Today is Monday, December 16, and this is William Michael of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. A few days ago, I posted a talk on the Charlotte Mason philosophy of education because I was asked—actually by a number of parents—if I would share my thoughts on Charlotte Mason and her educational philosophy. After posting that talk, I began to receive feedback requesting more information, more commentary, more explanation, and so on.
While I can understand why homeschooling parents would like me to go further into detail in addressing Charlotte Mason’s homeschool philosophy, I don’t believe it is prudent to do so. I don’t believe it is profitable—and I don’t mean financially profitable, but profitable in the sense of using our time and energy wisely, rather than constantly reacting and responding to things that non-Catholics invent. The book of Ecclesiastes says, “Of the making of books, there is no end.” Men are free to produce new ideas, theories, and philosophies, write new books, and make new television shows, on and on forever. However, we are not obligated to react every time someone does something new. In fact, it distracts us from doing what we should be doing.
I don’t want to get into this black hole of responding to educational theories, especially when they are not Catholic. They are not coming from Catholic sources, nor arising from Catholic faith and morals. There is no need to address these issues. In this talk, I’d like to explain, fundamentally, what is different about real classical Catholic education and these modern theories of education, including all of the Charlotte Mason content. The fundamental difference is striking.
When I look at these modern educational theories, there are a bunch of them in modern times, and you can see where they begin. They all begin after the so-called Scientific Revolution, which was part of the Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance. There is all this interest in education. We see the rise of the public school system, the rise of compulsory education, and the emergence of many different educational movements—all in the modern period.
The reason for this is simple. At the time of the Renaissance, which began as early as the 1400s, during the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution, these events took place as part of the same movement: a departure from true philosophy and Catholic theology. These movements were all part of one larger error, involving major philosophical mistakes. Once the Scholastic philosophy established by St. Thomas Aquinas, which was built on the philosophy of Aristotle, was abandoned—thrown away by Protestants and anti-Catholics from various groups (not just religious, but also secular)—chaos followed.
Once Thomas Aquinas’s Scholastic philosophy and Aristotelian philosophy were discarded, there began a “wild west” of new ideas. Philosophical chaos erupted, and all sorts of camps, theories, and ideas emerged. This did not pertain to education alone but extended to religion as well. Various Protestant divisions, sects, and schisms developed, each with different leaders, theologies, worldviews, explanations of doctrine, and practices. There was an explosion of non-Catholic and anti-Catholic ideas concerning faith, morals, philosophy, and theology. Once the traditions of Aristotelian philosophy, Scholastic philosophy, and the authority of the Catholic Church were abandoned, chaos ensued.
Pardon my language, but all hell broke loose. That is the defining beginning of the modern world. The Modern Period is characterized by the rejection of ancient, medieval, and Catholic philosophy and theology. In their place, countless new religious, philosophical, political, and educational ideas spread throughout the world.
One person commented on my YouTube video, saying, “Oh, okay, I get it. Anything that’s not 500 years old is no good.” He presented this comment as if it were a reasonable argument. In fact, I would say that if the error in philosophy took place 500, 600, or 700 years ago, then yes, it is perfectly reasonable to say that what has developed after that apostasy from true theology and philosophy is false. That’s true.
C.S. Lewis famously said that if we have departed from the right road—if we’ve made a wrong turn on our journey—we can go on for hours and hours in the wrong direction. We can talk about how to fix things, reform things, or make progress, and we can say all the right stuff, but there is only one thing that will solve the problem: returning to the right road. We must go back to where we made the wrong turn and get ourselves back on track. If people want to mock that suggestion—mock the idea of going back to the right road—I’ll leave them to do so. It’s ridiculous to pretend that just because something is old, going back to it is somehow unreasonable, especially when what we are doing now is clearly wrong.
We always hear talk of Protestants and Catholics being “buddies” together. Look, there was a massive schism in Christ’s Church caused by Protestantism. If Protestants don’t go back and deal with that schism—if they don’t address that great historical break—there can be no talk of peace between Catholics and Protestants.
