Jackson Hole Classical Academy Coram Deo Magazine Vol. 1 Summer 2021 Issue

“In the presence of God”

School Leadership

Mrs. Polly J. Friess Head of School

Dr. Joseph Rudolph Upper School Dean of Faculty

Mrs. Hillary T. Short Lower School Dean of Faculty

Mr. Samuel Lunz Dean of Students

LTC (Ret.) Curby Graham Director of Business & Operations

Mr. Ian Landis

Director of Admissions

Board of Directors

Dr. Gary Damore Chair

Mr. Jonathan Robinson Secretary

Mrs. Lynn Friess

Mrs. Lisa Meaney

Mr. Frank Reichel

Foundation Board

Rev. David Patty President

Dr. Daniel Russ Vice President

Mr. Steve Friess Treasurer

Mrs. Polly J. Friess

Mrs. Maggie Valiante

Letter from the Head of School

Dear Jackson Hole Classical Academy family,

This year held a lot of “firsts” for JH Classical Academy. You are holding one of them right now – our first edition of Coram Deo Magazine.

We weathered the storm of a pandemic while remaining open for in-person learning. We held our first Awards Ceremony honoring the academic and personal accomplishments and the character of our students. We held our first high school graduation, which was the culmination of nine years of diligence and obedience to the calling God placed on all our hearts. We have grown our operations and leadership team to provide organizational health and the best and most effective learning environment for our students.

Another first, Coram Deo Magazine will explore topics our faculty and board members discussed throughout the school year and reminisce on the Academy’s most notable events. It is our goal in the future to make this a larger piece with an annual report, alumni news, and more articles dedicated to the community events and learning that students experience throughout the year at JHCA.

At this year’s graduation, I spoke about the goals of classical Christian education, which ultimately answer the questions: Who is man and what are his purposes? Who is God and what are His purposes? At the Academy, we believe we each have an individual purpose as given to us by our Creator. Similarly, we believe the

Academy has a very special purpose and our leadership team is dedicated to ensuring it is carried out in the best way possible.

We chose to name this publication “Coram Deo,” Latin for “in the presence of God,” because each of us – faculty, staff, and leadership team – feel personally called to this school’s mission and wish to serve the Lord. God calls each of us by name, out of His love for us, to a specific path of service and holiness. What is holiness? It is a life of constant growth and devotion to God. It is the desire to be in the presence of God.

Founding this school was my path of service and my path of holiness. My desire for this work stemmed partly from a professional response to a need I saw when working in the field of education reform, and partly from a personal desire to give back, because teachers and guidance counselors heroically filled a great need in my life.

As you read through these pages, it is my prayer that you are encouraged by the accomplishments of this year, inspired by the thoughts of our talented faculty members, and excited to begin another year with us as we pursue truth, goodness, and beauty together.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Polly J. Friess Head of School

In this issue 04

Coram Deo is a publication by Jackson Hole Classical Academy dedicated to presenting topics related to classical Christian education as written by our faculty members.

Jackson Hole Classical Academy is a private classical school in the liberal arts tradition serving students in grades K–12 and set on 80 acres in the heart of beautiful Jackson, Wyoming.

10 12 14

“Virtue, for Aristotle, is not something we do until we are so good at it that we don’t even need to think about it. Rather, it is the constant, conscious practice of doing the right thing for the right reasons.”

“This act of learning to write well by reading well can best be seen in the high school classroom. By dissecting, consuming, and emulating the great works, students form a deeper understanding of the inner workings of good literature and are able to better perform their own craft.”

“While a school is different from a monastery in most ways, we turn to the ancient tradition of classical learning like the monks and nuns did because it is proven to work, and because it provides, at its best, tools for human flourishing.”

A strong finish for the first senior class

Nine years of hard work, perseverance and dedication to classical education pays off as the Class of 2021 cross the graduation stage

To God be the glory. That was the theme of JH Classical Academy’s first Graduation on Friday, June 4, in which we witnessed the culmination of nine years of dedication to classical education, and our mission to cultivate within our students the wisdom and virtue necessary to discover their God-given potential.

