Virtue Is Not Theoretical

"Virtue is not theoretical. It is extremely real, practical, and usable."

That is the claim Katy McKinney makes in this episode, and then she proves it out of the life of her school.

When people first hear "classical education," she says, they think of Latin, the great books, history, and all of that matters deeply. But a classical education has never been only the filling of the mind. It is the formation of the whole person. So at Lafayette Classical Academy (LCA), two questions get asked instead of one: what does this student know, and who is this child becoming?

Katy, LCA's Founder and Head of School, shares three stories from the school's own families. A seventh grader who came in behind and disengaged, and graduated having found that she loved the subject she liked least. A boy who used to dread getting out of bed for school, and now points to his recitations as the reason he can walk into an interview and speak. And a second grader who ended up in open water with the boat blown away from her, where the word that broke through her panic — fortitude — was one of the four cardinal virtues her class had been practicing all year. Her mother wrote to Katy afterward: if it had not been for Lafayette, neither my daughter nor I could be writing this.

None of it happens accidentally. It is focused, disciplined work, daily habits, high expectations, the curriculum, coaching and correction. It is loving students enough, she says, to call them to go higher.

She also names the temptation she sees in education today: to assume that when we love our children, we lower the bar. "That is not loving the child. That is a cop-out." Children are more capable than they know, and the job of the adults around them is to hold the bar high and walk beside them until they meet it.

Lafayette Classical Academy is a classical school pursuing excellence in academics and excellence in character, together. If this episode encouraged you, share it with a friend — because our nation is not renewed first in the courts or in the capitals, but in our classrooms, in our families, and in our children's hearts.

For more information about Lafayette Academy, A Classical School please visit https://lafayetteacademy.org/

