by Dorothy Sayers

That I, whose experience of teaching is extremely limited, should presume to discuss education is a matter, surely, that calls for no apology. It is a kind of behavior to which the present climate of opinion is wholly favorable. Bishops air their opinions about economics; biologists, about metaphysics; inorganic chemists, about theology; the most irrelevant people are appointed to highly technical ministries; and plain, blunt men write to the papers to say that Epstein and Picasso do not know how to draw. Up to a certain point, and provided the the criticisms are made with a reasonable modesty, these activities are commendable. Too much specialization is not a good thing. There is also one excellent reason why the various amateur may feel entitled to have an opinion about education. For if we are not all professional teachers, we have all, at some time or another, been taught. Even if we learnt nothing–perhaps in particular if we learnt nothing–our contribution to the discussion may have a potential value.

However, it is in the highest degree improbable that the reforms I propose will ever be carried into effect. Neither the parents, nor the training colleges, nor the examination boards, nor the boards of governors, nor the ministries of education, would countenance them for a moment. For they amount to this: that if we are to produce a society of educated people, fitted to preserve their intellectual freedom amid the complex pressures of our modern society, we must turn back the wheel of progress some four or five hundred years, to the point at which education began to lose sight of its true object, towards the end of the Middle Ages.
Before you dismiss me with the appropriate phrase–reactionary, romantic, mediaevalist, laudator temporis acti (praiser of times past), or whatever tag comes first to hand–I will ask you to consider one or two miscellaneous questions that hang about at the back, perhaps, of all our minds, and occasionally pop out to worry us.

When we think about the remarkably early age at which the young men went up to university in, let us say, Tudor times, and thereafter were held fit to assume responsibility for the conduct of their own affairs, are we altogether comfortable about that artificial prolongation of intellectual childhood and adolescence into the years of physical maturity which is so marked in our own day? To postpone the acceptance of responsibility to a late date brings with it a number of psychological complications which, while they may interest the psychiatrist, are scarcely beneficial either to the individual or to society. The stock argument in favor of postponing the school-leaving age and prolonging the period of education generally is that there is now so much more to learn than there was in the Middle Ages. This is partly true, but not wholly. The modern boy and girl are certainly taught more subjects–but does that always mean that they actually know more?

Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of and unimagined? Do you put this down to the mere mechanical fact that the press and the radio and so on have made propaganda much easier to distribute over a wide area? Or do you sometimes have an uneasy suspicion that the product of modern educational methods is less good than he or she might be at disentangling fact from opinion and the proven from the plausible?

Have you ever, in listening to a debate among adult and presumably responsible people, been fretted by the extraordinary inability of the average debater to speak to the question, or to meet and refute the arguments of speakers on the other side? Or have you ever pondered upon the extremely high incidence of irrelevant matter which crops up at committee meetings, and upon the very great rarity of persons capable of acting as chairmen of committees? And when you think of this, and think that most of our public affairs are settled by debates and committees, have you ever felt a certain sinking of the heart?

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Thanks to David Goodwin and the Ambrose Group for allowing us to post from their booklet, “Discover Classical Christian Education, A Parent’s Essential Guide“. Visit the Ambrose Group website, A non-profit group dedicated to expanding the reach and influence of classical Christian education
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Modern Education

Democratic: Every student should attain the same level of achievement.

Multi-cultural: Critical of our Western cultural roots, strongly emphasizing imperialism, slavery and historic Christianity as “what is wrong with America”.

Naturalistic: Emphasizes math and science at the expense of art, literature, and history.

Secular: Holds the “spiritual” as personal and separate from education. Avoids deeper philosophical values.

Values-Neutral: All moral positions are relative and hence all positions must be equally treated.

Broken into many subjects: By breaking knowledge into pieces, it can be more carefully studied and thus understood.

Teaches facts and functional skills: Students primarily learn about subjects particularly ones that help them “get good jobs.”

Progressive: Always experimenting with new techniques and methods.

Entertainment learning: Entertain students to engage them in the learning process.

Classical Christian Education

Excellence: Take each student to their highest possible potential.

Western: Recognize the great contribution of Western culture to America and the world, including its triumphs and failures while also recognizing the beauty in other cultures.