Our three seniors are the fruition of that mission.

Peter Cook will be attending Montana State University in Bozeman to study business and finance. An Eagle Scout, Pete has received scholarships from the Rotary Club of Jackson Hole, the Boy Scouts of America, and Western Undergraduate Exchange. Ms. Kirby Feaver, math and science teacher at JHCA, described Pete as “a man of integrity” in her speech at the commencement ceremony.

Samantha Fairbanks will be attending Utah State University to study interior design. A wellrounded student, Sammie has been active both in and out of school. She has competed in varsity tennis for four years and varsity competitive dance for three years, and has also performed in local theater productions in Jackson. Her postgraduation plans are to travel to northern Africa to experience the

culture in Morocco. In her speech about Sammie, Ms. Laura McMillion, history and language teacher at JHCA, said, “My prayer for you is that your joy in the good things of your life will be rooted in the goodness of God. May He guide your steps.”

Jacqueline Neishabouri will be majoring in economics at Wesleyan University, where she will also play Division 3 golf. Earlier this year, she was awarded an $80,000 scholarship from Balyasny Asset Management for “exceptional merit and an interest in finance,” which includes four years of highly-desirable finance internships. Jacqueline has been a student at JHCA since it began, when she was a 6th-grader. Mr. Ian Landis, director of admissions and math and science teacher at JHCA, spoke about Jacqueline’s entrepreneurial spirit. “Don’t be afraid to ask for help as you go after your goals. Lean on others to help you. Your JHCA family is here for you,” he said.

JHCA founding headmaster, Mr. Robby Kuhlman, gave the commencement address and encouraged our graduates to continue walking in faith and virtue. He quoted Matthew 5 and said, “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.” We are so proud of our first senior class, the Class of 2021. Soli Deo Gloria!

Class of 2021 By the numbers

Curriculum as covenant

The importance of classical Christian education for training the next generation in truth and tradition

By Dr. Daniel Russ, Board Member

Acurriculum is a covenant through which a school reveals to the community that which it holds to be true, good, and beautiful and how it will induct its students into these truths, virtues, and wonders.

The covenant is complicated, because the “constituencies” of that community include centuries of cultural and religious traditions that have shaped our educational philosophy and practice, current teachers, students, their families, accreditation agencies, and, of course, generations to come. The classical Christian school is even more complicated, for it has a prior and over-arching covenant with God.

I propose the ideal of covenant for curriculum because it speaks of that which is unchanging and the willingness to adapt it over generations. This ideal is most fully

and uniquely found in the Bible with God revealing to humankind who He is, His design for human conduct as freedom, and what we can expect of Him. We are told that we can learn from, wrestle, plead, repent, argue, fail, worship, and re-covenant with Him because His love and mercies endure forever.

and how one teaches those in light of each new generation. The only model for this kind of curriculum in human history is the classical Christian model. For only the classical model has envisioned truth as one, and yet has been able to incorporate the greatest ideas and works of cultures and traditions across the Mediterranean World, including Africa and the Middle East, right on through Europe, the Americas, and now most of the East. For the only universal education that exists in the world is a “Western” classical education.

So what does this profound theology have to do with curriculum? Everything. For if our schools are to address the Godgiven need and desire to educate our young, they must decide what are those permanent truths which must be taught across generations,

If we are to recover the enduring knowledge, skills, and wisdom of the classical curriculum, we must be faithful and heroic. We must be faithful to the truths, traditions, and methods forged by our ancestors who shaped the educational legacy, the remnants of which we still enjoy. And we must be courageous, not

“If we are to recover the enduring knowledge, skills, and wisdom of the classical curriculum, we must be faithful and heroic.”

only because such a recovery is radically counterculture, but because we cannot merely imitate and enshrine the content and methods our ancestors taught; we must have the courage to re-vision them for our generation. For this ability to adapt the forms and methods to the teaching of unchanging truth is both biblically and culturally the genius of classical Christian education, especially in a world that is in the constant turmoil of change.