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Lady K podcast. I'm Katie McKinney, the founder and head of school for Lafayette Academy, a classical school. And today I want to talk about one of the most, I feel, beautiful and essential parts of a classical education, which is the formation of virtue. When people first hear about classical education, they often think about maybe classical music or maybe a classical curriculum, which is fine, particularly the classical curriculum component. They might think of Latin, the great books and history, and all of that's great. And those all matter deeply. That's wonderful. But a classical education has not always only been the filling of the mind, but it's the formation of the whole person. And so we we ask not only, you know, what does the student know, but who is this child becoming? That is a really key ingredient to all of this. And I remember thinking, you know, when you have a school, you know, for those of you who've heard the podcast where I talk about how I started a school, you know, I wanted those two things. I wanted excellence in academics and excellence in character. It concerned me that we we have lots of institutions that perhaps cultivate excellent academics. And kids intellectually are very bright and very sharp. However, when you leave the character component piece out of it, that that knowledge, that intellect could be wielded for nefarious things. We don't need that. We've got plenty of that that we need to take care of. But if we have students who are intellectually uh, you know, inclined and yet at the same time have beautiful, caring, thoughtful, loving character, wow, what a great combination. Um, that is what this country needs. It needs the moral formation of its people. Um, because there is no police state, because there is nothing governing us but ourselves, that is our ticket for for playing, right? Our ticket for entry is to make sure that we have the moral formation in order to self-govern, in order to preserve liberty, not just for ourselves, but for all. Because in essence, if we don't do that, then that will likely get usurped and we won't have it at all. So the character component for me is extremely important. And I wanted to make sure that we were cultivating that just as purposefully and faithfully as we were the academics. Okay, all that to say, we are we are preparing our children for life and we are preparing them for hard things, for temptation, for disappointment, for responsibility, and preparing them to become the men and the women who can think clearly and speak truthfully and act courageously, um, and in the end to govern themselves. You know, we all have this thing here, right, called the phone, that that tries to govern us really. It takes its, it sucks away and steals our time and our uh so many things. And so that I mean, we have the opportunity to govern ourselves every single day, if not hourly, at this point. Um, and so we want to prepare our students to do just that. Um, this formation does not happen accidentally, it is extremely uh focused and disciplined work. And it truly is through daily habits, through high expectations, through the curriculum, through coaching and correction, that we are able to love our students enough uh to call them to go higher. Um, and that that classical education gives our children the mode in which uh I would say modern education is completely left in the dust, which is this moral imagination to be thinking of what is good and true and beautiful. And so our curriculum is littered with beautiful examples of courage that our students need to think about, or words of self-control, self-governance that can overcome emotion and reaction. Um and it gives them in history, gives them pictures of sacrifice and perseverance and duty and honor, and like we've talked about in other podcasts. Um, and so those stories and that language becomes habits for our children. And those habits um become their character and that that storehouse of knowledge and of experiences, um, it really fortifies the soul to be formed in a way that is aimed towards what is good. Um, so I wanted to share with you three stories, um, ones that have been very impactful to me as the administrator of Lafayette, um, but I think they also help illustrate beautifully the importance of virtue because these students have taken that virtue into their own personal life and um has have made a wonderful difference in their lives. So these stories have come through observation and through, in some cases, their parents. So I wanted to start first with Natalie. She came to us when she was 13. She enrolled. Um, she was, I think, in seventh grade, if I recall correctly, yes. Um, and she was sort of a typical teenager. I remember she had a big streak of red in her hair. Her hair was brown, but she had a big streak of red. Um, she was not super interested in taking a tour. I could tell right away through her body language that she was not happy to be there. Her parents were wanting her to be there, but she was not thrilled. Um, she was probably more interested in books than she or boys than she was in books. Um, and the biggest concern at the outset was how to keep her engaged at school because she didn't seem to really take an interest in the academics. Um there was uh a sense of self-esteem, uh, an eager to fit in with a sense of low self-esteem and an eager to fit in with her peers. Um and when, and that was all sort of prior to us, coming to us, and when the pandemic hit, um the online learning was terrible. The mom confided in me that she was like, it was, it was, I I won't say the word, but it was, it was, well, as my as my college professor said, it was H-E double double hockey sticks or H. E double toothpicks. But in any case, it was not fun. They decided that they had to do something because they were worried about Natalie and um they wanted to make sure that she was taken care of. So not long after um Natalie started at Lafayette, they noticed a change in her attitude. Um, when they picked her up, she would start talking excitedly about her day and about what she was learning. Um, the curriculum was very difficult and she oftentimes would struggle, but they saw a new sense of determination in her to succeed. Um, and she started to take pride in her work. And the teachers were quick to communicate with the parent when they thought that Natalie needed extra help or assistance. And the positive changes that they saw were not just related to school, but her friends and her family started to notice as well. They commented on her attitude. Um, and they the mom said that we could not predict all the ways in which Lafayette would positively impact their family. Um, and they feel that not only was their daughter receiving a better education at Lafayette, but it was helping gain a level of confidence that they didn't really know even existed for Natalie. What I love, Natalie just graduated, actually. So she she was with us from seventh through twelfth grade. And one of the beautiful moments that has happened this last year was she was um taking an advanced algebra two course. And the teacher noticed within her uh just a renewed sense of, I would say, and Natalie would probably say, you know, math is not my favorite uh subject, but she said by the end of that class, she says, I