for about three hours a week at one of several local Orange County sites. I am leading discussions in three classes: two sections on the “Foundations of American Thought,” and one section of Formal (Aristotelian) Logic. Foundations of American Thought is a seminar on a score of primary sources relating to the formation of distinctly American political thought and literature.
The curricula are of unsurpassed excellence and the education these students are receiving from the Torrey Academy community is almost unheard of in the modern educational landscape.
Though I only have a few short hours with the students each week, I take each moment of discussion extraordinarily seriously, and consider it an awesome responsibility. We tutors must always balance between big picture and esoteric detail in order to keep our students motivated while considering the fine and subtle distinctions in the arguments of such thinkers as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Montesquieu, etc. The time is short, the project challenging, and the rewards for success of lasting consequence.
I may be posting updates as to how this endeavor is going. Mostly I will be attempting to digest the massive amount of information and arguments about which the classes resolve, and through which it is my job to lead these budding 16-year old intellects. (Sometimes I feel that the role of the classical educator is more akin to the role of a safari captain than the role of tour guide; the marketplace of ideas is actually a jungle.)
God have mercy on all educators.