Universal: Emphasize the humanities, arts and sciences to bring a full perspective

Integrated: Education is necessarily tied to philosophy and religion in order to train thoughtful students.

Idealism: Standards of right and wrong exist in all subject areas. Students are taught to make judgment accordingly.

Integrated Subjects: Subjects should be taught in an integrated way so that students understand the whole as well as the parts.

Teaches Critical Thinking: Students learn to think beyond the subject-matter. Content is not the goal – wisdom is.

Traditional: Hold to educational standards that have a clear record of success.

Engage and Challenge: Students will meet a high standard and enjoy a sense of achievement.

Tom Garfield discusses a Biblical approach to modern “disabilities”, and and their treatment, in this “Dear Parents” article.

Who’s Got The Right Diagnosis? ADD, ADHD, ODD, LIES

“They interrupt…they don’t follow directions. In short, they do what seizes them at the moment without thinking through the consequences.”

“Accept the fact that it is a handicap…don’t expect your child to behave like others.”
(Sandra Doran, on children with “ADHD”; Focus On the Family)

“Even a child is known by his deeds, whether they are pure and right.”

“Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord.”
(God, on children with sin natures; the Bible, Prov. 20:11, Col. 3:20)

I. History of “Disabilities”:
A.Personal experience:
When I was doing my student teaching at Moscow High School a “few” years ago, as part of my experience I was assigned to regularly teach art to a group of handicapped students. I grew very fond of these students and we had an all too short time together. We were able to complete the painting of a pretty nifty wall-mural, though. Among these students were kids in wheelchairs, kids with Down’s Syndrome, and others with a variety of mental and physical problems. However, they had at least a couple of things in common; one was they all had medically provable disabilities, the second was that they all had a generally cheerful and compliant spirit. I had few discipline problems with them, after the class rules were made clear.

B. General history – handicaps were medically identifiable, treated as such, then mainstreaming, growing demand for “equal education” coupled with increasingly poor education = Learning Disabilities growth of special ed, follow the money!
In the years since the days of real handicaps there has been a flood of previously undetected “disabilities” diagnosed. It reminds one of FDR’s “alphabet soup” of programs to fix the economy during the Depression. Considering his legacy, the comparison is not a bad fit.

C. Definitions: LD, ADD, ADHD, and my favorite, a relatively new release, ODD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Quotes from advertizement for workshop: “Symptons – Lose their temper? Argue with adults? Deliberately do things that annoy others? Blame others for their own mistakes? Are touchy or easily annoyed by others? But ODD students are not merely misbehaving, difficult young people. They are often sensitive, intelligent, capable students who need someone to help unlock their potentials.” Workshops? Diagnosis and medical management of ODD students. The underlying and sometimes unseen causes of ODD. Attitudinal Therapy techniques.”

The symptoms for these afflictions read as specifically as your daily horoscope: “Your fellow workers need your timely input today.” “Today holds many challenges for you, do your best in decision making and your future will be bright.” “To avoid explosive situations, don’t smoke around gas pumps.” What kind of diagnoses are these? Just about every kid and virtually every adult male I know could be labeled ADD, if not ADHD, but most certainly ODD at some time or other. The next one I trust we’ll see is the unabashed – LIES – Learning Isn’t Essential Syndrome, which already afflicts millions of students as well as teachers.

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-Tom Garfield
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“Virus” – n., a poison, 1. Any of a large group of tiny infective agents causing various diseases, 2. Any harmful influence

One of the tangential, but significant results of our four national A.C.C.S. conferences has been to make me painfully aware of the sorry state of Christian education in the United States. We hear from parents, teachers, administrators and board members from literally all points of the compass at these conferences.

The most recently completed conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, had more than four hundred attendees, most coming for the first time. (Not too surprising really, considering the accessibility of Moscow, Idaho, to the rest of the nation!) As at the three preceding conferences, these delegates shared with us (unsolicited) sad to awful stories about the Christian schools in their locale. One of the most common comments I’ve heard far too many times goes like this: “We would be happy to send our children to the Christian school near us, but it is little different than the public schools. Biblical convictions and worldviews are not practiced or even promoted.”

