12 Reasons Redeemer Classical Should Be Your Child’s School

1. We Support Deep Fidelity to Your Family’s Faith

Holy scripture and the church fathers teach that the chief duty of parents is to instruct their children in the faith, and to pass on their religious heritage.

Only Christ can save a child’s soul. But parents ought to be faithful to our God-given duties, trusting him to fulfill his promises of rewarding that faithfulness. A key expression of this is ensuring our children’s upbringing is wholly Christ-centered.

2. Our Curriculum Is Unparalleled

Our curriculum is the result of careful research in child development, the work of dozens of classical schools, and the Western experience raising children for thousands of years. It is based on complete and living books rather than excerpts or textbooks.

Redeemer Classical staff examine all materials by Philippians 4:8: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Compare this to competing curricula.

3. It’s Your Child’s Best Shot at Fluency In the Universal Languages

Memoria Press founder Cheryl Lowe describes the “three universal languages” as math, music, and Latin. With these, people communicate across cultures and time. They teach precision of mind, attention to detail, and wonder at the elegance of order.

Latin was the West’s primary language for more than a thousand years. Knowing it allows students to communicate with past centuries and develop a superlative command of English plus most modern and historic European languages. It remains pertinent for serious study of history, linguistics, Christianity, science, and law. Learning it in a group setting also allows for frequent conversation practice and the daily discipline necessary for fluency.

4. Families Are Strongest Inside a Strong Community

Demographers and social scientists have penned bestselling books highlighting Americans’ declining social capital, or relationship networks. These comprise a private social safety net, and are crucial for human happiness. They are especially important to children. Research finds peer reinforcement is key to preserving a family’s values in a child into adulthood. No family can be an island.

Further, when strong families create good social networks they can invite spiritually starving people to share the bounty. The Christian church has since its inception offered of course primarily the comfort of salvation but secondarily, and in concert with that spiritual nourishment, met their community’s deep temporal needs. God made humans as incarnate souls, and his kingdom comes to meet the needs of both our bodies and spirits. Service to our neighbors, such as this, is an important Christian duty. God doesn’t give us good things such as well-ordered homes and financial means for us to keep them entirely to ourselves.

A small, faith-oriented school is a prime source of the deep social and spiritual capital that all humans need to thrive. The deeper the commitment to relationships beyond family, the greater the rewards for all families, and the better we fulfill our calling to serve our neighbors.

5. Our Low-Screen Atmosphere Fosters Self-Command and Happiness

Summarizing the research consensus, psychologist Jean Twenge says children today are “on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones… There’s not a single exception. All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness” (emphasis added).

Silicon Valley executives reveal their products are designed to foster addiction. Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft executives are dramatically limiting their own and their kids’ tech usage, saying it reduces mental capacity and harms relationships.

We want our students to master their tools, not become enslaved to them. Original thinking is not a product of technology use, or there would have been no John Adams, Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, or even Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. It is the function of a well-trained mind, the aim of the classical method.

6. Character Matters More than Anything Else

“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Jesus asks in Mark’s gospel. What does it matter if a child graduates from an Ivy League school, makes gobs of money, or even becomes U.S. president, if the price of these achievements is the loss of his salvation, or the sacrifice of his character?

Our task as a Christian school is the same as our task as individuals and as parents: To seek God’s kingdom first. Living out that pursuit is our entire reason for existing, and the fundamental reason we invite you to join us.

7. Our Students Get Outside a Lot

It has become a cliché to note that Americans lead largely sedentary lives and outdoor play has dramatically decreased. Play and movement are crucial for building the brain “highways” and storage areas that young people will later use for academics.

Play, especially outdoors, also improves mental and emotional health. With standing desks, regular nature walks and generous recess time, we reduce behavior problems, increase students’ happiness, and develop their habits of attention, wonder, and joy.

8. We Don’t Assign Busywork or Emphasize Tests

Our homework is designed to be purposeful and reinforce children’s relationships with their parents. We administer well-regarded standardized tests once per year for a few hours to inform parents and teachers, not drive curriculum.

9. Biggest Bang for Your Bucks

Not only is our tuition a bargain compared to local public school spending, which is about $11,000 per student per year, it is competitive with local and state private tuition averages, and far less expensive than the area’s best-regarded private schools.

10. Even the ‘Best’ U.S. School Districts Aren’t That Good

Statistical analysis consistently finds the U.S. school districts parents consider “good” are actually mediocre compared to their international counterpaarts. Most Americans are aware of this. In a 2017 poll, 55 percent thought U.S. education was on the “wrong track,” while just 27 percent thought it was heading in the “right direction.”

Compared to the same kinds of students in foreign countries, Fort Wayne, Northwest Allen, and Southwest Allen public schools at best perform in the mid-60s percentiles, according to the Global Report Card. If that were a grade, it would be a C.

11. Fort Wayne Families Should Have Excellent School Options

We bring an excellent education to a part of town where such schools are sparse, but affordable housing is plentiful, allowing families to re-allocate those savings to high-quality mental and moral formation for their children. Research shows establishing better schooling options increases the quality of existing options as well.

12. Your Child Never Gets Another Chance at K-12

Even one lackluster school year is a huge opportunity cost for a child, because he or she never gets that year back. Money for vacations, a bigger house, and eating out can resurface after children head into adulthood, but their formative years never return.

We all have to make choices about how we steward the time, money, and children God has given us. A stellar education maximizes them all.