Our Philosophy of Education
Educating the Whole Person for Virtue
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Education must address the whole person because the whole person is created in the Image of God. It cannot be reduced to the transmission of information, academic achievement, career preparation, or practical skills. Christian education seeks to form the intellect, imagination, affections, habits, desires, relationships, and character of the student. We want students not only to know what is true, but to love what is good, delight in what is beautiful. The classroom is a place of human formation, where students are being shaped into particular kinds of people. Smith Prep is not just informing minds but shaping affections.
The goal of this whole-person formation is Christian virtue. Following Augustine, virtue may be understood as ordo amoris—the right ordering of our loves. Students are taught to love God above all, to love their neighbors rightly, and to value the things of creation according to their proper place and purpose. Christian education seeks to shape both what students know and what they love. The goal is not simply academic success or preparation for a career, but the formation of wise and virtuous people whose loves are rightly ordered and whose lives increasingly reflect Christ.
The Image of God
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Every philosophy of education begins with a view of what a human being is and what a human being is for. Christian education must be rooted in a biblical understanding of the human person. Scripture teaches that we are creatures made by God, for God, and in the Image of God, Imago Dei. Education cannot be reduced to passing on information, preparing students for jobs, or teaching practical skills. Education is about forming people who know what is true, love what is good, delight in what is beautiful, and live faithfully before God.
The doctrine of the Imago Dei gives Christian education both dignity and direction. Every student bears God’s image and possesses inherent worth, regardless of intelligence, achievement, status, or ability. At the same time, human beings are created with a calling: to know God, love their neighbors, steward creation wisely, and contribute to human culture. Education must therefore shape more than the intellect; it should also form the imagination, affections, habits, relationships, and character.
A biblical view of humanity also recognizes that God’s image has been marred by sin, though not destroyed. Students possess great dignity, but they also need formation, discipline, grace, wisdom, and redemption. Christian education should neither assume that children are naturally virtuous nor treat them merely as problems to be managed. Its goal is not simply to produce successful graduates, but to cultivate wise and virtuous human beings who increasingly reflect the character of Christ.
Christian Humanism
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Christian humanism affirms the dignity of the human person because it first affirms the wisdom, grace, and goodness of God, our Creator and Redeemer. We seek truth because God is Truth; we pursue what is good because God is Good; we rejoice in what is beautiful because God is the source of all Beauty.
Unfortunately, humanism is a word that has fallen into disrepute among Christians by its recent association with the adjective secular. At Smith Prep, however, we are committed to the recovery of a distinctly Christian humanism.
There can be, in fact, no truly secular humanism. As many astute thinkers have noted, the “death of God” leads finally to the death of man: the devaluing of the human person and the disarray of human culture. This is why we believe a recovery of Christian humanism is in order.
What we mean by Christian humanism is simple: a commitment to human flourishing informed by a biblical understanding of the human person. Our educational philosophy is grounded in this commitment.