If Protestants don’t go back and deal with that great historical schism, there can’t be any talk of peace between Catholics and Protestants. If a man chooses to leave his wife and children, run away with another woman, and start a separate life, then later decides he wants to reconcile with his wife and children, there’s only one way for that to happen. It’s not the wife’s job to abandon the children and chase after the husband. It’s not the children’s job to leave their mother and go find their father. The one who separated himself is responsible for making the change.
All this talk about how Catholics can simply embrace Protestant ideas is not realistic. Suggesting that we need to go back to true philosophy and true theology—because Catholic theology is the only true theology—is not some crazy idea. In fact, it’s the only reasonable idea in the discussion. We don’t need to create crazy new philosophies and theories to try and patch together the chaos created by the errors that began at the Renaissance.
We don’t have to accept what exists as necessary. We can go back to the right road. We can admit that errors were made, admit that we’re far off course, and acknowledge that we’ve wasted hundreds of years dabbling with all this experimentation, these fads, celebrity theorists, and so on. We can discuss all of these figures—John Dewey, Charlotte Mason, Dorothy Sayers, Maria Montessori—but they all have one thing in common: none of them are on the right road. None of them are connected with the tradition of classical and Catholic philosophy, theology, and the practical applications of both.
We don’t need to follow new theories or pick a new philosophy. We don’t have to defend new philosophies or find our favorite Protestant thinker to follow and say, “Well, it might not be Catholic, but it’s good enough. I found this priest who likes it, so it must be okay.” No, we don’t need to do that. I certainly am not interested in doing that. I’m not interested in being forced to accept a Protestant, anti-Catholic, or non-Catholic theory for how to live my life.
I would rather—and you can call me crazy for this—go back to the right road and start over. That’s what I would rather do. When I talk about researching and restoring classical Catholic education, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m saying, “No thanks” to all of the modern theories and fads. No thanks. I’m not interested. I’m not socially insecure. I don’t need a group, friends, or a big crowd of people cheering for my ideas. I don’t need social support.
The support I want comes, first of all, from God, second, through the Church and her saints, and third, through the writings of history’s wisest and best men. If God wills it and provides other living men and women for me to enjoy this pilgrimage with, I leave that to Him.
One of the fundamental principles throughout history for the life of a philosopher or wise man has always been the need to accept solitude as a possible necessity for that life. It’s not something chosen or desired, but it’s very possible, in a given time, culture, or place, that everyone may be wrong. In order to be right, one may need to act alone. One may need to choose to study, pray, think, and work in solitude.
There’s a whole history of men and women who have done just that. We celebrate them as the wise men and saints of history. Yet when it’s time for us to act, we behave as though acting in solitude is some kind of torture. That’s our own weakness and immaturity.
I don’t care that the local homeschool group has all jumped on the Charlotte Mason bandwagon, or that they’re into the Montessori method, Dorothy Sayers, or some other guru or celebrity. None of it has anything to do with real, historic Catholic education and life. I don’t care about the crowd or the group. If I need to do this by myself, I won’t be doing it by myself. There may not be other people with me, other homeschool families, or colleagues when I do this—but I will not be alone.
In fact, Saint Augustine said, “I am never less alone than when I am alone.” I think we need to grow up a little bit as Catholics and realize that we don’t need a crowd of friends, as if we were middle schoolers, when it’s time to make decisions in life about what is true and good for us. We may need to act alone. Our budget may not be sufficient. We may need more money, more time, to work harder, or to sleep less. But if we are serious—and not just playing games, shopping, or arguing over which product is best in the reviews section of various homeschool websites—we need to find where the right road is and get back to it.