After hearing numerous accounts of Christian school problems, and seeing some firsthand, I’ve compiled just a few of the more severe illnesses often afflicting these schools:

Admission Fever: Evidenced by a low grade of student morale, and constant, chronic problems with discipline and poor attitudes among the students. Behaviors typically seen in government schools are also evident in Christian schools with this illness. Most often brought on by administrators and boards succumbing to budget pressures and admitting problem students. Can also be brought on by the lack of a restraining, definitive statement regarding admission standards, i.e. a clear picture of the kind of students desired. Some Christian schools even deny the disease by thinking they are “being a godly influence on needy kids.” TREATMENT: Immediately establish precise, consistently high standards for student acceptance, behavior, and expulsion. Follow those measures up with expelling the students that will not comply with the standards. And for the future, be ready to “just say NO” to an unhealthy application.

Verbiage Disorder: Most often evidenced by parents and staff members not being able, or possibly not knowing how to control their speech. Can produce extremely irritating rashes or outbreaks of discontent among all school members. Watch for hotbeds of talk about school or class issues that upset people, but no positive and biblical action is advocated by any of the participants. More delight seems to come from discussion than real treatment. This is sometimes excused by the fear of confrontation, or thinking that they are just “sharing concerns.” Other terms for this affliction are: Gossip, Discontentment, Lack of Submission to Authority, Spreading Strife, Loose Tongue Disease. TREATMENT: Repentance is always a good medicine for this illness (and many others), followed up by creating and adhering to prescriptive policies that allow for the biblical addressing of concerns.

Biblical Botulism: Certainly one of the most virulent diseases afflicting Christian schools. When manifested in a school, it has been known to breakdown the resistance even Christian students have to wholesale pagan thinking. Often allowed to enter under the guise of “spiritually training the students” without adequate regard to the biblically-established authorities, i.e. the family and the church. Evidenced by an abundance of “Christian” posters, stickers, banners, flags, songs, and themes, and little substantive emphasis on biblical thinking and living. This mishandling, or poor preservation of the pure gospel is readily apparent in a school when students and teachers speak and think lightly of the Lord’s Name, His Word, biblical apologetics, and consistent Christian behavior in all situations (see Admission Fever). TREATMENT:

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-Tom Garfield
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The autumn morning was warm, very warm, especially inside the large pavilion. The people standing in line, dressed in their Sunday-best felt the heat, but found that the excitement and anticipation were stronger feelings. Besides, the line was moving quickly into the building and along the partitioned path toward the large, jovial man everyone had come to meet. The man himself, though fairly rotund, seemed to be impervious to the stifling heat in the room. He genuinely enjoyed seeing each person and briefly, but solidly shaking each hand. He met each person’s eyes and had a smile or word of welcome to share. Hundreds of people flowed by in a very short time. The security men decided to call it quits long before the kind gentleman was ready, and certainly before the many waiting to meet him were willing to leave. Just before the doors were closed, the last people in line moved forward. The shy little girl, who received a special smile, and her mother were followed by a man with a white handkerchief over his right hand.

William McKinley, president of the United States, cheerfully and warmly reached out his hand to the man with the handkerchief. Instead of extending friendship, Leon Czolgosz extended a revolver from under the white cloth and shoved it into McKinley’s stomach, pulling the trigger twice…

The above could have been summed up in the brief words “William McKinley was assassinated in September of 1901 by an anarchist.” And in many American history textbooks, if they mention McKinley at all, that sentence is about the amount of coverage they give such an historic event. They certainly won’t mention that McKinley was a very strong Christian man who quoted hymns as he died of infection. Or that he lovingly and diligently cared for his handicapped wife, even when campaigning for the presidency.

There isn’t room here to go into all the problems with how history is taught, revised, or not taught at all in many schools, private and government. Rather, I would like to share with you the excitement I have about the changes, the reviving, we have given our history program. These changes will probably be most obvious in our elementary grades. Over the past year, as per the school board’s directive, the curriculum committee reviewed the teaching of history throughout the entire school. This spurred a lot of thought, meetings, and work among the staff members. At the elementary level, we came up with the following basic changes to our history program:

1. In accordance with the classical philosophy, we will try to make history (and geography) more three-dimensional for the students, through the use of many biographies, historical novels, pictures, artifacts, models, drama, etc., and less reliance on the survey-style textbooks.