As physicist and university president Donald Cowan has written, “The liberal arts are not merely a received tradition from the world’s past but fully as much an ongoing creation toward its end, toward the fulfillment of things. All of us are engaged in that creation. We [teachers] ourselves are the living manifestation of the truth that ‘makes us free,’ the truth that is constantly granted to us in the process of learning.”

To learn about JH Classical Academy’s curriculum, visit JHClassical.org

Our Mission

“TO

On habits

How we cultivate virtue and build character through habit formation and exercise

By Mr. Benjamin Walter, Latin & Art Teacher

In his essay On Lying in Bed, Chesterton argues that lying in bed all morning is no vice. His provocative assertion is not really about sleeping in. It is about the modern triumph of prioritizing “good habits” over “good morals.”

is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).

I know a millennial for whom “life-hacking” and “clean eating” is a religion of sorts. Drinking kombucha, optimizing sleep, doing HIIT, and practicing intermittent fasting (not to mention eating organic and supporting local coffee roasters) is practically the ritual of his creed. Optimal productivity is the goal.

And yes, that millennial is me.

Aristotle did not in fact write this commonly attributed quotation, which is a 19th century paraphrase of his philosophy. Is it an accurate paraphrase? That depends on our definition of “habit”!

First, let’s look at what Aristotle did not mean by the much usedand-abused word “habit,” by way a Chestertonian-sized digression.

Always the contrarian, G.K. Chesterton was an infamously large and pithy theologian of the early 20th century. He and George Bernard Shaw, his great friend and abstemious atheist rival, bantered frequently to the great amusement of the British public. For example:

Chesterton: I see there has been a famine in the land.

Shaw: And I see the cause of it.

Shaw: If I were as fat as you, I would hang myself.

Chesterton: If I were to hang myself, I would use you for the rope.

Chesterton had a solid understanding of the Christian classical tradition and a scalpelsharp insight into the flaws of modern culture.

“Of all the marks of modernity that seem to mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing and dangerous than the exultation of very small and secondary matters of conduct at the expense of very great and primary ones, at the expense of eternal ties and tragic human morality. If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. Thus it is considered more withering to accuse a man of bad taste than of bad ethics. Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made essential and godliness is regarded as an offence.”

Chesterton makes his point further by observing that “misers get up early and burglars get up the night before.” It is not that practical prudence and hygienic habits are worthless, but that to confuse them with matters of morality is a dangerous perversion of priorities.

As St. Paul says, “For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness

There is nothing wrong in ipso about “clean living,” but prioritized above all other considerations, it becomes a self-interested philosophy. “Elevating minor morals at the expense of major ones” places the cardinal virtues of prudence and temperance above the theological virtues of faith and love.

At the end of his essay, Chesterton argues that true morality involves a moral decision and possibly a moral struggle. We don’t die for the sake of others as a matter of habit. Loving a difficult person does not become easier out of mere routine—in fact, it becomes harder, and requires more willpower with every encounter! Real virtue can never become routine or custom. It requires constant effort and awareness.

Although it seems that Chesterton is at odds with the paraphrase of Aristotle quoted earlier, he in fact is merely illustrating what habit is not. It all depends on the definition of habit. To find out what Aristotle meant by “moral virtue is a habit,” we need to examine the word hexis, which is often translated from Greek as “habit,” but which carries different connotations.

Hexis implies a condition that is stable, but active. It does not imply

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”

—Aristotle

passivity or mindless repetition as our word “habit” can. Virtue, for Aristotle, is not something we do until we are so good at it that we don’t even need to think about it. Rather, it is the constant, conscious practice of doing the right thing for the right reasons.

Aristotle writes in his Nichomachean Ethics: “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and lyre players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts” (Ethics 2.1). Aristotle goes on to say that someone who is habituated in reacting bravely will find it easier to react bravely to danger than someone who has not. In other words, we become what we do. Virtue must be practiced!

