The Gifts of Freedom, Responsibility, and Work

The last article of the 2022-23 newsletter series is also the last principle of the Capstone Community Covenant. Over the course of the school year, we have meditated upon the mutual commitments we have made to one another for the fulfillment of the mission of Capstone to the glory of God. You have been exemplary partners with us, and the faculty and staff have made me very proud as they have honored well the trust you have placed in them. Our joint commitment to one another in this covenant has been foundational to the fruitful community culture we enjoy.

Freedom, responsibility, and work are gifts we celebrate at the academy. Free people are not free unless they are given the opportunity to live as agents of their own learning. We want our students to wrestle with their schoolwork and, at times, to be frustrated by it. We even want them to sometimes fail—at least for a season. We want them to make choices and to accept the consequences of their own choices. 

Allowing people to make more choices necessarily creates some risks and instability. While safety and stability can be achieved by reducing freedom, we believe that freedom is essential to human dignity and flourishing. Wisdom, virtue, and resilience are best learned when we are permitted to have agency over our lives—even when that agency leads to bad decisions and poor outcomes. Only when given ever-increasing freedom are our children able to learn wisdom and virtue that ultimately will protect freedom not just for themselves but for all, and that will consistently improve outcomes for themselves and their communities. That freedom, however, must include accountability when it is used to act foolishly, or it will be robbed of much of its power. 

If freedom with consequences has been provided, as our students move through the upper grades they will be able to experience ever-increasing responsibility as we remove nurturing structures, one at a time, leaving them ultimately as resilient and independent philosophers. For them to become independent lifelong pursuers of wisdom, parents also have to take steps farther back from their children, letting them self-advocate at school, permitting them to turn in schoolwork that does not meet the standard so that they can receive feedback with which they must wrestle and from which they can grow, and giving them more ownership in problem-solving within the social difficulties of growing up in community. Teachers and parents must move from doing for children to facilitating and assisting to ultimately letting the student take all initiative and consequences with limited parent and teacher intervention and support.

For such a progression to be fruitful, our children must embrace work, which is one of God’s most gracious gifts, to the extent that we embrace it as good—even delightful. Work and recreation are both good gifts from God. Contrary to some theological misconceptions, work was given to man before the Fall. It is not a negative consequence of sin. We were made to work from the beginning. It is life-giving, not something to do as little of as possible so that we can truly live. At Capstone, we seek for all classroom-based work to be meaningful and not to embitter children with busy work or with a volume that is counterproductive. 

Truly living involves working. At Capstone, we encourage work for its own goodness. Both the act of working and the results of work are rewards. The process and the outcome are both pleasures. Over the summer, we encourage one another to engage in work and to let recreation be only one aspect of summer. When we recreate in excess over the summer, our character development and the character development of our children stagnates or regresses. Whether that work takes the shape of scholastic activities, landscaping, nature hikes, or building a deck with dad, I encourage you to make work a part of your family’s summer while also enjoying the recreation He has provided to us for our good.

This summer, may God give you and your children countless sweet moments of wonder and joy as you pursue goodness, truth, and beauty together for the glory of God and the benefit of your family. I will be praying for you and looking forward to what God will do with our partnership in the 2023-24 school year.