2. Also in line with the grammar stage of the students, we will try to use more repetition and recitation of the key, significant dates, events, and people in history. From grade to grade, these key facts will be repeated.

3. Each of the elementary grades will have the year broken into eight units of time, of four and a half weeks each, to study one area of history in some depth. For example, fifth graders will study the culture, people, and times of the Greeks during one unit. They will read about the Trojan War and Greek myths, see photos of the Parthenon, hear how to pronounce the names of the Greek heroes, and write their own myths, to name a few activities.

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-Tom Garfield
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Over the years I’ve been involved in Christian education, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with many individuals and groups. It’s always surprising to me when otherwise intelligent, informed people have solemnly repeated common misconceptions about Christian education that have no basis in fact. Yet, because it is easier to adopt someone else’s views than research the truth ourselves, the myths continue.

Let me repeat a few I regularly hear:

1. Christian schools have good discipline because good children go there. Following this logic, people are restored to health in hospitals because hospitals only admit patients who are already recovering. This myth assumes that the treatment, i.e. applied biblical discipline, in the Christian school has little to do with the resulting good behavior. As every parent knows that is absurd. Children are sinners; only through God’s grace and years of consistent, biblical training will children’s hearts and actions be changed for the better.

2. Christian schools have good academic results/scores because they only admit very intelligent students. Sounds like a variation on the theme above, doesn’t it? It is. Like the applied discipline above, it assumes that the time-tested (and in our case, the classical) teaching methods play no part in how well the students do academically, regardless of where they come from. Nevertheless, I hear this very often, especially from public school teachers and administrators. There is an a ironic twist to this myth. When Christian schools or Christian home schools do have academic problems, the same people accuse the involved teachers or a parents of incompetence. Any stick is good enough, it seems.

3. Christian education keeps Christian students from being “salt and light” in the public schools. I hear this most often from Christian parents of elementary-age students. Unfortunately, at the junior and senior high level, I hear Christian parents saying something different. At that point, the parents will often settle for their kids “surviving”. That means graduating without becoming a drug addict or pregnant or otherwise being seriously damaged by the system. Nowhere in all of Scripture are we, as parents, commanded or even encouraged to send our little ones out to be “missionaries” in an overwhelmingly evil environment. In fact, just the opposite is true; from Genesis to Ephesians we are commanded to train our children up in the Lord and His word . I’ve seen children at Logos who are real missionaries for Christ to their unsaved fellow students. The difference is that here those young missionaries are supported and taught by adults who share the same Lord. We may even train and nurture future, mature adult missionaries.

4. Christian education shields children from the raw, ugly facts of our society. Whoops. That isn’t a myth; it’s true. That is, we do shield, but we don’t lie. The children do learn the truth, both the ugly and the beautiful facts, as seen from God’s viewpoint and with His solution.

Thank you for examining these myths with me. I encourage and welcome your comments at any time, especially if you think I mythed the point.

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- Tom Garfield
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“Is there anything which one might say, ‘See this, it is new’? Already it has existed for ages which were before us. There is no remembrance of earlier things; and also of the later things which will occur, there will be for them no remembrance among those who will come later still.” Ecclesiastes 1:10-11

“The century is turning soon. America is in the throes of a great technological revolution, the like of which has never been seen on earth. Our military can stand up to the best any other country has to offer. In fact, if push comes to shove (as it looks like it might in another part of the world where a dictator is throwing his weight around), we are read and able to show him what’s what. Our standard of living has never been higher. The economy is strong, though many complain anyway. The great thinkers of our time are urging us to make even more progressive changes in education to prepare our students for the coming new millennium, with the cry that the world is changing so fast and profoundly that only new ideas and teaching will help our children cope in this new world… of the 20th century. After all, this is the 1890s!”

Sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? One hundred years ago this month our country did indeed match the description above. Instead of Saddam, though, it was the Spanish dictator in Cuba we were bothered by. In fact, President McKinley requested, and Congress granted, a declaration of war against Spain at about this time. The war in Cuba was to have profound consequences for the United States (and the world) in the coming century. For one thing, it battle-hardened our greatest 20th century president – Theodore Roosevelt. (But that’s another story.)