So what is the value of conditioning ourselves into healthy habits? Well, habits help us to be socially acceptable (don’t pick your nose, say thank you) and productive (how not to procrastinate, work before play). Habits help us make decisions that are conducive to physical and mental improvement. Good habits well-ingrained make us less likely to act on our natural tendencies to be cowardly, selfish, or cruel. Parents and teachers can help students overcome the impediments to a good life by giving them tools to use against their own worst enemy—themselves.

But habits (in the sense of “conditioned behavior”) are just the first step, not the end goal. Here’s an example. My brother is a cellist— head cellist in his music school. He was telling me recently that while he does not have the technical prowess of some of his peers, he has made up for it by thinking. His practice is not by rote (though he practices long and hard). He joins intention to discipline

and understanding to memorization. This is what separates a good artist from a great one.

Likewise, I tell my 8th grade literature students that they need to have good habits of study to sit down and write an essay. But if their habit is mindless—just diligently checking off the assignments—they will likely not produce a great essay. Writing a great essay is a mental struggle, a risk, a non-linear process. I have had disorganized students write excellent essays and vice versa. The same is true, I think, of virtue. It is not good enough to go through the motions. Students trained in obedience,

Lower School

Attention

The habit of attention requires that one fix mind and body steadily on the matter at hand.

Obedience

The habit of obedience requires prompt responses to good authority and willing acceptance of natural consequences.

Respect

The habit of respect requires using good manners and self-control in both words and actions.

Responsibility

The habit of responsibility requires completing tasks on time and caring for personal belongings and school property.

respect, and punctuality have been given the tools, but they must make their futures one of moral excellence. This kind of action originates in the wills and souls of the young persons themselves. The life of virtue is one that is actively pursued for the right motives. It is a life marked by constant, watchful practice, like that of the artist or the musician.

So if I were to rephrase the paraphrase of Aristotle at the start of this essay, it would be:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence results from the practice of virtue.”

Upper School

Punctuality

The habit of punctuality requires that obligations must be met in a timely manner.

Thoroughness

The habit of thoroughness requires that tasks must be completed to the best of one’s ability.

Self-Control

The habit of self-control requires mastery over one’s actions and the ability to delay gratification.

Integrity

The habit of integrity requires truthfulness in thought, word, and deed, so that one is without reproach.

Habits

Learning excellence by imitation

By Ms. Sarah Boss, Humane Letters Teacher

Ernest Hemingway famously advised aspiring authors: “It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.” Hemingway’s trademark pithiness aside, the issue remains that even seemingly effortless writers must study and develop their craft somehow. Whether this quip relates to fiction or essays or speeches, writing is a skill not born with but learned. But how?

Although many writers claim divine inspiration or innate ability, a good work ethic, not miraculous intervention, is to credit. Even William Wordsworth, who pronounced poetry to be “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” subjected his work to bouts of revision with his sister Dorothy. W.B. Yeats more clearly expresses this sentiment of the difficulty of writing well. In “Adam’s Curse,” Yeats admits to the difficulty of slaving over verse, only to make it appear effortless. He writes,

‘We sat together at one summer’s end, That beautiful mild woman, your close friend, And you and I, and talked of poetry. I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. Better go down upon your marrow-bones And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather; For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen

The martyrs call the world.’

In this stanza, Yeats laments the backbreaking work that goes into a single line of poetry. He notes that unless this line looks instantaneous, all has been for naught. Moreover, other professions look down on poets as idlers. Perhaps a more succinct description of the

writer’s predicament comes from George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Why I Write,” in which he says, “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.” This is a far cry from the notion of divinely inspired poets. If this is the case, it is a wonder we have any literature at all.

Nevertheless, having established that writing well is hard work, the question now is how most effectively to learn how to do it. The key to writing well is simpler than it seems. We learn to write well by reading well.

