Ageless Beauty, Aged Wisdom:  The New Renaissance 

Who has not witnessed something similar to the following scene at least once in their lives? … An old-timer renovating an even older building in hopes of restoring it to its former glory  Though many times these archaic structures are bull-dozed and replaced with something decidedly cheaper (albeit uglier and flimsier), who does not admire the painstaking effort that some people take not only to save old buildings, but to restore them to their former beauty?

During one particular project, an aged (though still very capable) carpenter made a point to show his observing admirers how much more skillful the older fixtures in that particular building were constructed than those now available at the local home improvement store.

Then he kicked a slab of wood at his feet.  “Look at this board,” he said.  “Notice anything about it?”  The observers stared blankly.

“There are no knots in any of this wood.  When they built buildings and houses back then, the boards had to be perfect.  No knots.  Boards with knots were used to build barns.”

He then demonstrated the quality of the arched frame of a door, the brickwork on the walls.  And he made sure that those present understood that these buildings were not for the rich or privileged, but for the common folk of that time.  In other words, the highest quality possible was once the abiding standard, not the economic expediency of a surface facade.

Back to the present.  We are now living in an era where most anything from the past is either scorned or smugly dismissed as irrelevant.  It is a grievous trend, indeed, but especially so for the old-timers to have to watch the value-system that built this country being systematically bull-dozed by a misguided conviction.

This is not just true for buildings but for so many other aspects of American life:  the raising of children, respect for law enforcement  and, of course, education.  Which explains the ever-mounting national pushback, and rightly so.

When classical education has been around for a thousand years, while its counterpart has only been around for a hundred, it should not surprise the education establishment when unrelenting levels of consternation get triggered with “we the people.”   Given a product that is best described as “tinny” (to quote C.S. Lewis) in terms of its substance and depth, one begins to rethink one’s commitment to the “latest and greatest.”

While the progressives were building new buildings, the rest of the country looked the other way, even though the boards had knots in them.  For over seven decades now, we have been “progressing” in the scholastic product we’ve been producing.  Yet for many, those older buildings are looking better every day.

We went from phonics to literacy malpractice (i.e., “whole language”), even though the research had consistently shown the former to make better readers.  

We went from teaching morality (including sexual morality) in our schools to  value-free madness – no judgment, let teens decide for themselves (as if the average adolescent is going to choose restraint when given a choice).  Consequently, we have reaped a society riddled with sexual addictions and off-the-charts (before unthinkable) brands of sexual chaos and confusion.

We went from Noah Webster to John Dewey, from the vocabulary and structure of Latin and Greek as the basis of all language study, to teaching a convoluted language arts that doesn’t even include the parts of speech anymore.

We went from teaching formal logic as one of the core courses in a school’s curriculum to injecting hard-core propaganda, and then wonder why some Americans really do believe it is more compassionate to not enforce our border laws.  We went from producing great thinkers to assembly-line learners who want to be “cool” and accepted more than anything else.

And still, in spite of all the evidence – in spite of a product that leaves much of the country’s head spinning – up to 40% of the body politic remains stubbornly married to a worldview that has given us cheaper, chintzier, uglier buildings.  In the great apostle’s words,“Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” 

Thankfully, it’s never too late to change course, and signs of a renaissance are everywhere, beginning with the rebirth of K-12 classical schools. I say bring it on.  Let’s restore some of those old buildings.  They’re just so beautiful.   

Brian Schroeder is the former Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction, an ordained minister and founder/president of The ChrisCorps Commission (bschroeder081858@gmail.com)