We are hearing, reading, watching the same kind of endless verbiage one hundred years later. “The century is turning, the century is turning! We must warn the people!” But if the Bible is to be believed, King Solomon was the first to essentially coin the phrase, “Been there, done that!”

However, please note that not only does he say that there is nothing really new under the sun, he also says that people will always forget what went before, i.e. not know or understand history. In other words, Solomon also says there is nothing really “old” under the sun either. We can and should study and learn from “earlier things,” and teach our children not to despise the learning of lessons from history.

In Donald Kagan’s excellent book, On the Origins of War, he compares with great insight the incredible similarities between the Peloponnesian War and World War I, as well as other wars of antiquity with “modern” wars. True, there is a lot of technical difference between the swords and shields of the Greek battles and the Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs) and satellite tracking used in the recent Gulf War. Nevertheless, Solomon still speaks truly. Technology, particularly the computer, is one of the gods of this age and culture. But like all false gods, its worship does not, nor can it redeem or sanctify its disciples. Our nature remains Adamic, and therefore in need of the Second Adam’s nature.

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-Tom Garfield
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One of this century’s movie superheroes, Clint Eastwood, made the following memorable remark in one of his films:”A man’s got to know his limitations.” Please bear with me. I know it’s a little strange to quote Clint Eastwood in a Christian school, but it seemed appropriate to what I’d like to share with you.

You hear regularly about the many positive, biblical aspects of our program. All those things are true, and we are grateful for the grace granted to us to accomplish them. However to be accurate, we should tell you some of the things we, as a school, cannot do, i.e. our limitations.

No matter how we may try, Logos School is unable to do the following things:

1. We cannot replace parents in their God-ordained role as the most important people in the lives of the students. We can’t give them the same kind and amount of love and loads of time that parents should.
2. We cannot totally makeup for the parents’ failure in fulfilling the role mentioned above. Many times I’ve told tearful mothers that we cannot accept their rowdy junior high students. We’ve learned the hard way that it is more likely that a rebellious teenager will have a negative effect on students at Logos, than Logos will have a positive effect on the student.
3. We cannot be the first place children hear about the gospel, discipline, sex, drugs, hard work, safety, or even basic hygiene and nutrition. The nation’s public schools have received an agenda, willingly or unwillingly, of tasks that have historically and biblically been a part of a parent’s job description. Logos is unwilling to accept that agenda.
4. We cannot keep sin at bay by closing the school doors. There are sinners here, unrepentant ones too. Through God’s truly amazing grace these sinners are under the tutelage of former unregenerate sinners. By the application to that same grace and through sometimes years of diligent prayers, the sinners here often become new creatures too!
5. We cannot operate independent of financial gifts, above tuition payments. Just like all soldiers in God’s spiritual army, the staff members at Logos are real people who must eat and pay bills. Our school facility houses eternal beings, yet relies on very earthly items like electricity, gas, regular cleaning, and repairs. God has chosen to communicate His marvelous, universal gospel through decaying, physical individuals and materials.
6. We cannot keep its vision pure and dynamic in years to come without continuous prayer support for the board, staff, and families. We see daily the effect of your prayers! If the prayer support ceases, our limitations will far exceed those I’ve listed here.

Thank you for keeping our limits in bounds!

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-Tom Garfield
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“Let every student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life and therefore lay Christ at the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let every one seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of Him.” From Harvard College’s “Rules and Precepts,” 1646

“Every student shall consider the main end of his study to wit to know God in Jesus Christ and answerably to lead a Godly , sober life.” From Yale College founding goals, 1701

“In all its levels, programs, and teachings, Logos School seeks to: teach all subjects as part of an integrated whole with the Scriptures at the center; provide a clear model of the biblical Christian life through our staff and board; encourage every child to begin and develop his relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ.” From Logos School Goals, 1981

Putting Logos in the “neighborhood” above is not intended to be presumptuous name-dropping or any warped delusions of grandeur. Au contraire. Considering the current moral (and arguably, the intellectual) condition of Harvard and Yale, some may wonder why I would want to place Logos in their company at all.

