In this episode of the Clapham podcast, rhetoric faculty Kelsey Peterson continues to discuss the senior thesis component of rhetoric training at Clapham.
One of the distinguishing factors of classical education is the emphasis on quality. In contrast to conventional education, which tends to be limited to skill-training and content transfer, classical Christian education includes the development of moral evaluation: training students to recognize and appreciate the good, true, and beautiful.
Rather than approaching education as a means of ideological inculcation, classical Christian education truly aims to equip students to think for themselves. In this aim, however, classical education isn’t simply satisfied with original ideas or evidence of creativity; rather, classical Christian education is concerned with the quality of a student’s thinking. What does this student believe, and why? Do those beliefs reflect reality and the revealed will of God, or are they the byproduct of our current culture? Are the student’s beliefs reasonable given the available evidence and situation?
Following the classical trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, Clapham’s senior thesis is the capstone of rhetorical training for our students. This course is designed to guide every single student through the work of researching, writing, and defending a substantial academic project. The process refines their research, composition, and oratory skills and amply prepares them for holding forth in the public square on behalf of Christ.
The summer before their senior year, students are encouraged to consider which modern challenge to tackle. Once fall comes around, they begin their research project in earnest, building a bibliography that will equip them to engage with the important components of an issue, be it unplanned pregnancy, caring for those with terminal illness, women in ministry, environmental ethics, technology, and more.
The benefits of the senior thesis project are manifold:
Students are prepared for university-level research and paper writing. Undergraduate professors are famously tasked with teaching their students research methodology at the 101 level in college. At Clapham, students leave high school already prepared to engage with and tackle building a worthy bibliography– one that isn’t filled with Wikipedia snippets and links. Furthermore, they are equipped to take that research, synthesize it, and formulate a sustained argument, following a carefully guided process under the mentoring of our Upper School faculty.
Students are equipped for a sustained engagement with a big question. In The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape famously writes to his nephew, Wormwood:
“I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy [Jesus], of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years’ work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument, I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at that part of the man which I had best under my control, and suggested it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the countersuggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear what He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line, for when I said, ‘Quite. In fact much too important to tackle at the end of a morning,’ the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added, ‘Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind,’ he was already halfway to the door.”
Through the senior thesis project, students are required to sit with a question and wrestle with it until they reach a satisfactory position. The project stretches their attention spans, building their tolerance and aptitude for analyzing a sustained argument, and enabling them to consider their own (and others’) positions seriously and charitably. The world desperately needs leaders able to consider and respond to urgent matters. Because some things really are more important than lunch.
Finally, students are truly equipped to speak, present, and defend themselves in a public forum in front of an academic panel. Rhetoric training is concerned with many things, not least of which is presenting on important matters in public contexts. Ultimately, the senior thesis trains our students in leadership and public speaking, as every single one of them is required to participate in this process. The aim of this project isn’t simply to give the students self-confidence, though that is a worthy by-product of this process; it has the much higher goal of forming them as servant leaders, capable of leading transformational change for the next generation.
Make sure to listen in to Kelsey’s podcast.
If you are interested in learning more about Clapham’s Upper School, we’d invite you to schedule a tour, where you’ll have the opportunity to meet current students, faculty, and staff, and to see for yourself how we cultivate leaders for the future. Schedule a tour here: https://www.claphamschool.org/schedule-a-tour/