That’s what I’m talking about in my communication and life’s work when I discuss classical Catholic education. I once thought we could compromise, find middle ground, and make the best of the available situations. When I began my teaching career back around 2000, I was actually a Protestant at the time, working in Protestant “classical” private schools. Even though I was a classicist and knew much of the classical school material was ignorant junk, it was popular and better than public school junk. I thought I could just do my own thing—teach classics courses, mind my own business, and make things work as well as I could.
After nine years of teaching, I realized the errors in these systems were not negligible. They were significant and crucial to the progress and development of Christian education in our generation. By 2008, I could no longer tell myself that compromising would lead to a happy end. I realized I couldn’t work within the context of a modern school program with its modern study materials and curriculum resources while still claiming to pursue truth and goodness in education.
At the time, my oldest child was eight years old. Born in 2000, he was reaching the age where we needed to make firm decisions about his education. My wife had been collecting homeschool resources, and I reviewed what was available. I realized the same problems I encountered in schools were present in the homeschool community. The compromise on the Catholic faith, the willingness to accept Catholic philosophy as optional, and the attitude of “just make the best of it” were everywhere. What was happening in schools was mirrored in homeschool circles.
As my children reached the age where education became critical, I knew I couldn’t continue pretending. I couldn’t play this game for the sake of convenience. I couldn’t go to bed at night telling myself it was better to go with the flow than to follow the counsel of history’s wisest and best men. I had to do something about it. By God’s grace, in 2008, I had the resources, knowledge, and opportunity to start the Classical Liberal Arts Academy with the express purpose of not compromising anymore but going back to the right road and picking up where things had left off.
To be honest, I had no idea what that fully entailed. Much study was required because so much had been lost—not over decades, but centuries. From the beginning, the mission of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy was, and remains, to research, restore, publish, and teach the classical liberal arts—the classical Catholic curriculum studied and taught by history’s wisest and best men.
The mission was not to make me, William Michael, a celebrity. It wasn’t to go on a homeschool conference speaking tour or organize homeschool cruises to discuss my educational ideas. The purpose was to conduct historical research, collect historical materials, and learn what was done when Catholicism directed education—not the modern parochial school system, which was a reaction to public school movements in America, but the education governed by Catholic theology and philosophy.
I wanted to know what was done, how it was done, what sources were studied, and what resources were used. It all had to start with research, not publishing. Today, we see homeschool companies prioritize publishing and selling materials, only discussing learning later—which is foolish. Step one had to be research. By God’s providence, over the past 17 years, I’ve been able to devote myself full-time to researching classical Catholic education while developing the Classical Liberal Arts Academy as the fruit of that research.
When I talk about classical education, I am not talking about inventing new terms, playing word games, or pretending we are doing classical education while using an entirely modern curriculum. How can we claim to provide classical education when the sources of classical education are ancient? It makes no sense to replace timeless content with modern literature like *Tom Sawyer* and *Jane Austen*. Meanwhile, students are not studying philosophy or the classical liberal arts.
Throughout history, there was an established, trustworthy, and timeless curriculum, but it was abandoned at the start of the modern era. In my vocabulary, “classical Catholic education” means going back to that road. What is the fundamental difference that distinguishes true education from modern theories? It is not necessary to answer every one of Charlotte Mason’s books, Dorothy Sayers’ ideas, Maria Montessori’s practices, or John Dewey’s theories. The fundamental difference is this: true education talks about the subject of study.
False teachers talk about students—how children learn, their learning styles, how to control their environment, and so on. True education, however, focuses on the subject of study. A true teacher does not see himself as a teacher but as a student and learner. His obsession is with the subject, not the students. What makes the true teacher useful to others is his love for and mastery of the subject.
As a lay Dominican in the Catholic Church, I see this principle reflected in Dominican spirituality. Dominicans are known as the preachers and teachers of the Church, yet they talk more about God than about teaching or preaching. Saint Dominic himself spoke only in two ways: to God or about God. This focus on the subject—God—made him effective as a preacher. The same principle applies to true education: the teacher’s obsession with the subject, not methods, students, or theories.