Ben Franklin purportedly taught himself to write well by imitating passages from articles and books he admired. In his Autobiography he recounted, “With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try’d to compleat [sic] the papers again.” Perhaps Franklin was taking a page from the ancient Greeks. In Poetics, Aristotle asserts that true art is an imitation, or mimesis, of the natural world. Moreover, he argues that imitation is a deeply human trait, and that the propensity to imitate sets humans apart from animals. He writes,

“Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated.”

Not only do we experience catharsis through artistic imitations of things in real life that cause pain or pleasure, we also learn how to live — learn our “earliest lessons,” as Aristotle says — through mimesis. Babies learn how to walk and talk by imitating adults, children learn good (and sometimes bad) habits by imitating their elders or older peers, and adults learn social and professional skills by imitating those more successful

The art of teaching students how to do things well – such as writing – by observing those who have already done so

than them. If we learn virtues, habits, and skills by imitating the masters, does this method also apply to honing a craft like writing?

This act of learning to write well by reading well can best be seen in the high school classroom. Ideally, by this age, students have mastered the basics of grammar, acquired an arsenal of rhetorical devices, and begun to find their own voice. Good course books are to thank, in part, for these developments. But the greater credit goes to good literature. Humans are experts at unconsciously internalizing things we see, hear, or read. How much greater, then, can we benefit from closely and critically reading great books.

In JH Classical Academy’s high school creative writing class, students study how to write well in specific genres by reading masters of those genres, carefully noting patterns of style and syntax, and imitating them. They improve their creative nonfiction skills by reading Annie Dillard and Barry Lopez, their short stories by reading Flannery O’Connor and Raymond Carver, their poetry by reading Seamus Heaney and Marianne Moore. By dissecting, consuming, and emulating these works, students form a deeper understanding of the inner workings of good literature and are able to better perform their own craft.

It may be useful here to address the line between

imitation and plagiarism. While plagiarism is expressing another writer’s words or ideas as one’s own, imitation is a method of acquiring or sharpening skills learned from a master. However, imitation is not the end goal. Good writing is not simply words well strung together, but also good thoughts, ideas, and motivation underlying and inspiring these words. Orwell continued his essay on why he wrote by explaining that political motives foremostly inspired his work. He writes, “When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”

While imitation answers the question of how we write well, what about why we write well? Like Orwell, we may want to shed light on a social or political injustice or truth. Or, like Dostoevsky, we may want to convey the inner workings of the human psyche. Or, like Achebe, we may want to illuminate the history and culture of a particular people. Inspiration is more difficult to come by than the craft itself, but if we spend all our time waiting for the Muse to come, we may not be ready when she does. Whether currently feeling inspired or not — experiencing a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” or not — we can begin working towards writing well by picking up a good book and reading well.

“Not only do we experience catharsis through artistic imitations of things in real life that cause pain or pleasure, we also learn how to live — learn our ‘earliest lessons,’ as Aristotle says — through mimesis.”

Latin, monks, and classical education

By Dr. Joseph Rudolph, Upper School Dean of Faculty, Latin and Literature Teacher

“Why Latin?” It is a question that virtually every middle or high school teacher of the subject is asked. And the teacher will often give what seems like a very long answer — precisely because there are so many good answers to give: Latin provides access to a rich world of scientific, literary, theological, and philosophical texts; complex languages like Latin have been shown to boost cognitive capacity and raise standardized test scores; a large portion of English vocabulary has its origin in Latin words; and the ability to translate Horace and Vergil

will make one the life of any party (kidding, mostly).

These are all good reasons to learn Latin, but none really answer the question of why Latin specifically: why not Ancient Greek, or Hebrew, or Classical Arabic, or Old Norse — or any other ancient language with a storied past and rich tradition? The easiest answer is that Latin holds a privileged place in the western tradition. Latin was the language of ancient Rome and the primary language of the artistic and intellectual life of Europe into and through early modernity. We

are, for better and for worse, the inheritors of a western tradition whose primary means of thought and expression was Latin.

