Latest / CASTLcast / PILOT - Kicking off a Brand New School Year
Transcript
- Jake: So welcome to the inaugural episode of Castle Cast, the official podcast of the Chesterton Academy of St. Louis. Here today with Dr. Schiff, the headmaster of our prestigious academy. How are you doing today, Alex? I am doing great. I'm pumped for this first edition of Rhino Radio. So I'm calling it to the students. Exactly, exactly. So yeah, brand new school year and brand new podcast. and I think that's super fun. What a cool way to kick off the school year. I think so too. You a a new school year can beat you down. You can start feeling sorry for yourself. there's too many changes. It's overwhelming. And so the thing the classical approach in that sense would not be to say, no, you're right, take some time off. No. You strengthen an arch by adding to it. Right? We add weight to the arch to strengthen it. So we think, Wow, it's overwhelming to be back from somewhere and there's so many new students, we're up to a hundred and one this year, so the most students we've ever had. And we'd be tempted to take it easy on ourselves. But nope, podcast, and probably next week we'll figure out something else new to do as well. Just to keep the edge. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I think the podcast will be a great tool to continue to celebrate all the wonderful things that happen inside the walls of this school building that that most people, you know, parents and community members, benefactors, don't really get to experience on a day-to-day basis. Exactly. It's like what do they do in there? This is the first year we We've even had any signs on our school designated it as a school. So there is there is a lot of secrecy to it and then people ask you, what do you do at classical school? Well, Latin and we read the Odyssey and things like that. There is a mystique. Yeah. But this is a way to kind of freely share, give people a little window into the school and let them know about a lot of the fun we're having. That's really the main reason for this castle cast is I don't get to teach as much as I would like anymore. So now I get to teach you in this podcast. And you me, and we'll have a very good time and maybe four to five people will listen. I think a lot more than that. I think a lot more. We'll see. yeah, but definitely so sit downs with you as the headmaster. We're gonna talk about all kinds of things. kind of big picture things and philosophical things and pedagogy and culture and wonderful things. We'll sit down with some of our amazing faculty members. Right. Things of They're d doing the classroom and some of them have Studied a lot of amazing things. So that'll be wonderful to talk to as well. Yeah, we we let them know that this was coming for them about how long has it been now? Four hours ago during a faculty meeting, and there was a moment of silence. So I thought to say something encouraging. I told people you don't have to have a full forty-five minutes, but if you've got five minutes that you really are excited about something from class and you want to share. And apparently I wildly misread the room because one teacher leaned over to me and said, Well You've got three hours. So I thought, okay, actually we're not gonna have a problem getting our faculty members on this podcast after all. This is gonna be sort of Joe Rogan, Matt Fred, finest the finest, three hours of I I don't know. You know, it's a new thing, we have to see how this baby grows. today's episode will not be three hours. We should at least agree on that. I I'm with you on that. We're gonna keep it tight. We'll definitely be done by the time to get you up there for the Roman martyrology, an important tradition. To end the school day? Yep. I I did the Roman Martyrology thing in my prior job as well. Prior to being a headmaster I was a director of marriage and family life for an archdiocese. And the different departments within our secretariat would take turns leading prayer. So of course I always led the Roman Martyrology. And one day I was gonna have to miss doing it. The secretary expressed regret to me. She said, We won't know who got murdered today. I'm I'm so sorry. So yes, we gotta end with the Roman Martyrology and give lots of announcements. because there is a lot going on. Absolutely, absolutely. We will get to hear from some special guests, people that helped found the school, some of their vision, and I'm also excited also for some student perspectives, our wonderful prefects. Yeah. We'll have just a few of those here and there. A little bit of seasoning goes a long way. Okay. Well We also don't want it to go to their heads, you know. Right. You know, well I'm on a podcast. Right. That's not classical at all. No, they need to they're the the sheep lead, right? They're the the the learners. the students right now. So, we mentioned we're kicking off a brand new school year. Right. And so like where do you start when you think about that? What you know, what goes through the headmaster's head when he when he thinks about, okay, it's time to kick off a whole new school year. Okay. Yeah, and I don't know if you really want to play by play. I was gonna go through the stages of grief like leak despair, anger, denial, but no. it it's exciting to have this many students to see something growing like this, especially in St. Louis, a community in which there are a lot of Catholic schools, but we are