There’s one thing we talk about—we talk about God. That’s what Dominicans talk about. Dominicans talk about God. In fact, it was said of the founder of the order, Saint Dominic, that he spoke in two ways: he was either speaking to God or speaking about God. That’s what made him the great founder of the Dominican Order—not his teaching philosophy, not his theory of preaching, not his theory of education. It was the simple fact that he was obsessed with God. That’s what made him valuable and effective as a preacher. He loved God. He studied God. He talked about God.
That’s the mark of a true teacher. A true teacher talks about the subject. He’s obsessed with learning the subject. He doesn’t assume he already knows it; he is constantly seeking knowledge of the subject. That’s what it means to be a true student. It means to be one who seeks philosophy. The word philosophy means “the love of wisdom,” and it expresses the pursuit of wisdom—an obsessive pursuit of wisdom. That’s what real philosophy is. It’s not a subject you study at college; you don’t simply “learn about” philosophy. True philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom—the love and desire for it.
If we go back through history—and I know some people get offended when we talk about history instead of their favorite modern movement—if we go back to the writings of history’s wisest and best men, we find that their lives have been proven by the Church. These are men who have been canonized by the Catholic Church and declared perfect in their pursuit of God in this life. They all had this in common: their focus was on God. Even those who worked in education always kept their focus on God.
There is a spirituality, a spiritual life, that we need to learn in order to free ourselves from these modern fads. It’s essential Christianity. It’s about going back to Christianity at its core and letting that direct all our practical decisions. If I were to ask, “What is the core of real Christianity? What is its focus?” it would be the first and greatest commandment: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. That’s the core. That’s the foundation of real Christianity: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Notice it doesn’t say, “Teach your children to love God” or “Teach your neighbors to love God.” Those are not the foundations of Christianity. The foundation is for me to love God with all my heart, soul, and strength. That’s where it starts. The second commandment flows from obedience to the first. When I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, I become filled with goodness and wisdom. The second commandment—to love your neighbor as yourself—flows from this fullness.
To love our neighbor means to do what Saint Dominic did: to talk about God with our neighbor, to lead our neighbor to the knowledge of God. God is the subject of wisdom. As Thomas Aquinas teaches in the *Summa Theologica*, God is wisdom. The knowledge of God is wisdom. So, to love our neighbor as ourselves means to lead them to God.
To do this, we don’t need some convoluted philosophy of education or a theory about how people learn. There’s no science to this work. And that’s another error I’ll address in a moment. But the foundation of real education can be clearly seen when we ask: What is the subject of what we’re talking about?
Real Christianity is always thinking and talking about God. Fake movements, schisms, distractions, fads, and theories all talk about other things. When it comes to education, they talk about students, children, learning styles, psychology—all of this nonsense. It is manifestly false and easily demonstrated to be false. Yet there’s this constant wrestling because people feel they must choose a modern theory or philosophy. But there’s no need to choose any modern philosophy.
Let me illustrate this with an example I use often because it’s ancient and these problems were resolved long ago by wise men we ignore at our peril. Saint Augustine described human society and culture as a great river—a mighty, roaring river flowing downstream, like the Mississippi River. He referred to human customs, culture, and methods as this great river in which all people are carried downstream.
You can imagine people doing different things in this river. This river is evil—it represents fallen human culture. Some people are so eager to reach the end of the river that they swim with the current to move faster, like people running on an escalator instead of standing still. They rush toward destruction. Others are calmly, mindlessly floating along, yet they too are carried toward destruction. Then there are others who complain about the river, swimming against the current, but they remain in the river. Their resistance is insincere because they won’t leave the river. They stay, complain, and put up a token resistance, but they remain in the river.
There is only one solution: get out of the river. You don’t need to swim upstream. You just need to swim to the shore and get out. Once you’re out of the river, all the trouble is over. You’re free, and you can walk back to where you need to go.