There is, however, also a simple, historical answer to the question of why Latin has always been a cornerstone of “classical education” that gets at the heart of what a classical Christian education is and reminds us of what it is not.

As the Roman empire declined and Christianity ceased to be a persecuted religion, a new institution emerged: the monastery. Throughout Christendom men and

Educating students in the classical liberal arts tradition similar to the ancient traditions utilized by European monasteries

women sought to create what St. Benedict, whose Rule for monks would become the most widely used rule in the west, called “schools of the Lord’s service.” Monks and nuns took vows of poverty, chastity, stability, and obedience and lived in communities dedicated to prayer, supporting themselves by doing (usually manual) work. While monasteries were anything but isolated from the social, economic, and political life of the world around them (monks and nuns were not typically hermits), the focus of the monastery was not, at least ideally, upon these things.

At the heart of the monastic life was the reading of and meditation on scripture, both through the daily rituals of the monastery (primarily Mass and the Divine Office) and through “Lectio Divina” (holy reading), a slow ruminative reading of and meditation on the scriptures. And so the monks had to be able to read, understand, and analyze Latin. The founders of the first western monasteries were Roman aristocrats and so they brought with them the Roman aristocratic model of education: it was the best model they knew. And to teach Latin, they turned to the classics, which they saw as providing the necessary tools for learning. A novice monk or nun could be expected to learn study the basics of the Latin language and eventually progress, just as the Roman schoolboy would, to more complex texts like Vergil’s Aeneid, through which they would learn the finer points of rhetoric and analysis.

in European monasteries during the so-called “dark ages.” For this reason, one often hears that the monks “saved civilization.” This statement is not exactly false, but it overstates the truth and misses the point of monastic life (and indeed the point of education at large): if we could speak to medieval monastics and were to ask how they went about “saving civilization,” they would be quite bewildered! They preserved ancient culture not out of some sense of cultural pride, and not primarily out of antiquarian interest. They were concerned for their souls and wanted the tools to study and teach God’s life-giving Word: the tradition of ancient Rome provided these tools, so they turned to it and

“We as teachers at Jackson Hole Classical Academy have no delusion that we can save western civilization.

We do something far more important: civilizations rise and fall, but the souls of our students are eternal. We educate them as such.”

made it their own. Anything they “saved” was saved not for its own sake: it was their own salvation that animated and directed their work! The cultural accomplishments of the monks might, in a sense, be taken as a witness to what Jesus says in Matthew 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

delusion that we can save western civilization, for civilizations always have and always will rise and fall by forces and causes much greater (in worldly terms) than a small K–12 school. We do something far more important: civilizations rise and fall, but the souls of our students are eternal. We educate them as such. Preservation of the goods of the past and the hard wisdom we learn through memory of its evils is noble. But in light of the fact that we provide eternal goods to immortal beings, any cultural preservation we accomplish is a means, not an end. While a school is different from a monastery in most ways, we turn to the ancient tradition of classical learning like the monks and nuns did because it is proven to work, and because it provides, at its best, tools for human flourishing. To turn to our mission statement, though we do seek to prepare young men and women to contribute meaningfully to “a flourishing and free society,” we seek this not directly, but through the formation of our students — “to cultivate within our students the wisdom and virtue necessary to discover and fulfill their God-given potential.”

To put it bluntly, we would know virtually nothing of the Latin classics if it weren’t for copies made

They sought God’s Kingdom and, along the way employed (and thus handed down) so many good things from the tradition they had inherited.

We as teachers at Jackson Hole Classical Academy have no

Latin, in short, sharpens the mind and opens for us the depths of a tradition to which we are, in many senses, the inheritors. As a Christian classical school, we study it not because we are antiquarians or because we are fighting to preserve an endangered past but because, ultimately, Latin — like the tradition of classical education at large — has proven to be a fitting and beneficial object of study for a being created in God’s image and destined to live with God in eternity.