For over two decades now, Trinity has had a tradition of reading together as a school community, especially over the summer.

Our books have been of different sorts across these years:

• Some have been living books of the imagination, to help us all experience the kind of education we are wanting to offer our children (Hans Christian Andersen’s tales, George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin).
• Some have rooted us all more deeply in the Christian mission of the school (the Gospel of Mark, last summer’s Amos, The Jesus Storybook Bible).
• Some have explored the classical heritage that informs Trinity’s mission (Tolstoy’s “Two Old Men,” Handel’s Messiah, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress).
• And some have helped the Trinity community, especially our Trinity parents, understand more deeply the mission of the school and how it impacts the way we do school at Trinity: Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, Ken Myers’ All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, and Andy Crouch’s The Tech-Wise Family.

This year we return to that last sort of book, one that will help our parents and others take a deeper dive into the distinctive mission of Trinity.

Our book is Susan Schaeffer Macaulay’s For the Children’s Sake.

I first read this book the year that Trinity was founded. It was one of my early introductions to the educational philosophy and methods of Charlotte Mason, and in bringing it to the Trinity community this summer, we are giving everyone a chance to soak in Mason’s approach. When you hear the words “rich yet unhurried” in our mission statement, you are hearing strong resonances of this pedagogy. It’s especially impactful for our Lower School, but increasingly we are talking about how the broader principles of Mason’s educational views shape and form our Middle and Upper Schools as well.

Besides introducing our parents to Charlotte Mason, this book will introduce us to a family and a story that we should know. The author, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, is the daughter of Edith and Francis Schaeffer, the founders of L’Abri ministries. The culture and story of L’Abri seep into this book, and I would love for everyone to know more about these stories. Several of the founders of Trinity were impacted deeply by the Schaeffers (of which I was one, first cutting my theological teeth on several of Francis Schaeffer’s books in college).

First published in 1984, Macaulay’s account of her family’s quest for excellence in education is now a period piece, and it will feel a little outdated to many of us. But part of a classical education is visiting places and times that we haven’t inhabited—it’s a diversity of a sort we don’t always talk about. And I think you’ll find that even across the distance of decades, there is still much that rings true, good, and beautiful in the vision of education that she sets forth.

To help us all read this together, we plan to put together some practical ways that families who read this book can follow along and learn together. And when we return in the fall, we look forward to gathering parents together to talk about this vision for education and how we can live into this as a school community.

So here’s to some good reading over this summer.

Non Nobis,

Dr. Denton
Head of School