apparent So to see it growing in that way has been very exciting, up to 101 students. Getting new faculty members in is great. Not just the new expertise you all bring and your different personality types, but you also challenge us in a way we need to be challenged. say things to me like, hey, maybe you could the students could share some of these papers during morning assembly. And I think to myself, but then they won't be hearing from me for five more minutes. But then on reflection I think, okay, this is good. This is the the new water flowing into the lake, freshening it. So no that's so that's on my on my mind. A lot of it too is the best headmaster in our Chesterton schools network often says that a headmaster has to be ahead of the game. That's that's his line. And it is it's a lot of things for me. In one way it's hortatory. I think, okay, I've got to get ahead of the game. I've got to get faculty orientation pulled together. I've got to get student schedules pulled together. I have to get a a reasonable cleaning regimen in place for this school. And but then it's also kind of an accusation. You constantly feel I am not ahead of the game. Shame on me. But as I've grown in this job, this is now the fourth, you know, new beginning of the school I've had. I've come to accept that a little bit more, that there's a certain degree in which you can plan and get things well organized and do your best. But the beginning of the school year is just necessarily gonna be in Problems you could not have anticipated, new challenges, new issues. And that's just part of the job. So as we were preparing for this episode, and y you told me I should have something classical, not just rant about my feelings. But the the thing that came to mind was Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic philosopher. And we're starting the pre-Socratics right now with my freshman philosophy class. We haven't gotten to Heraclitus yet. We've only done Thales. But Heraclitus is the guy who says everything is flux. There is no being, there is only becoming. Cannot step into the same river twice. But the line that really kept coming back to me as we started the school year is the sun is new each day. The sun is new each day. And of course that can be connected to his cosmological outlook, and there's no stability and everything changes. But it can also be a reminder that what the school was last year is not what the school is now. And The sun is new each day in the sense that we have to actively rebuild this school each year. People often don't realize it, they think it's an established thing and I'm gonna come in and it's just gonna be taken care of for me. I told the students, no, if you want a school where we support each other, you have to make that school. If you want a school where people don't gossip about each other, you don't So and challenge your friends what they do. Like would you say that to his face? What would you say if you were here right now? If you want the kind of school where people don't complain about everything but say, Okay, I'm scared, but I'm gonna try it. Make it, do it, be it, be the change. So I I keep coming back to Heraclitus. I was perfect the other day. I sat in on your class, now I'm gonna publicize this for everyone. And these poor juniors who are barely having their sleep schedules adjusted and Half of them aren't in the correct uniform yet. You hit them with this Gerard Madley Hopkins poem whose title I can't even correctly pronounce, something like Nature as a Heraclitean Fire and the Comfort of the Resurrection. You nailed it. And it was did I nail it? Yeah. Okay, good. Excellent. But it was great. I just thought it told me like I hired the right guy. I'm thinking Heraclitus, he's thinking Heraclitus. We're on the same page. My note. Right. But it but it it spoke to me, right? Because it's talking about This just brutal cycle of nature that it pours rain, but then the ground then dries up after that, and the ooze becomes cracked earth, and it's and it's even fire gets quenched by this and the ceaseless thing, but then the resurrection kind of springs in to give you hope. So that's where a headmaster is at the start of a school year: you're tempted to bleak despair, thinking I have to rebuild the thing all over again. I just finally, in May, got them all sorted out, and now. Now you're giving me twenty nine new ones, or we have even more than that this year with transfers. And I I have to build the whole thing over. But you think, no, is this a problem or is this an opportunity? Is you know that we have the help of God, the resurrection is a is stepping into this Hera Clayton fire to impose some order. And you even see that in the rhythm of our day, that it's high energy, high energy, we go to mass and it's just stops for sure, right, in that church. And then we come out and the chaos resumes. And we do it every day. But there is there is an order, there is a logus to it. For sure, for sure. Yeah, I I like that idea of you know, making anew the school each year. Yeah. I mean in May, as you were just saying, you graduated the first graduating class. Yes. you know, which is really cool. Yeah. and and for them you were saying that they they ha they had to make the school. They knew that. Yeah. They knew that coming into it as like the founding class. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But freshmen don't necessarily realize that. They knew it because we only signed our lease on the building two weeks before school was supposed to start. They literally had to carry into the space the very implements of learning. They had to carry in banks of lockers and tables and have all kinds of terrible mere accidents doing that. So for them it was i that learning was almost embodied for them. And now it's figuring out how do we get that same insight in our current new students? Like they are still still the founders of this school. They are still building this school. Yeah. Yeah. Which which speaks to the whole kind of effort of building a culture. Mm. so as headmaster, like how do you approach that? You know, what are your sources? What wisdom do you try to bring to this effort? Yes, so the first source is obviously the church, right? I'm not gonna reinvent the wheel of the church. has certain liturgical seasons. We try to be very attentive to those. And the students may not all not all even know this yet, but come lent all of a sudden things change. There's more prayers. There's an examination of conscience at the end of the day. Right now though, there we're in the the ordinary time of the year. the green meadow as V Maria von Trapp described it. So we're just trying to tell them, it's okay, we're growing here. The corn is growing. The sun is shining, the water's coming up, there's there's a little chaos. But just go with us and you're gonna grow. So in terms of culture, definitely look to the church. We look to the upperclassmen students as well. I mean this although last year was our first graduating class, in a way this is really the end of the experiment because these seniors are the babies we had four years ago. They were the ones who started with us as freshmen and progressed through the ranks. And so if we can't trust them to add a little culture to the school we haven't done our job very well. But they are. They are. They they step up to the challenges of leadership. And then even within those upperclassmen we have house prefects which is an initiative we started last year. And these are students, you know I I I listen to the opinion of students on B Should Be Prefects. I listen to the opinion of faculty on B should be prefects. And we select these people to lead their houses. So they are enormous culture builders in the school because they're close to the students. They share the heart of the students. And I this really came through to me last year with field days. we have seasonal field days, where we do big sporting games, but also swing dance competitions, art competitions, all kinds of fun stuff. Yeah. And the prefects last year talked me into letting them design the last field day. And I I arrogantly thought to myself, well this is going to be a disaster. No, it was wildly the most popular field day. I thought, okay. And they did a great job. It was a field day worthy of Chesterton Academy students. So upperclassmen students in the prefects are a big factor. And then of course every teacher is a culture builder. Every we have certain shared standards in the school about how we do things But each teacher's classroom is that teacher's little domain and she is he or she is king or queen. And it will have its own liturgy, its own customs. So one of my favorite parts of the school is when I sit in on different classes, seeing how different teachers pray at the beginning of the class. It's it's all wildly different, but it's all very effective, and I think the students really enjoy it. They enjoy the variety. They enjoy the variety. So our we today we had our big combined all school choir class. As you might imagine, they sing their prayer and they sing it in harmony. It just sounds angelic out there, so that's great. In my class, philosophy classes, again, you know, a grubby little philosopher, we we say very brief, quick prayers. I can't skip this done to get to reason, you know. But we we pray, we are we're not heathens. You know, in your class you have certain prayers for certain days of the week, I noticed. I thought that was a good rhythm. Mr. Gunn hasn't prayed antiphonally, the men and ladies are alternating, so there's just this kind of beautiful variety. I'm still waiting and challenging our math and science teachers for some sort of mathematical prayer. I don't know what that will be, but I just want them to know I'm open to the possibility. Blaise Pascal, St. Augustine has a lot of stuff on numbered as well. Yeah, it's true. It is possible. Gauntlet has been dropped. I like it. Well, I don't I you're asking all the questions, but let me turn the tables on you. You're a you're a new teacher here at the start of a new school year. Yeah. So give me what are you feeling right now? What what is the new teacher's perspective on a new school year? Yeah, wow. Okay. So One thing that I think is very apparent at Chesterton Academy is a joyful easygoingness. and that that shows up in a lot of different ways where you you mentioned before the v the variety that you know okay, teachers must pray before class. Right. But how you pray, how long you pray, you know, all the little intricacies of how you do it is very much left up to the teacher, which is great. And and I think that that same principle is applied in a lot of In a sense, the sort of the philosophy of school is like we don't really care how you get to God, just as long as you get to God. Yeah. Yeah. And and very much a respect for the freedom of the