Pragmatism is not the enemy of a classical education.
And yet…
Somedays I bounce from practical to theoretical faster than a ping pong ball. I relish the delight and wonder of pondering the “deeper magic” and the beauty of the mathematics of calculus or even exponential functions. I want my children and students to glory in the Creator who bestowed the ability to know Him through his creation, while also keeping Himself a mystery to be revealed through His Son.
These things are good, they are beautiful, and they are true, but they don’t pay the bills. They don’t explain how to understand electricity usage, read a graph, understand a statistic, balance a checkbook, and pay our bills on time. Do I ignore one in favor of the other? Do I choose what is best, sit at the feet of Christ, and ignore the need to eat? Oh how I wish I could.
Rather, I acknowledge my weakness, find strength in my God to perform the mundane, and find beauty in the middle. I encourage my children to lose sleep in order to watch the northern lights, and to save money to buy a house. I do both. I can’t ignore that we live in a physical world with real practical needs anymore than I can ignore the beauty around me. The road lies ever before us and as the Scottish proverb says, “for every one mile of road, there are two miles of ditch.”