Blaise Pascal inspired me the other day as I devoured his Pensées, “All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor, then to think well, this is the principle of morality.” Thinking well…this is the best advice for me at this time of life as I feel my call to mission.
What is the mission, you ask? Well, as you know I began a liberal arts education four years ago and it has opened the doors wide for re-thinking my life. Just a few changes include recognizing my role as a wife and mother and reaching out to all the truth I can grasp to help me become better as David’s wife and my children’s mother; recognizing the incredible responsibility of educating my own children and helping them to visualize their life’s mission; recognizing the worth of souls in my neighborhood, community and world and my role in serving them, gleaning wisdom from them and discussing the truths of life with them.
Yes, Julie, but what is your mission? Well, my mission, while it includes educating myself through the great books and educating my family and serving my fellow man, in large part it includes helping others educate themselves liberally through the words and art of the Great Masters. In a way, to help others to, as Pascal writes, to “elevate ourselves [and] think well.” For several months now I have been pondering upon how I can bring a liberal arts education to the youth of Idaho and it has occurred to me that by writing a charter and getting it approved by the Idaho State Commission of Charter Schools, I can help our state’s young men and women to learn “the principle of morality” by elevating themselves and learning to think well.
I envision an America, the United States teaming with leaders who know their roles as parents and neighbors, who know the principles that keep and maintain liberties in a free nation. I envision youth who have the gumption to work hard, who respect and venerate their elders, who include all in their circles and who lead with virtuous passion. I envision that their learning will come through their own hard work by studying the great men and women who have contributed the ideas from ancient to modern times.
I envision a nation in which the Great Ideas empower each individual life in each ordinary day. Pascal says that “the strength of a man’s virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life.” The Great Ideas, when infused into the minds and hearts of our youth, have significant power to lead each to do what Aristotle might call virtuous kalon or to do the very things they were created to do and do them beautifully. Adding to the discussion, John Dewey said, “The world in which most of us live is a world in which everyone has a calling and occupation, something to do, Some are managers and others are subordinates. But the great thing for one as for the other is that each shall have had the education which enables him to see within his daily work all there is in it of large and human significance.”
Dewey emphasized that our places of education ought to teach the student habits of learning through everyday experiences. He wrote, “The inclination to learn from life itself and to make the conditions of life such that all will learn in the process of living is the finest product of schooling.” The inclination to learn from life is best learned in a liberal arts curriculum and the key is to help the student acquire an appetite for continual learning.
Learning while in the process of living is the deepest form of freedom and the purpose for which I write this blog and for which I pursue my desire to write a charter. This blog is not limited to the reason and logic of education or starting a charter but will include many spiritual aspects that build the bridge between reason and faith. Without God, I can do nothing, and I refuse to deny his miracles in my life as I go on this and all my journeys toward truth.
I invite you to travel with me as I learn to “think well” by planting and nourishing my educational seeds.
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