Many faithful Canon customers discovered us through the classical Christian education movement. Although we didn’t publish Doug Wilson’s Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, we have worked hard to continue the vision laid out in that book. Between curriculum (like our popular Logic and Latin textbooks) and practical how-to guides for Christian educators (Repairing the Ruins and Classical Education and the Homeschool), we’ve sought to give parents and teachers sound advice as they compile curriculum and work to raise Godly children.

Believe it or not, the classical Christian education movement is not very young anymore. Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning is nearing its twentieth birthday, and yesterday’s students are quickly becoming today’s parents and teachers. Growing up is a good thing, but it’s always accompanied by new problems. Each generation and era presents different problems, and different problems require different answers. Further, mistakes and shortcomings can be undetectable without the passing of time. What this means is that today’s parents and teachers are faced with a whole new set of obstacles. Classical Christian education is still blossoming, but it’s important for us to prune where needed.

Which brings us to the Genesis audio set. Dr. Mitch Stokes, a Fellow of Philosophy at New Saint Andrews College (teaching both bachelor and graduate level students), brings a fresh pair of eyes to the classical Christian education movement. And while he has much to praise, he also has some much-needed constructive criticism to aid the next generation as they follow in the footsteps of pioneers.

This four-part conference set focuses on the student: namely, what are the student’s needs and how should our education meet them? Yet, Stokes does not advocate dumbing-down our education or “meeting students where they are.” Instead, he focuses on the future: what kind of people do we want our students to be after they have been educated? And this leads to other questions. What should our children know? How ought they to work? When you think about education in these terms, there is no room for sloppy teaching or non-demanding requirements. Education is supposed to stretch students and enable them to go further than their parents. Does your curriculum do that? How about the way you teach or structure your children’s studies?

Stokes is not pointing fingers in this set. Instead, his criticisms are loving, couched in terms of looking toward the future. It would be foolish for us to think that we’d discovered the epitome of education; what we ought to think is that we’ve made a good step, and we ought to give our children a love of learning so that they might learn more than we did, so that they can take that next vital step. For as Stokes points out, education is not about winning a sprint—it’s about persevering through a marathon.

Click here to purchase Genesis: A Classical Christian Educators Conference.