Christian Formation is important at every age. Just because FCS doesn’t have a high school doesn’t mean we don’t highly value Christian Education beyond grade 8. In fact our classical perspective on the grade 9-12 years, considered the rhetoric stage, only increases our appreciation for the importance of Christian Education during these years. Why? Because one of the most powerful influencing factors on young people at this stage is peer pressure. Douglas Wilson says of this stage: “So then, rhetoric is the capstone of the Trivium. It is at this point that the educational process begins to bear real fruit. It is sad that because so many Christian parents have reacted to public schools, they are content with basic literacy. But this basic literacy can be accomplished in the first grade. This is not education; it is the first step. We cannot say that our job as educators is done until the children have been taught how to learn for themselves and how to express what they learn. When that has happened, the children, now young adults have been equipped to face the world.”
Again, John Milton: “I call therefore a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war. In short, they are prepared for life.”
