Weekly Update - September 14th, 2024
Dear ECS Family,
We are one month into the school year! While we’ve had an unusual amount of illness for this time of year, it’s also been an incredibly rewarding month. Did you know our students invented Latin tag? When tagged, they are given a word in Latin by whoever is “it.” They must translate the word, or they are it. This is happening during recess, the students came up with this one themselves. Students find joy through accomplishment and this is yet another example of that.
Our Logic and Rhetoric faculty will be scheduling parent-teacher conferences soon. We would like every family to participate in this. At ECS parent-teacher conferences are a positive thing, yes there can be issues that need to be addressed, but there are also joys that must be shared. Please stay tuned for more information.
We will host our annual Trunk-or-Treat on Friday, October 25th. Each Guild will have a trunk, some classes may have a trunk, and parents/families are invited to host a trunk as well (please consult with me about getting the theme approved, we have a family-friendly event). Each year this gives us an opportunity to serve our community, and present the Gospel. Last year we distributed well over 300 tracts and other pieces of literature.
On Friday, November 8th, at 9:00 AM we will host our annual Veterans Appreciation Breakfast. As a school that values civics and Americanism, we think it is important to show our gratitude to those who served our country in the Armed Forces. Veterans (and spouses) from all branches are invited to participate. Students are dismissed from class to eat with a veteran, who may be a parent/guardian, uncle/aunt, friend of the family, sibling, pastor, etc. We will have a sign-up for both attendees and volunteers starting in October, for now you can save the date.
Our explanation of classical Christian education this week focuses on civics. It is an election year, and the halls are abuzz with students talking about candidates and issues. Classical Christian education emphasizes going to the sources (ad fontes in Latin). In America, those sources include the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. Those sources were preserved by monks, evaluated biblically by thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, revived in Europe during the Renaissance, and carried into our founding documents through men like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. We want our students to know who Aristotle was, what John Locke believed, and how their ideas compare to biblical teaching. Our curriculum does this through classical and modern studies, introducing our youngest students to the likes of Ben Franklin through story, and having our oldest students read original sources directly. The result is graduates who are well-informed, able to think clearly and biblically, and ready to responsibly fill their role as citizens in the life of our nation. If you’d like to follow along on this journey, we are always happy to recommend books and other resources to help parents understand what students are learning in the classroom.
That’s all for this week.
God bless,
Headmaster Batten