individual, their personalities, and the way they want to do things. And and part of that is also a respect for the students. and and so this is helping come alive with the preventive method. John Bosco that I think is a really big part of the school's philosophy. That I don't know how much that was was really talked about, but it I I I see it being lived out every day. And so this was something that was I had I was aware of, had not read much about it, and then at Gestion Schools Network Summit that we had this summer. I got to go on a seminar on it. And then we read it as well in faculty orientation. And then now I'm seeing it lived out every day. The the so the rejoicing in the students. And okay, we need to create an environment where know they're not getting into trouble, but everything else is great. Right. Right. Yeah, we talk about it a lot with faculty. St. John Bosco's preventative method. I've never, to my knowledge, talked about students. So we can you and I can talk sometime about whether I should. 'Cause in one way I think, well, that's the secret teaching. That's letting see behind the curtain and can't do that. In another way, there might be some value with it because it would prevent possible misunderstandings. So to describe it really quick in a nutshell if if you'll allow me to. Yeah, please. St. John Bosco was asked to explain his method of schools. And his word for his system is the preventative method, and it is in contrast to the repressive method. The repressive method is what we all slide into as teachers around February, which is I give you a list of rules, I make sure the rules are clear and you understand them, and then I step back and simply wait for you to break some of those rules and then give you appropriate consequences. And I don't mean to suggest, and I don't think St. John Bosco meant to suggest that there should be no rules or But a preventative method tries to get on the front end of that process. There are rules, they are clearly communicated to students, but you don't step back. You step in. And you are supposed to be present with the students as much as possible. Not just in the classroom, but as much as possible, even recreating with them. And his idea is: take a silly example like use of foul language. A student playing ping pong is much more likely to use foul language if you're not in the room, in contrast to if he is playing you in ping pong, or if you are standing right by the table cheering him on while he is playing ping pong. You you are as it were preventing him from doing evil, not in a way that takes away his freedom, but in the way of an appropriate type of friendship that you are And if you see a student kind of as a teacher, if you see a student getting too angry, beginning a cycle of escalation, you can then prevent this from going to a bad place. You can say, hey, why don't we just step away for a second, or why don't we let someone else take a turn? Why don't we stop and say a little prayer? Whatever you need to do. So so if you look at our school, we're we're in our classrooms teaching, but during our lunch period, which we call life scene, by the way, because we want them not. But walking around like Aristotle students and getting activity. Our teachers are generally out and about. You'll see some of them sitting there talking to students. You'll see others out where the students are, maybe reading a book. You'll see me lately overthrowing the frisbee with some young ladies who are teaching me how to actually throw forehand and take away my shame and embarrassment when I play Ultimate Frisbee again. You'll see other teachers occasionally winning ping pong games versus students and doing this kind of thing. So So we're not there to say students don't have any freedom or that students can't have their own lives, but we are just there in an appropriate way to help them do this thing, to l to live appropriately while they're on our campus. So that's the preventative method. And again it really It needs grace, it requires grace because the old man, the man of original sin, will always try to slide into the repressive method because it's easier. I gave you the list, now I'm gonna go back to my office and have some time away from you. When I hear you yelling something in the hallway, I'm gonna come out there like the very justice of God and you are in so much trouble. It takes more energy to be out there to just be with But I think it is a good method when we're able to do it. Yeah, no absolutely. I I mean I think that there's there's kind of different extremes out there, I think, in in thought and of on kind of on one hand, maybe this is sort of sometimes the philosophy of hey, like the kids need freedom, the kids, you know, students need just just just let them, you know, be independent and they'll figure it out. It's like well Maybe, but they also have original sin just like the rest of us. Right. And so they may figure it out or they might, you know, turn lower of the flies on you. And w we don't want that in our school. Right. And so but but also whether really cool thing I think about the preventive method is that if you're there and helping them, like you did with all those field days leading up to the to the Prefect popular field day. But you help them to understand what is the culture of a field day where you're competitive but you're not like you know, addictive and you're not Sabotaging each other. Right. You