Training HomeACCS Foundation of Classical Christian Excellence (FCCE)
This is a series of seven workshops. This training must be completed as one of the requirements for Professional Certification.
This foundational course in classical Christian education for grammar and secondary teachers will help your teachers and your school reach higher levels of excellence.
Note: This series is also available at the ACCS annual Repairing the Ruins conference. Join us this year to combine fellowship and inspiration with practical training.
Seven of the workshops are required for all teachers.
1. What is Christian education?
The Paideia of God by Douglas Wilson (All) Outline OR The Paideia of God by Joe Rigney (All)
2. What is Classical education?
The Classical Imagination by Craig Hefner (All)
3. How do we teach our students about beauty?
The Idolatrous Eye by Cole Jeffrey (All)
4. How do we enforce discipline with love?
Covenant Discipline by Matt Whitling (All)
5. How can we build a robust classroom culture?
Creating Classroom Culture by Mandi Gerth (Grammar) OR A Vision for the Everyday Classroom by Chris Schlect (Secondary)
6. How should teachers approach the brass tacks of classroom management?
The 5 M’s of Good Teaching by Daniel Coupland (All)
7. What techniques can teachers use that fit the developmental stage of their students?
Memory in the Grammar Stage by Lynn White (Grammar) OR Bridging Logic and Rhetoric Through Socratic Discussion by Gary Hartenburg (Secondary)
8. OPTIONAL
Biblical Worldview in the Grammar Stage by Terri Covil (Grammar) OR Hands On Formative Assessment by Bryan Lynch (Secondary)
9. OPTIONAL
Scriptural Integration by Douglas Wilson (All)
After you have completed viewing all of the sessions, download the certificate so that your head of school may sign and date the certificate. The school will keep this on file showing you have fulfilled this requirement.
| Download a certificate of completion. |
FCCE Workshops
1A. Video: The Paideia of God by Douglas Wilson (All)
The Christian faith is a religion of world conquest through the proclamation of the gospel. If we do not believe that, then every form of cultural engagement will be simply a form of slow surrender. The word paideia refers to enculturation. But in order to have Christian enculturation, you must have a Christian culture. And if you don’t have one of those, you must build it.
Materials: Outline
Related reading: “The Paideia of God”, the first essay in a book of essays on education titled, The Paideia of God, written by Douglas Wilson.
1B. Video: The Paideia of God by Joe Rigney (All)
Raising up children in the paideia of God means immersing them in a Christian culture based on the words of scripture and the natural moral order of the universe. Teachers must study the wondrous works of God and remember all he has done for his people.
2. Video: The Classical Imagination by Craig Hefner (All)
The goal of classical education is to cultivate in students a classical imagination—the ability to be set free from an imaginative captivity to our time and place. This workshop will examine the classical imagination as orienting the how, what, and why of classical education.
Related reading: Join With Us (ACCS Membership Handbook)
3. Video: The Idolatrous Eye by Cole Jeffrey (All)
Classical philosophy teaches that beauty is a divine gift with the power to liberate minds and transform hearts. Christian theology, however, teaches us that our fallen minds and hearts struggle to receive God’s gifts rightly. Conversations about beauty can help us confront the ugliness of sin and support God’s redemptive work in our lives.
Related reading: Pages 1–20 of Vigen Guroian, The Fragrance of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006). Vigen Guroian provides a helpful, concise, and profound overview of the classical Christian notion of restoring the senses. All but the last two pages may be found here.
4. Video: Covenant Discipline by Matt Whitling (All) Outline
This talk will focus on establishing a thoroughly biblical foundation and strategy for discipline at home and in the classroom.
5G. Video: Creating Classroom Culture: Giving Your Students What Lasts by Mandi Gerth (Grammar)
Related reading: Rediscovering Catechism: The Art of Equipping Covenant Children
5S. Video: A Vision for the Everyday Classroom by Chris Schlect (Secondary) Outline
Most schools have adopted mission and vision statements. All teachers prepare daily lessons. Do the two ever meet? How can a school’s mission and vision inform routine lesson planning? How can the big picture penetrate a teacher’s everyday work? This practical workshop provides strategies and concrete examples of effective classroom lessons and assessments. It offers principles that can apply at every level, but the examples will be tailored to secondary (high school) classrooms. These principles reorient teachers away from the tyranny of “getting through the material” and toward recovering the lost tools of learning.
Related reading: Chapter 6, “The Law of the Teaching Process,” in John Milton Gregory, The Seven Laws of Teaching (Boston, MA: Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society, 1886).
6. Video: The 5 M’s of Good Teaching by Daniel Coupland (All)
7G. Video: Memory in the Grammar Stage by Lynn White (Grammar)
Video: Memory in the Grammar Stage by Leslie Collins (Grammar) Outline, Slides (PDF)
7S. Video: Bridging Logic and Rhetoric Through Socratic Discussion by Gary Hartenburg (Secondary) Outline
Socratic discussion (or “dialectic”) is a powerful form of education but can also be frustrating to employ in a classroom. I discuss some common misconceptions about Socratic discussion, describe what it is, and then show how it can build a bridge from the logic stage of the trivium to the rhetoric stage. The session will conclude by describing how Socratic discussion can help student (and teachers) develop the internal and intrinsic motivation needed for a lifetime of learning.
8G. Video: Biblical Worldview in the Grammar School by Terri Covil (Grammar)
The most important responsibility and the greatest privilege we have been given as teachers is to present everything we teach from a biblical worldview. Our hearts long to praise God, and the Psalms remind us over and over again that praise should be continually on our lips. So how do we do it? How do we teach young children how to add and subtract, how to blend sounds to create words, how to properly label the parts of a fish or a bird, or to construct proper sentences, all the while teaching about the Creator? This session will suggest practical ways to ensure that our biblical worldview doesn’t get lost in the day-to-day motions of our classrooms.
8S. Video: Hands On Formative Assessment by Bryan Lynch (Secondary) Outline
Ongoing checking for student understanding—formative assessment—is an essential foundation of great teaching. This workshop will give teachers an opportunity to try out several methods of checking for understanding, providing them practical tools they can use in their classrooms in September.
Related reading: Pages 3–18 of Four Foundations of Great Teaching. Also, see Formative Assessment from Handsignals to Harkness Discussions.
9. Video: Scriptural Integration by Douglas Wilson (All)
The purpose of this talk is to explore what commitment to integrating school subjects into the study of Scripture means, and what the ramifications necessarily will be.
See the Conference Talk Library.