We don’t need to pick a modern philosophy or decide which non-Catholic guru we’re going to follow. We don’t need to pick a modern fad or theory just because we live in the 21st century. We can simply get out of this modern river by swimming to the shore. Get out and be free. That’s the only reasonable response for Catholic people.
This doesn’t mean becoming an Amish person. Amish people are still in the river. It doesn’t mean becoming a hermit, because that’s not getting out of the river either. Nor does it mean going back to something from the 1300s as if something is good simply because it’s old. No, there’s something objectively different about the philosophy and theology that existed before the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. It’s objectively different because it’s true. That’s why we need to go back to it—not because it’s old, European, or medieval, but because it’s true.
When I use the phrase “classical Catholic education,” that’s what I mean: returning to what is true. I don’t want to pick from a list of bad choices. I don’t need to make that decision. I want to go back to what is true and good. If it costs me a million dollars, it’s worth it.
If it costs my whole life to achieve it, it’s worth it because it’s what is right and good. Even if my entire life is spent pursuing it, and I don’t get to personally enjoy all the fruits of it, I can leave something for the next generation that will help them. That is my duty.
The fundamental difference between true education and the various forms of false education is this: true education is concerned with the truth, and the truth is a Person—God Himself. That is the subject of true education. If your education isn’t focused on God as the subject, you are still in the river. It doesn’t matter how you dress it up, how pretty your boat looks, or how well-designed your raft is. You’re still in the river. To get out of the river means addressing this fundamental issue.
I’m not interested in studying the five million pages Charlotte Mason wrote about her theory of education. The point of my first talk was to say that if you focus on the tradition of real, classical Catholic education, she’s not even a part of that tradition. It’s irrelevant. There’s no need to study her writings or respond to them. They are irrelevant, and there’s no need to get caught up in that mess.
What happens in homeschool culture is that groups form, leaders emerge as “gurus” of certain theories, and then other homeschooling moms are drawn into this black hole of theoretical learning, vocabulary, ideas, and methods. They create their own jargon—“stages of learning” and the like. But why even get into that? It’s all irrelevant. That’s what I’m saying.
If you’re a Catholic mother, and you have your Catholic faith, your Catholic sacraments, and your Catholic life, that’s where you should stay. You are already focused on the true end of life, which is God Himself. The means to God are given to us through the Church, not through some educational philosophy. You need to focus on your Catholic life. Focus on God. Pursue God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You do this through the Church, through daily prayer, and through the sacraments.
When it comes to study, focus on studying things that help you in your pursuit of God. That’s what you should be doing. You don’t decide to be a homeschool mother and then abandon contemplation and religious observance to dive into this separate world of education theories. That’s how you get lost—off the track, off the path. As Jesus says in the Book of Revelation, you’ve abandoned your first love. You’ve fallen for the deception that true education is about making your children learn. That’s the hallmark of false education—making your children learn.
Let me prove this point from the Catholic Bible. Think about the Gospels and the life of our Lord. Jesus came into the world to be the Savior. He is called the Word of God. He is called the Teacher. He said, “Call no man master, for you have one Teacher, and that is the Christ.” He is the only capital-T Teacher.
How did He teach? He taught by living a perfectly obedient life. He didn’t say to His disciples, “Do this, do that.” He said, “Come, follow Me.” That was Christ’s teaching method. He was focused on God and called others to focus on God. That’s the only true Christian method of education: “I am focused on God. Come, follow Me and focus on God.”
This method is simple because it starts with you, not the child. It’s your own life that becomes the source and direction of teaching. False philosophies, on the other hand, all share a common trait: they tell you it’s okay not to know the subject, not to have experience, not to have this or that. That’s a red flag. It’s false.
So, what drives people to become obsessed with educating their children? What leads to all this wrangling, working, and talking about how kids learn and what we need to do? The answer is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy drives it. It’s parents telling their children to do things they don’t do themselves. It’s parents stressing the importance of study while failing to study themselves.