actually love math. I really enjoy doing this. And I think that too is a beautiful uh demonstration of the formation of helping our students learn to love all these different subjects, these different languages. I would say math is a language. Um, and she came around to the point where she actually was loving the process and um that awakened, sort of reawakened herself to that love of learning. Um, so even it gives me hope that even when a student seems disengaged, um uh they're not necessarily apathetic. Um, sometimes they just need a little nudge uh to be invited into something that's worthy of their attention. And sometimes too, the child just hasn't been challenged in that specific way. So um I think it's it's wonderful that there can be a deep satisfaction that comes from doing difficult work. And then the child can kind of step back and realize, you know what, I can do this and I I do enjoy doing it. Maybe I even love doing it because I love who I am becoming in the process. Um that's formation and that's the the result of virtue education. Another story is a story of Will, who also came to us in seventh grade. Um his mom shared that um they had enrolled Will and two had a similar experience with education prior to coming to us, that he became disengaged, that he really did not like school. Um, and in a very short time after attending a classical education, he became very engaged in his work. Um, he, when he was at a public school, he found it very hard to get up in the morning. He would dread going to school. And for the first time in years, as he began his journey with Lafayette, he was waking up happy. He was getting right out of bed, getting ready to tackle his day. He would actually do his homework willingly. The fighting stopped. We hear that very often that kids stopped fighting over homework. Um, and he was even doing homework without being asked. That was a real joy for the parents. Um, he was working hard, he was more confident, and he says that he owes all of that to Lafayette. Um, the atmosphere provided an optimum uh environment for him to thrive. And uh at one point he said, Mom, I really like this school. Can you believe that? I'm actually saying I like school. And she was like, No, I can't actually uh I can't actually believe you're saying that. So that was a real joy. Will is well, was a senior. He just graduated and now he is headed off to State Technical College. Um, he is going to complete the cat diesel program. And um, as he looks back on his experience at Lafayette, one of the most impactful things is that he learned how to speak, um, speak in front of people, kind of going back to that eighth-grade recognition uh moment that we've talked about in previous podcasts. He learned how to present in front of people. And that has helped him tremendously when he's gone in for interviews or when he's had to lead a team, um, his critical thinking and being fearless at attacking those types of things, whether again, if it's speaking in front of people or whether it's tackling a specific project, he has come so far and he credits Lafayette the recitations and the different hard work that he was needing to do to catch up on his academics. He attributes to Lafayette. Again, formation of virtue. These kids had to do hard things. They had to tackle academics that they were behind in. Both of those students, Natalie and Will, had come to us and they were behind in their academics. They both caught up beautifully and are now extremely competent uh academians and are very confident in their work. Um, and Natalie is hoping to be a school teacher, which is wonderful. I think both Will and Natalie's story speak to something that children are often more capable than they know. And as adults, we need to continue to believe in them and set the bar high. We need to provide the structure, we need to provide the accountability, um, teachers who expect something from them, and also walk beside them when needed so that they can meet that expectation. But um I think there is a temptation today in education and particularly that assumes that when we love our children, that we just lowered the bar. Um that is to me, that is not loving the child that is a cop-out. And instead, we need to really hold the bar high with the faith and the communication to them that we we believe actually you can do this and we're excited to see you do it. Um, you're capable of more than you think, and I am not going to give in to your frustration, but I'm going to help you and um we're going to know that doing hard things is worth the effort and it will make you a wonderful individual in the end. I before I share the final example of beautiful virtue, which was a very dramatic example of virtue, I want to pause because, in the literature that we read with our students, we will often come across moments of virtue. I've shared many of those before, but one that has actually impacted me that I thought a lot about as a school, both parents and students, two winters ago, we decided to read The Long Winter. It happened to be during a very bitter winter here in Missouri, not as bitter as the one that the uh Wilders uh dealt with or the Ingalls dealt with, but let me just share with you briefly this story. So in the book The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls-Wilder, it tells the story of a town called Desmet during the terrible winter of 1880 and 1881. Um, what ended up happening was winter set in like in October, and they had snowstorm after snowstorm. Like every three to five days, they would have a huge snowstorm. And what happened was the town became buried in snow. And by buried, I mean like 10 to 12 feet of snow to get out of their house. And of course, this happened over time, but they would literally have pathways to their barn that were way above your head, like you couldn't even see around you. That's how um how deep it was. Trains could not get through, food was starting to run out during that winter, and families were starting to face the real possibility of hunger. There's a moment where um Mr. Ingle um was so getting so thin. They had potatoes and they had some grain to make bread, but they didn't have a lot of other things. His face was starting to get gaunt, um, and he was he was definitely losing weight in a rapid way. Well, in that moment, there were two young men, one of which many of you might know, Almonzo Wilder, and then his good friend Cap Garland, um, decided that they needed to do something again uh to help support the survival of this town. Again, I think back to virtue and the incredible number one prudence that granted, I don't know if it was a wise thing to go out, but it was wise to sacrifice oneself to try to save the town. Um, it took an immense fortitude for them to do such because it was a very scary prospect, which I'll describe to you in a minute. It was just. Um, we wanted to, you know, preserve life and temperate. You know, they had to put their fears aside. They had to put their own desires of being warm inside or to the side to help support the the town. So they had heard that there was wheat at some settlers' home, but it was in the story, I think they said it was roughly 20 miles away. It was extremely cold that winter. They talked about temperatures being 20 and 30 below zero. And that was like just normal, I guess. Um, and so uh