Nevertheless, there was a time when these schools were the bastions of both moral and intellectual training. And not only these, but the list of famous higher education schools founded on God’s Word includes: William and Mary, Princeton, Columbia (King’s College), Brown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth. Yet, it is rather obvious to the casual observer of such things that none of these schools publicly profess and practice the Lordship of Jesus Christ on their campuses today.

What happened? Is it just a given that no institution over two hundred years old will retain its first love, no matter how godly its founding visionaries and purposes? Sadly it appears to be the case. In fact, Harvard was considered by Cotton Mather to be drifting into Unitarianism as early as 1700; less than seventy years after its inception. There is not space or time here to relate all the sad tales of moral and intellectual surrender. Suffice it to say, God is not mocked; as these schools lost their spiritual bearings, they also lost God’s blessings, until they reached the moral and academic slough they wallow in today.

Logos School is currently only fifteen years old (in ‘96) and we seem to be enjoying God’s blessings as never before. Our enrollment increase this year has initiated several local newspaper and TV stories. Very often I am stopped in a store or restaurant and told by someone that they’ve seen the good reports about Logos. The Association of Classical and Christian Schools continues to grow, and barely a day goes by without several calls from inquiring people around the nation asking how they can emulate Logos. Our staff this year is the best I can remember; I sincerely marvel at the quality of people God has brought to us.

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- Tom Garfield, The Return of Dear Parents: Communicating the Christian & Classical Vision to Families
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It has been said in various contexts that you can’t make a good omelet with rotten eggs. Along the same lines, C.S. Lewis stated that no matter how much or how good the wine is, if you pour it into a mud puddle, you still have a mud puddle. Jesus Himself referred to the same kind of predicament, i.e. wasting something valuable on an unworthy or unready recipient. He called it “casting pearls before swine.”

Classical, Christian education is a valuable commodity and to gain the fullest possible benefit from it, students need to come to it with a home-developed foundation. Put another way, there are certain intrinsic characteristics of the families whose students do well in this kind of education. When these characteristics are absent, it is very likely that in spite of the best efforts of the school and teachers, the student will gain little. The following is not intended to be the exhaustive compilation of those characteristics, but they should serve as examples to illustrate the point. The order of their presentation is rather random, since they all relate.

“Moral training” is the big “E” on the eye chart of prerequisite characteristics. Put even more plainly, children coming from homes where God’s Word is honored and obeyed will see a profound similarity in the expectations at school regarding their behavior. Homes that identify sin as sin, expect cheerful obedience, show love and forgiveness consistently will find the school’s standards will reinforce those biblical principles.

But how does that kind of training practically look at school? What are some even more precise evidences of a firm foundation that enables a student to get the most out of the school’s program? One very obvious evidence is the student’s view of authority in general, and his parents’ authority in particular. A good measure of the student’s regard for authority is the love boys show to their mothers, and the respect girls display for their fathers. Listen to how students talk; if the subject of parents comes up at all, it takes very little astuteness to determine the health of the student’s view of his parents.

Another related characteristic is old-fashioned etiquette or manners. In the past, good manners were referred to as the “oil” of maintaining good relations with others in public. It is not a sin, per se, for a boy not to hold the door for a girl, but it is probably an indicator that his training in being a gentleman is not complete. The way a child speaks to an adult, the way he sits or slouches in his desk, and other numerous little acts that show respect for others, especially the elderly, speak volumes about that student.

A firm foundation also shows up in the way a student “filters” the plethora of cultural messages. Is there evidence of growing biblically-based discernment, or does the student generally accept almost every attractive, popular theme at face value? Legalistic rejection is not biblical discernment any more than is a wide-eyed, “I-wanna-be-hip” attitude. Biblical discernment takes a lot of study, time, and a willingness to stand alone at times. “Wise as serpents, innocent as doves” sums it up quite well.

A student’s appearance billboards both his respect for others and his family’s training in discernment. Even in the secular world, appearance is recognized as the message-sending device it is. Dress should not be THE means to determine success, but it is a lie to tell children that it doesn’t matter at all. Even young children understand the difference “dressing up” makes in how they are to regard their activity. All little girls want to look pretty at a wedding, and all young boys want to wear their team uniform with pride. A student who supposedly doesn’t care about his appearance actually cares too much for himself and not enough for those who have to see him. This attitude profoundly affects his teachability.

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