are, you know, cheering each other on, even as you are cheering your house on the most. Right. So you can help create a culture and w if we are there with the students, we can help them create a culture that they will hopefully defend and protect once they understand the goodness of that culture. Like you said, starting that new school year. Hey, do we want a school where people gossip? No. And I'm gonna call out when when I see people gossiping as a student because I I want to protect the school that I love. Yeah, the culture is so formative. These and that's what's tough to go back full circle now to the beginning of a school year and then the Herod Flyden fluxes. There are the rules, but so much of it are the habits, the unwritten rules, the the customs, the mannerisms, the way we do things. And that you have to be patient with that culture as it builds. But just it will build if you have it in touch with these various sources, if you have Anchored in the literature. Sharing. if you have student prefects leaving their houses like well developed you can trust. But earlier in the year it it's not there yet and you're just in a panic like why why don't they know how to clean? Why don't they know where to go right out? Yeah, absolutely. On a similar note, question. Turn the tables on you again, you keep tempting me into talking because you know I'll just sell and sell, so now it's your time to talk again. I do think the beginning of the school year is interesting because in its own particular way it presents a general human problem to us is how do you deal with the times of flux and change. We all have these. We have times where things are pretty much stable and then you have times where you have no idea what's happening. And for me it the school in a way is the easy part. It's being a parent and having all these different practices and all these different school pickup times. And I've been talking about it with my life and sometimes we just don't even know how it's all supposed to go together. So this is my question for you again, back to you as a new faculty member in a new career. at a new school. Are what are what are the human tactics for dealing with change? 'Cause it could help in a school scenario but it can help in a life scenario too. What what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, no, I mean that that's a awesome question and I definitely think it's something that probably a lot of parents are dealing with right now. to interact with many parents over the years, helping them with the formation of their sons. Right. And and you know, like you said, that's the hardest job in the world in a way. Because it is very paraclidon. You you are dealing with constant change. Like, hey, didn't we clean up this room yesterday? Yeah. And all the toys are out again. We lost Sarah's keys over the weekend. Her keys were going. out of nowhere because the three year old had put them in one of her shoes. But we went days without her keys. Well sorry I interrupted, so you're back on the hot seat. Yeah, no that's exactly right, right? So how do you deal with a time of transition? How do we deal with the with sort of a state of flux, a state of change? I can only go back to the wisdom that I've been handed, we c which is like a a sporting spirit which says like, Okay, like we begin again. And Something didn't go well, okay, that's alright. Well, like I and I've seen you kind of bring the spirit to students and like fail forward is how we say it. Fail forward. Yeah. And it's like, well, for these reasons, that didn't work out quite the way we want it to. And so for these reasons we're gonna move forward. With this principle in mind, with this grounding principle in mind, which is ultimately the principle of love. Okay. I think is is what I see and I think this is the way we need to operate as as people, as parents, as human beings in a society. Say the the the cleaning of the bathrooms. is not the end. Right. And so we've had some issues with, you know, okay, you know, maybe we're not getting done by three forty five or maybe we're not getting to each specific task item or, you know, this the athletes aren't getting changed right away. Right. So we can't get into the bathrooms to clean those and so that's starting late. And it's like it's you know, everything looks good on paper and it's it's only when we start to put it into practice it's like, okay, we need to adjust here. Right. And so in this, you know in the w when everything is, you know, needing to be adjusted in this you know Yeah, it's cool. What's the main principle here? Well, we're we're trying to have a clean school because that aids the environment of learning. Right. Why does it aid the environment of learning? because it shows that we think it's important. Right. We shows that not that we think the the cleaning is important, it we sh it shows that we think the learning that happens in the clean school is important. not just the learning but the formation of the whole person. Right. And and what this what the school is for for these students as well as ever every other member of the So we gotta go back to the the the main goal, laugh at the little mistakes or laugh at the you know getting put into the shoes. Yeah. and restart again. Yeah. We just girl forward. I this morning, providentially, because we were gonna record this podcast I think after my F three workout, one of my brothers shared his reflection and