There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.

I used to obsess over taking perfect pictures for Facebook.

A school has material needs and it has spiritual needs, and “admin brain” is what happens when the two aren’t rightly divided. 

Let me explain. 

Administrators are chiefly responsible for the material operation of a school. They must ensure that payroll is met. They must ensure that an adult is present wherever large groups of students are gathered. For legal reasons, they must see that various regulations and requirements are satisfied. A great many of these material concerns merely need fulfilling—it hardly matters how. Administrators do not feel the need to put “their best man” on playground duty. The consistently hungover rookie will do just as well as the brilliant veteran. A light switch which is flipped clumsily will come on just as well as a light switch flipped with grace and style.   

So far, so good.  

However, a school also has spiritual and intellectual needs, and these needs must be treated very differently than its material needs. “Admin brain” is what happens when the spiritual and intellectual needs of a school are treated like material needs. Here are a few examples: 

One. To meet accreditation requirements, a school must have a faculty development program. Administrators cobble together a faculty development program that checks a box but isn’t any good and so every teacher despises it. The administrator knows the faculty development program is bad, but “anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” We’ll fix it later. Besides, the faculty development program doesn’t have to be enjoyable, profound, or humane. There’s some benefit in all the teachers just being physically located together in the same room once a week to hear the words “our community” pronounced in warm, worship-leader tones. “If a box needs to be checked,” the headmaster reasons, “whatever checks the box is good enough.”   

Two. A certain headmaster sees that other headmasters are gaining notoriety on LinkedIn by posting their interesting thoughts on conflict, communication, excellence, and leadership. The headmaster thinks, “I should post my thoughts about those subjects on LinkedIn,” and assumes that anything true he can say about leadership or excellence on LinkedIn will “get his name out there.” As opposed to saying interesting things, though, he makes bland observations like, “Good communication requires honesty. Without honesty, communication is futile and can even be harmful,” and, “Leadership requires two things: sacrifice and humility. Without humility, leadership becomes tyrannical. Without sacrifice, leadership destroys community.” A few other headmasters affirm his posts, but only to “get their names out there.” Teachers who work for that headmaster see his posts and think, “This guy is so full of cliches and platitudes. He never says anything genuinely interesting. How is he making twice as much as us?” They see that other headmasters affirm the banal observations their own headmaster makes. Cynicism grows.  

Three. A certain school headmaster hears about a school starting a mentoring program for young teachers. The headmaster thinks, “My school could do that, too,” and is more taken with the idea of announcing the mentoring program than in putting something together that actually helps young teachers. A mediocre mentoring program ensues, no one learns much.  

Four. A certain principal sees that another classical Christian school has a started a podcast. The principal says, “My school should have a podcast, too,” and is more taken with the idea of announcing, “Our school is launching a podcast,” than he is in creating a good and useful podcast that his community profits from. The podcast is not very good. No one listens to it. When the podcast dies a year later, the principal does not announce on LinkedIn, “That podcast we started last year was pretty bad, no one listened to it, and so we’re not going to do it anymore.” Still, other principals remember him announcing the podcast and think of doing likewise. 

In all four of these examples, administrators confused a spiritual need for a physical need. They assumed that any faculty development program was better than none. Any philosophical sounding LinkedIn post was better than none. Any mentoring program was better than none. Any podcast was better than no podcast—besides, they got to make an exciting announcement. There is little concern for making any of these things really good.  

-from my latest for The CiRCE Insititute

There are schools with sucky teacher appreciation weeks, sucky compensation packages for teachers, sucky assemblies, sucky house programs, and sucky faculty development programs that only exist because of accreditation requirements–where students will still get a sermon from the principal that goes, “I feel like you’re only interested in doing the bare minimum here. You checked the box, but I don’t think you really put your heart into it.”

The full article is coming out early next week.

Every time I go to a wine bar, I hope they’re playing something like this.

These are the results of the “Worldview Checkup,” which you can take here. The results are free and immediate, in case you are impatient.

Fourteen theses to rescue wonder from the zeitgeist.

1. To discuss a thing, contemplate a thing, or enjoy a thing—either by tasting, hearing, or seeing—is not necessarily to wonder at that thing. This is true even when the thing being discussed or enjoyed is very good. Very few acts of thought or perception constitute wonder.  

2. Wonder cannot be scheduled, appointed, commodified, coerced, or sold. Unlike wisdom, wonder cannot even be offered to another. Wonder cannot be forced any more than contrition may be forced; however, adopting the posture of contrition often leads to genuine contrition.  

3. Wonder is a subliminal response to the perception of transcendence; for this reason, no man may decide to wonder. Nonetheless, we can create situations favorable to wonder. Our actions may bid wonder. While certain things are more apt to induce wonder than others, a mote of dust rightly understood may bring about the deepest wonder. Likewise, the doctrine of the Trinity or Caravaggio’s The Seven Acts of Mercy may inspire no wonder at all. 

4. A man may wish to experience wonder but be incapable of doing so.  

5. Many people adopt the posture of wonder without actually experiencing wonder; wonder is often pantomimed.  

6. The experience of wonder implies virtue; anyone who claims to experience wonder is also declaring, “I have done something virtuous”; people who often talk about their own virtuous actions are usually boors. 

7. The pleasure offered by wonder is like the pleasure of any virtue; virtue paradoxically offers a foretaste of the same pleasure it defers for later.  

8. Hence, wonder requires a long attention span; prolonged exposure to scrolling media, blockbuster entertainment, and screens in general makes wonder increasingly difficult, if not impossible.  

9. Like love, like friendship, like Chanel handbags, wonder is often faked. Like fake love, fake wonder is destructive to the soul in ways that often take years to manifest. 

10. Unlike curiosity, wonder is never satisfied; in this life, all wonder is necessarily unfulfilled; like hunger or thirst, wonder is quite vexing.   

11. One may enjoy a wonderful thing without experiencing wonder; impatient people often take pleasure from things when they could have pursued wonder. Receiving pleasure from a thing often puts an end to the soul’s search for wonder. 

12. Most people who experience wonder do not know to call it “wonder.” 

13. Wonder necessarily involves self-forgetfulness; in wonder, Peter walked on water; wonder should not be confused with the revelations that occur later, once wonder has ended, and the experience of wonder is being contemplated from a cool distance.  

14. Wonder arrives in silence; people who talk a lot rarely experience wonder; the fact a man is able to speak accurately about wonder does not imply he regularly experiences wonder. The author of these theses is not necessarily implying that he has ever experienced wonder.  

Read the rest of this article on The Classical Teaching Institute Blog.

This thing was probably made with shade grown organic aluminum that will slowly turn blue over the next thousand years.

Today, I spent around half an hour online filling out a 70+ question survey that would determine how biblical my worldview is. All the questions were multiple choice. Interestingly enough, many of the questions had nothing to do with what I believe, or even what I do, but rather how I feel when certain things happen to me.

At the end of the survey, this screen appeared.

One of the questions on the exam asked me to respond to the statement, “I always try to get something beneficial from from the way I spend my money.” I said this was “Occasionally” true. As such, I’m also the kind of person to blow $10 on the “Basic Scores-only” option. I’m just that curious.

I will let you know what my results were tomorrow, after the algorithm has assessed the biblicality of my weltanschauung.