Advent provides us an opportunity to build our relationship with Christ. The Christmas Season provides us an opportunity to take reflection of our past. The new year provides us further opportunity to seize our future. Together the seasons permit us to place our plans in God’s hands for His blessings and grace.

However, how often or how many of us truly make the time to delve deeply and contemplate our lives? I venture to say it is becoming more and more difficult to do because we are constantly plugged in to those short bytes of time consumed by technology and other means of connectivity. More and more we are in a constant state of distraction--especially our youth.

Our current state of public education seems to have fallen victim to the same rush. My high school-aged sons rush to school to hurry through all their different classes. Somewhere in there they wolf down lunch with the hope for a syllable of time for themselves. Activities or sports consume their afternoons, and then they rush home to complete homework assignments and cram for tests. After a semester or year of study, I consider how much they have truly learned or remembered living in such a state of rush.

Isn’t it ironic that the etymology of “school" originates in the Greek word schole (skoh-LAY) meaning restful learning. The idea was that students learned through discussion, conversation, and reflection among friends. They would make time to receive Truth, Beauty, and Goodness in contemplation and then discuss their discoveries with friends. If we think about it, the classes we remember most growing up were the ones in which our teachers engaged us in similar, meaningful wonder. They were the classes we enjoyed because our interests were piqued.

Thus, teachers must cultivate this love of wonder, this contemplation, this schole--much like time in prayer. There is a saying, "We've got to get to the Acropolis!" that embodies a philosophy that we must experience the learning. “Come see what I have seen!" We must live it and make it our own. At St. Anthony's we must imbue our students with the desire to observe and study, to think deeply about that which matters most in life. To, again, instill a wonder and awe for Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.

It is our contention to re-visit schole through our classical education model in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. While we will continue to maintain a rigorous academic routine and teach how to properly plug in and utilize technology, we will be more purposeful, more contemplative in doing so. It is our intent students will delve more deeply into their studies. They will not just taste, but savor, their education, so it remains with them long after their journey at St. Anthony’s reaches its conclusion.

I have shared previously that the over-arching purpose of the classical approach to education is to fill the student with a deep and pure sense of wonder-to discover for himself the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, so the student is able to see himself as created in the image and likeness of God. Much of this endeavor comes through contemplation over time, through discussion, through prayer, through wonder and awe--through schole.