Blog
By Émile Troullier
It is an unseasonably foggy and cold morning in Sydney and I am supervising the last skirmishes of a rugby training session. As the boys are still scrimmaging around the ball, the baritone voice of the school bell brings the action to an end. Magically, the fog begins to disperse, and so do the boys, some of them rushing to the pavilion to recover their accoutrements for the school day, while others head to their boarding house. Still in my coaching tracksuit, I reflect on the modern scourge of mature men in activewear as I make my way to the refectory to have breakfast. I sit in a quiet corner and start gathering my thoughts for the day’s activities. Breakfast does not take long. Then, I move to the teachers’ quarters to have my daily ablutions and put on my full teaching regalia. I straighten my tie, I put on the essential name tag and off I go again. Senior Latin will be opening the day’s proceedings. Soon, some of the mud-clad boys whom I was supervising on the rugby pitch will be joining me in the classroom for a lesson on Virgil’s Aeneid.
As a teacher, I love that classical education attends to the why of education. While questions of methods, delivery, assessment, or any number of practical concerns are, of course, essential and significant, these details can easily overwhelm teachers so that they forget the foundation of our task.
Why require our students to wrestle with difficult subjects and texts? Why pour time and energy into lesson plans? Why labour at giving helpful and accurate feedback? The answer that usually comes to my mind is part of the answer to the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism “to glorify God.” This is what I tell my children when the whining sets in over their own schoolwork, when they drag their feet and give less than a full effort. All things, I say, we must do all things to God’s glory. And God is not glorified by complaining and laziness.
An integral part of my teaching practise has always consisted of the Greek conception of education which is encapsulated in the term paideia, the ideal model in education according to the ancient Greeks. This timeless and universal ideal of paideia embodied in each student, is the cornerstone of the revival of Classical education.