Homeschool publishers feed into this hypocrisy. They say, “Don’t worry if you don’t study yourself. Just buy our products, attend our seminars, and your kids will learn what you don’t.” That’s a con. It’s not driven by a love of children or learning—it’s driven by hypocrisy. It shifts the burden onto the children while letting the parents off the hook.
Schools do this too. They claim their goal is to raise students who will impact the culture for Christ. Yet their faculty is often made up of people who don’t impact the culture for Christ. How can they raise children to do what they themselves do not? It’s a farce. It’s hypocrisy.
In Luke 6, Jesus asks, “Can the blind lead the blind?” Listening to homeschool conferences and publishers, you’d think the answer is “yes.” But Jesus answers, “Will they not both fall into a ditch?” Notice He doesn’t say the children fall into the ditch. He says both fall into the ditch. The blind cannot lead the blind.
In the Dominican tradition, we say, “You cannot give what you do not have.” Isn’t that obvious? How can you let someone convince you that by paying for a product or service, you can give your children what you yourself lack? That’s the fundamental red flag of false, modern educational theories: they are always about what adults are going to make children do and accomplish.
But Jesus says, “Can the blind lead the blind?” (Luke 6:39). He continues, “A disciple is not above his master, but every disciple, when fully trained, will be like his master” (Luke 6:40). Jesus’s teaching method was to model the perfect life and say, “Come, follow Me.”
Now, let me ask you: as a Catholic, do you know how to live a good, obedient Catholic life? Do you know how to imitate the saints and live the Catholic life? You need to study. You need to say daily prayers. You should seek to pray the Liturgy of the Hours—the Church’s official prayer. You should pray the Rosary, study the lives of the saints, study the Bible, go to Mass as often as possible, and go to confession. It’s very simple, isn’t it? It’s simple to understand how to pursue God and eternal life. That’s how simple true education is.
The disciple is not greater than his master, but everyone will be perfect if they are like their master.
You, as a Catholic, pursuing with all your might a perfect Catholic life, are teaching your children in the best way possible. You can look at your children and say to them, “Come, follow me.” You can honestly say, “I teach my children the way Jesus taught His disciples—by practicing what I want them to practice and telling them to imitate me.” That’s how simple it is.
Now, what about all their studies? What about all these different things people say are necessary? We have to limit these things because not everything others deem important is actually important. If some wacky person in the modern world declares that every student needs to learn how to make ceramic pots, we don’t have to jump on that idea and say, “I better buy the ceramic pot program so my kids can learn it.” No, we can say, “We have priorities as Christians.”
Jesus told us that one thing is necessary. We must make sure we pursue the one thing necessary. If someone in the world invents 1,000 other things—like throwing a perfect spiral in football, mastering ballet, or learning tricks on a bike—we are not obligated to follow these whims. We have to focus on what’s most important and consciously choose *not* to be good at things that are unnecessary for the Christian life.
What happens is that prideful people get embarrassed when they’re not good at everything. In the name of “excellence,” they pursue this so-called well-rounded development, which is a lie. They want to be good at everything so they can be praised by everyone. Every new fad, movie, song, dance, activity, or sport becomes an obsession. All the while, they neglect the one thing necessary.
That’s what’s fundamentally wrong with modern education. We should expect that from Protestant circles because they aren’t Catholic. Of course, they’re pursuing all kinds of things Catholics should avoid. They’re wrapped up in activities and ideas we don’t need. As Catholics, we already have a religion to practice, a philosophy to study, and a system of prayer to commit to. We don’t have time to react to every new idea or add every new topic to our homeschool curriculum because some “educational fairy” dreamed it up.
We’re not idle or bored like non-Catholics, searching for new things to occupy our time. We already have the answers for what needs to be done. We simply need to devote ourselves to doing it. That is real Catholic education.
