Higher education is broken.
Most Americans would agree with this fact. The problem is not simply about grossly expensive tuition rates and professors who ascribe to moral relativism and defame religion. Higher education is crumbling because it does not understand what true education is.
Christian Halls International was formed in response to this brokenness and with a desire to provide a remedy. It partners with universities and empowers local chapters to become sources of true community, virtue-building, and classical education.
Far too often, those who care about Western civilization and its Christian inheritance are satisfied with merely criticizing the educational system as it exists, but Christian Halls goes well beyond that. As its mission statement puts it, “The answer is not to attack that system but to build an alternative — one that serves communities first, formation second, and credentials as an output, not the goal.”
Students are never to be viewed as a commodity. They are not clients, and education is not a product for them to purchase. Christian Halls builds networks of mentors and students who are in search of the true, the good, and the beautiful. Its students are formed to be excellent at the art of being human.
Christian Halls recognizes the profound reality that man is social, and thus that human formation happens best within the context of community. “Our shared mission is to build self-governing communities of formation where people of any age directly contribute to the creation of human virtue and social flourishing as an embodiment of Christ’s body and kingdom,” the organization says in its mission statement.
Christian Halls is an explicitly Christian project. Drawing on the West’s educational heritage, including the medieval university, its pedagogy is built around the idea that we are made by God and for God. God is truth and goodness itself, and thus studying the true and the good helps man to grow closer to his Creator.
The organizational philosophy of Christina Halls is rooted in Christian theology, particularly the concept of subsidiarity. “Higher-order bodies exist to enable lower-order bodies to do what they can do for themselves.” Christian Halls seeks to empower local chapters to have intentional, flourishing, and self-sustaining communities.
Just because the Christian Halls communities are local does not mean that they are not aiming to have significant impact across the country and the world. “Large-scale social change requires a network of independent organizations aligned around a common agenda, shared measurement, mutually reinforcing activities, and continuous communication,” the organization’s website argues. The “backbone organization” serves the network, it does not control it. Since “education is incarnational,” place comes first. Students can search for halls near them and join the community in order to enrich their academic growth and their flourishing as a human person.
But how does it work, concretely?
Students enroll in a partner university, which provides academic credits, transcripts, and degrees. However, students generally meet somewhere local (with online content also available).
Christian Halls works on a tutorial model. Students meet regularly, in small groups, with a tutor who guides them through readings and discussion. Each student must prepare before meetings and be capable of engaging in dialogue with peers and the tutor. This forces students to grapple seriously with the subjects they are studying.
The tutorial model is grounded in mentorship, dialogue, and personal formation. This is truly a classical model of education. “By clearing the rubble of a failed educational system that emphasizes mass production and standardization, Christian Halls are returning to this time-tested approach that treats students as whole persons rather than consumers of educational content.”
The entire ecosystem and infrastructure of Christian Halls is unique, but it is also simple. Gather together experts who desire to form young people through intentional education. Restore education to its role as forming the human person rather than merely handing out a diploma for completion.
In time, this model will, I pray, begin to change the tide of the broken higher education of our country and create a new generation of virtuous and faithful citizens.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