it had to do with this very topic, how you deal with the time of So I didn't have my little black notebook to take lots of notes like I normally would, but I did my best to remember. And his point was yours, slightly different language. You talked about there having to being kind of anchored in a principle. That's what he talked about, that when things get crazy, you have to just accept that, but you find a few anchors, whatever they are. Right? So one anchor is just very much for a rational animal. Knowing why we're doing this thing, what's the goal? Why are we making you clean the bathrooms when it's taking too long and we're doing a terrible job and the people who are supposed to be here aren't here and where's Billy? We can't find him and all of this flux. But if we know why, that anchors us. And then amidst all the flux, we do have certain things that anchor us as well, like the daily celebration of of mass attending that or a a period of Those things kind of bring us back out of the flux and then get us that moment to say, okay, we start again. For families, again, some families are a lot better at this than my family is, but we've really found family prayer is an important anchor. And it's it don't don't visualize anything good here. It's terrible. Right? The dogs are in the room. You have to constantly st tell people to quit playing with the dogs. Lately, when we've been doing kind of like a little litany of the saints, someone will say, As Saint, Saint Augustine, and all say, Pray for us, and then the three-year-old will proceed to yell it out all over again. So we we have this kind of doubling of all the implications. So it's terrible, but just that that anchor that this is something we do every day in the midst of all the craziness is important. And they can look forward to it, know it's there, and it also just kind of lets them know that things things are perceiving in a rational way. don't know how we're gonna get you through the soccer game. No, I love that. so kicked off a brand new school year. Yes. I think you have a pretty good sense of kind of the kind of the curriculum in general. but I don't know if, you know, a lot of the parents really kind of appreciate sort of the you know, sort of the you know the master plan, if you will, of of the the Chesterchen curriculum. do you wanna just speak a little bit about kind of the hallmarks of diving into here. Okay, I'll try. Very high level. Very high level. So I don't know if I could do this in nine minutes, but I I have one thought I'd like to share. One of the things I love best about our curriculum is we take summer reading seriously. At all of other schools I've been at, if there was summer reading, it was encouraged but then it was kind of optional or blown off. And I don't deny that some students, maybe even some students I'm related to, may have done their summer reading at the very last moment, like on the car on the way to school or something like that. But the point is we do make use of it. So the freshmen are reading Greek mythology, the incoming freshmen. The soft the juniors coming in are reading the screw tape letters and the seniors are reading Frankenstein. Sophomores I can't remember they missed the North Someone that we changed. That's right. And their first week after they get their syllabus is they have assignments related to these texts. So those who actually did the summer reading diligently are rewarded. And those who didn't do the summer reading are moderately punished. I mean there's plenty of time to catch up and do it, but it just communicates that no, like we're serious about this. This is good stuff. And we want you to have it. And so I've always liked that. So that's what I've been seeing in in the various classes right now is using these little summer reading assignments as an entryway into the various subjects in that way. Yeah, I love it. That's a little bit of an anticipation. Right. Which is a So you were better equipped to answer this question than me though, 'cause I you're you're teaching a class in which you've been working on some material out of C S Lewis's screw tape letters, which is summary for the juniors. So how has that been going? What have you been doing? Great, great. Yeah, and like you said, it's cool to jump right into it, like, hey, we know you already read it. So like throughout the school year, like they will have a lot of assigned reading. they're expected on their own to read We're we're like this semester we're doing the divine comedy. All of it. There's a lot of reading. Not just the inferno. There are there are two other books. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. and next semester we have Don Quixote, we have Much Ado About Nothing, we have Hamlet, we have Saint Thomas Aquinas by Chesterton. Ponto poem, which is not short. True. as well as some other poetry which I'm excited to fill in for and so th they're quickly realizing like, you know, okay, it's a good thing I read this because we're gonna use this. and the same applies to all the other great books that we're gonna read. And one of the things which is really cool as a new faculty member is just reflecting on, man, like even at my grade school and high school, which were Catholic We read terrible books. And like or just like a book where it's like what was the goal here? Like it didn't really deform me in any serious way, I think. But it's like, what was the goal of reading the