I mentioned earlier that we already have a Catholic philosophy in Scholasticism. That’s what we should be studying. Just because someone writes a new book doesn’t mean it needs to be included in our curriculum. We already have a curriculum filled with the best content, and all our time, energy, and resources need to be focused on that study and life.
This isn’t something we should push on our children while ignoring it ourselves. It’s for us to do. We must say to our children, “Come follow Daddy. Come follow Mommy.” A child should be able to look at Christian parents and think, “I’m blessed to have parents showing me the way to everlasting happiness by living saintly lives.” If parents are not living that way, no educational theory will make up for this glaring problem. The child grows up with parents who fail to lead them in the Christian faith.
In the Classical Liberal Arts Academy, I stress this constantly: it’s not about the children—it’s about *us.* My question isn’t, “What are your children studying?” It’s, “What are *you* studying?” Adults can enroll in the Classical Liberal Arts Academy, take the lessons, complete the quizzes, submit assignments, and work through the courses. You can tell your children, “Join me, follow me. I’m studying as a Christian, and you can start young.” All the child needs to do is follow their parents.
If you want a biblical method of education, go to Deuteronomy 6. Moses gives God’s law to the people and says, “This is God’s word. You shall talk about it constantly when you rise, when you lie down, and when you walk along the way. This law shall always be in your mouth.” That’s a biblical method of education: leading your children to do what you do.
True education is simple because all you need to do is live the Christian life. It’s more than checking the boxes of sacraments. It’s a whole life of study, pursuing a knowledge of God and His works. Wisdom flows from that study, which has already been established throughout Church history. Scholastic philosophy and the classical Catholic curriculum show us what to study.
Our job is to study and invite our children to study with us. Some may ask, “But what about college, careers, and all those things?” Don’t you already have a career? Don’t you live a Christian life integrated into the modern world? Can’t you show your children how to do that? If the parent is living well, the child needs nothing else but to follow the parent.
There’s no need for a complicated educational manifesto like Charlotte Mason’s. Children learn by imitating the adults in their lives. That’s why our principal duty as Christians is not to teach our children but to love God and keep His commandments. Loving our neighbor comes second. Teaching the ignorant is a spiritual work of mercy, not the focus of the Christian life. It flows from the Christian life and can only be done by those actually living it.
So, rather than study the writings of every educational theorist, I dismiss all that and say, “No, I don’t need to do that, and neither do you.” We don’t need to read and respond to every idea published in the world. As Catholics, we already have a life laid out for us. We already have a Church that gives us the way. We already have theology and philosophy to guide us. We already have a curriculum established over thousands of years.
Going back in time isn’t unrealistic—it’s our advantage. Non-Catholics are constantly inventing things and pretending that’s progress. It’s embarrassing that, after thousands of years of human history, people still act as though everything is uncertain. But Catholics don’t have that problem. The Catholic faith is 2,000 years old. We already have everything we need for our happiness and the education of our children.
We need to stop pretending that building a better raft or boat in the river is progress. The entire river is heading for destruction. Christians need to get out of the river and return to where they belong. It’s simple, freeing, peaceful, and achievable. Most importantly, it’s entirely in our control.
We’re not responsible for the outcomes of education or the choices our children make with their free will. We’re responsible for our own actions. We can lead a horse to water, but we can’t make it drink. We can show our children the way to eternal life, but we can’t force them to embrace it or “learn” it. As Proverbs teaches, wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord.
The Bible teaches very plainly that a foolish child will reject instruction. It’s not your duty to make children learn. That entire idea is misguided and rooted in a false understanding of human nature. This misunderstanding is one of the core problems of modern educational theories—they deny both Original Sin and free will.
Your responsibility is to be obedient. Your job is to live and strive to be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Your life of ministry to others flows from your own pursuit of perfection. You are not responsible for what others do with what you provide; you are responsible only for what you provide. And what you provide is simply this: obedience to God and living the Christian life yourself.
I’ll leave it there. I hope this is helpful. God bless you.