the weather was very unpredictable. Blizzards, as I said, were rolling in. Um, and they they obviously they didn't have, you know, north face gear, they didn't have weather reports, um, they they uh they didn't have boots the way we have today, but they decided to go anyway. And they traveled across the frozen prairie. Again, the snow was so deep, um, they their horses would often get stuck. They had muzzles on their on the mouth of their of their horses. Oftentimes that would get frozen, they'd have to stop, defrost it somehow, um, so their horses could breathe. They also um they could only see the tops. Okay, so back up. Just to give perspective here, as they headed out, you know, normally you're gonna see roads, right? And you could say, Oh yeah, I know how to get there. I've got the roads to guide me. They had no roads at this point, if if they're buried in 12 feet of snow. Secondly, normally you could gauge by landmarks, trees, right? Or rocks or whatever. The trees, you could only see the tops of the trees. So they didn't even have that to guide them. I assume they had a compass, but they had a general direction as to where the settlers' house was. Um, but it was a general direction. And it was in 20 degree below zero weather, blizzards rolling it at any time, just crazy conditions. This was a very fearful potentially situation, but they also knew that it was a crisis and that they had a town to save. This is why these stories matter. Virtue matters. This was incredibly a virtuous act. And in the end, what happened was they were able to bring back 60 um, 60 bushels or 60, you know, sacks of grain back. They made it back. Literally, they could see as they came. Oh, there's there's so much good detail. I won't, I won't spoil everything, but you got to read the story. I would highly recommend. As they're coming back, they can see a blizzard on the horizon and it's rolling in and it's rolling in fast. And they're trying to get their horses in. They're trying, they're imagine bringing in 60, you know, bags of of wheat back. That's gonna be extremely heavy. And they literally got the horses in the barn just as the blizzard hit. And I just shudder to think if they hadn't gotten back in time or if they'd been a mile away, mile farther away when that storm hit, they may not have made it back. And the town may have perished. Uh, uh, Laura Ingalls Wilder may have perished, and we would never have all the stories we have from her. So just an incredible story. Okay, all that to say, it brings me to Astrid's story. And to me, this is one of the most powerful stories we have received ever, being in the Lafayette community, but I want to share it because it shows in probably one of the most clearest ways that virtue is not theoretical, it is extremely real, practical, and usable. The cultivation of virtue becomes something that a child could call on in a moment of hardship, but also in a moment of great fear. And I also credit Grace Leonard, who was the teacher at the time, who really articulated those virtues so clearly to her students and helped them truly understand what, in this particular case, fortitude meant. Um, so I got this email in June. So it was after school had ended because this happened in the early part of the summer. Uh, and I'm just going to share with you the actual email that the mom wrote to me. And I got this on a June morning. So I'll just share it with you. This is the most dramatic illustration of the value of a Lafayette education. So dramatic, in fact, that if it had not been for Lafayette, neither my daughter nor I could be writing this email. We were house sitting for my mom and my stepdad who live on a lakefront. Astrid and I went out on a boat in the lake. Astrid is a good swimmer, and she insisted on not needing a life jacket. I regretted that I conceded to her will. We were playing a game of catch in the middle of the lake with a tennis ball, and I told Astrid that the mom was going to go into the water. So she said, When I'm in the water, the boat is your life jacket, so you need to stay on the boat. So she threw the ball, and the mom jumped in to retrieve it. And for reasons that are only known to Astrid, Astrid jumped into the water as well. All of a sudden, a strong wind blew in and blew the boat away from us. I asked Astrid to swim to the shore as she was closer to it than I was. She panicked. And instead, she swam to me and wanted to climb onto my back, which she did, and where I felt helpless to save her. What saved both of our lives was that she had just been going to a school that year that drilled the four classical virtues prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. And the one that came to my mind in the water was fortitude. I told her to use fortitude and swim to the shore. It was the only thing that could break through her panic. My goodness, was she brave? The purpose of this letter to you is to let you know that our school, sorry, that your school and its ethos saved two lives. With eternal gratitude, Natalie. And the daughter was in second grade at the time. She's now in eighth grade. She is a beautiful, radiant young woman. But that to me is one of the most impactful illustrations as to the importance of a virtuous education. Hopefully, our children never have to face a life-threatening situation. But if they do, that those four cardinal virtues can be their anchor in the moment of a storm. So we teach our children how to read. But while we're teaching that, we're also teaching them stories about how to be brave. We teach them mathematics, but at the same time we're teaching mathematics, we're teaching order, and we're teaching them discipline and perseverance if they don't get the right answer. When we're teaching them history, we're also teaching them about sacrifice and wisdom and duty. And when we teach them poetry and recitation, we're also teaching them language that may return to them when they need it most. The the idea, the word fortitude, did not appear into Astrid's mind by accident. It had been something that had been planted and had been repeated and had been practiced. It had been talked about in stories over that year and over the many years that she had been with us because she had started with us in kindergarten. But it had formed her, in her imagination, it had formed something real. And that reality of her understanding of fortitude allowed her to actually then demonstrate it when it mattered most. Um it became an anchor for her in that moment of panic. And I think this is what is so beautiful about a classical education. It's its aim is higher than academics, it's higher than information. It is actually formation. Um I'm so grateful for the opportunity that I have and that our teachers have, and our parents and our children to live in an educational environment that cherishes virtue on so many different levels. Um, because it allows us to see the highest and best come forward in our community. So thank you for joining us for this episode of the Lady K podcast. I invite you to share it with a friend if it's something that has inspired or impacted you. Um, because our nations are not renewed first in the courts or in the capitals, but in our classrooms, in our families, and in our children's hearts. And this is how we're going to preserve the promise of America. Thank you for joining me.