outsiders? I can't tell you, Alex. I'm not sure. I thought it was seventh grade at a Catholic grade school. All the English teachers just unfollowed us with that very comment. I mean, I I still love the references, yeah. Pony Boy, SodaPod. I enjoyed the book. I just can't really tell you like what I was supposed to get out of here. Yeah. Now, you so you mentioned screw tape letters. One of the things we've been doing, we've been kind of attacking it from a couple of different angles. I always like to, you know, kind of look at the look at the the book itself. each of the students actually wrote an example screw tape letter on the subject of Instagram and YouTube. Yep. And how how they could or how various forces you know would want to twist these sort of platforms against against their patient which are our beloved students and so it was really edifying to see the letters that they they wrote and it shows a lot of care for souls I think so that was really cool. I did apologize for putting them through that exercise. I promised them you know okay I won't try to make you think diamond just a just a good way to start off the the section. Right. We talked about the law of undulation, which is in the book. We talked about C. S. Lewis's sort of vision of the soul which is the will at the center the the intellect surrounding that and then the fantasy or I think Thomas Aquinas would call it the imagination after it and his whole point there is push the virtues to fantasy and push the vices to the will. And so like the I think the students are really like, whoa, yeah, like if our if our virtues are charitable thoughts towards others, etcetera, or it just remains in the realm of daydream we don't actually actualize it, we're in trouble. And if vice versa, you know, our actual actions sins and we have fully consented to them, those are the real things. And so a very great image there. we looked at Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. my goodness. which is disturbing a throwback to that's a like what do you guys see? It's okay if you use the words creepy and weird. But we got a lot out of it actually. yeah this is a a pain they look at in sophomore years so it's kinda cool to bring it back. great and so we're looking at it and we're seeing the the degradation of the If we forget our ultimate end. start using the earthly goods as ends into themselves. and so they they got to see, like you said, kinda creepy, but it it it tells you something. It tells you something about And then you mentioned, you know, the poem, the drive me and the options poem. Right. which is really cool. So it's been it's been a great, you know, first week of screw tape letters with the juniors. And and one of the things that we're we're ending on is kind of a little kind of a character map. Okay. using that law of undulation, they put together a list of important pivotal moments in the life of the patient. And and this is like an amazing, I think, message for them to have in their back pockets. Like hopefully they're not going through serious like periods of desolation and dark nights of the soul quite yet here as juniors in high school, but they go through their own versions of that. And I think, you know, anybody that works with teens, you know, can see that, right? Yeah, no, I we clearly should have started with this question, 'cause you have a lot to say and I have a lot of questions and comments. This is great though. One of the things that struck me and we only have a little bit of time left, but is that they not only read a worthwhile book, as you said, comparatively, we won't mention the outsiders they're well registered, but they read a worthwhile book, but you had them try to do I think that's very important for a school like ours and any classical school is we're proposing these things to you not just as more trivia to you, but we're proposing them to you because we found them humanly valuable. And in some way with appropriate adjustments being made, we want you to be able stuff. So you mentioned art, right? We don't just have them study paintings, they learn to paint themselves. And they don't just listen to music. They learn to sing themselves. And they don't just read the screw tape letters. They dip their toe in well, okay, if I apply this kind of format to my contemporary world, what would be said? And that's just It's so exciting. Yeah. It's so meaningful. You can you can be tired, you can be burnt out, you can be angry, you can be poor, all the problems of a teacher, but if you are being able to teach in that classical mode, you will never think I'm wasting my time. What you were doing is so obviously valuable. Absolutely, absolutely. Well that's a great place probably to to wrap this. I think I think for anybody that's in formation, especially with teenagers, trying to hold on to the the goods, of what is old and and bringing in what is new. what a great way to kick off a brand new school or exactly. And We'll have more to come. This is just the the tip of the iceberg. We've we found that Mr. Jacob Ison is very willing to talk about his class given a little provocation. So look forward to hearing less from me and more from him in the future and hearing about all kinds of other classes and fun initiatives here at Chesterton Academy in St. Louis. Absolutely. Well, we'll see you next time here on Castle Cast. And remember, rhinos do exist, D to you. if they seem like they shouldn't.