Covenant is excited to have Dr. Dru Johnson from The King’s College speak to our community on Tuesday, October 4th at 7 PM. Dr. Johnson earned a Ph.D. from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, writing a thesis on biblical epistemology. Prior to serving as an Associate Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at King’s, Dr. Johnson  studied and taught analytic philosophy at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. He has earned an M.Div. from Covenant Theological Seminary and an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Missouri.

Dr. Johnson has served as a Templeton Senior Research Fellow at The Herzl Institute in Jerusalem, Israel and serves as the co-chair for the Hebrew Bible and Philosophy program unit in the Society for Biblical Literature.  Dr. Johnson also teaches occasionally as a visiting professor at Covenant Theological Seminary and more frequently in Western Kenya in a school for rural pastors. He formerly served seven years in the U.S. Air Force, including five years involved in counter-narcotics operations in the Amazon basin of Columbia. He is ordained in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and he and his wife have four children.

His publications include:

• Biblical Knowing: A Scriptural Epistemology of Error (2013)
• Scripture’s Knowing: A Companion to Biblical Epistemology (2015)
• Genesis 1-11. Transformative Word Commentary Series (2016)
• Knowledge By Ritual: A Biblical Prolegomenon to Sacramental Theology (2016)

Drawing on his research in philosophy and theology, Dr. Johnson will be speaking about the kind of learning that leads to transformative growth and wisdom. Here is a description of his talk:

“The unTED Talk: How well-crafted speeches don’t necessarily teach us anything”

A college quite literally refers to a group of colleagues. Scientists have figured this out. The scientific enterprise only works when colleagues work in community to better understand the realities that they study. Learning, for scientists, necessarily happens as a form of apprenticeship within a community, where a young scientist begins as a novice and trains to contribute to the group’s understanding. 

TED Talks, on the other hand, propose another model of learning: a profound and eloquent insight delivered in a polished and brief speech. These wildly popular talks focus on the expert in the room sharing what he or she has learned with everyone else. However, what do we learn in such an environment? The danger is both in the setup and delivery. A polished speech can leave us thinking we’ve understood something profound, but we only feel that way because we understood how the parts of the talk worked together toward a common rhetorical goal. TED Talks are famous for this and that “polished speech model” is even being mocked within the TED Talk community.

Thousands of years ago, the Hebrew Bible and New Testament spelled out a unique view of expertise formation. Under the biblical model, young folk do not learn by well-crafted talks—though eloquent oratory often engages us as learners. Wisdom attains by entering a community of learners, submitting to their authority, and embodying instruction in order to see the world differently than could ever happen otherwise. Thus, discernment is transformational, forever changing the way we see that which we study. 

This talk challenges the “do what you love” idea of careerism by looking at these two forms of learning: the lure of listening to excellent rhetorical construction without transformation as opposed to submitting to a community that seeks to foster wisdom amongst colleagues. I pose that the “do what you love” model of career planning—so prevalent today—should be replaced with a better question: What community should I belong to and how will being a colleague transform my understanding?

Around this time last year, I began preparing for my first year of teaching at Covenant. My family and I were moving to the area from Brooklyn, New York, and I was thrilled about becoming part of the Covenant community, but not sure what to expect in the classroom. Up to this point I had been a college professor, and my training had prepared me for working with older students. I imagined that my new students here would be, by virtue of their youth, restless and unfocused. And I worried that, with high-schoolers, even polite ones, I’d eventually encounter disinterest if I failed to conclude each discussion by making it about them, asking how they personally related to each literary or historical figure rather than helping them discover times and places that were not entirely like their own.

After a full year of teaching at Covenant, I can report with great delight that not only was none of this the case, but that the students at this school are some of the finest I’ve ever worked with. I found this year, that, as a group, Covenant students have several outstanding qualities, which I will try to summarize here.

1. Covenant students have a deep capacity to learn. By this I mean that they have become accustomed, from their earliest school days, to listening with sustained attention, a skill that in turn allows them to wait patiently for a big idea to emerge from discussion and, more important, to pursue it. Our students can take a difficult question and use it not only to look backward (When else has this question occurred, and in what circumstances? What did Augustine, Dante, Shakespeare, Brontë, or C.S. Lewis have to say about it?) but also forward (What other ways can this issue be framed? How should I look for it in my future reading?). This allows them to seek out and articulate answers independently, a habit of mind that will, I believe, shape and support them for the rest of their lives. That they can already practice this approach to the world is, in my experience, rare, and a pleasure to engage with.

2. Covenant students have been taught to use their whole selves, and use them well; it seems to me that, rather than separating intellectual pursuits from other aspects of their lives, they bring everything they know and enjoy into the classroom, and, conversely, are able to apply classroom disciplines and pursuits to what they do outside of school. This may help explain why so many of my students this year, in addition to regularly engaging in discussions, participated in conversations in other ways: by drawing on paper or on the board, reciting a memorized verse or musical refrain, and even, in one case, respectfully requesting permission (and receiving it) to execute a cartwheel in the classroom, to illustrate a point. This kind of free, open pursuit of understanding is what Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain suggest, in The Liberal Arts Tradition, is the goal of education, with students who are “cultivated in body and soul – mind, will, and affections” (2), and it seems to be flourishing here.

3. Covenant students have a quality of joy. I of course don’t mean that they are always happy (nor, I think, would anyone want them to be), but rather that they generally have an air of expecting, when they enter a classroom, to enjoy themselves, to hear something pleasing, intriguing, or worthy of their consideration, not only after they’ve mastered something fascinating or difficult but even before they experience learning. I think this is the fruit of Covenant’s Biblical pursuit of that which is “excellent and praiseworthy”; it is also, surely, another habit that this school’s outstanding faculty has formed in these young people, by shaping them over the course of their education with such love and with such high standards. I can gratefully say that my colleagues and students have, this year, given me the expectation of joy in the classroom as well.

– Dr. Flora Armetta June 2016

It is with the intertwined feelings of joy and sadness that we send off our Class of 2016 graduates to pursue their callings. We will miss seeing them in our classrooms and halls, but we are excited to send them out, knowing they are ready and that the time is right.

Salutatorian Azra Dees will study molecular biology at Rutgers in the fall.

As they pursue a wide array of interests and fields of study – from medicine to the military, from business to biotechnology – we know that their liberal arts education has prepared them for success. In her Valedictorian address, Allie Good spoke about the impact that her fellow students have had on her during her career at Covenant. “We have grown together, laughed together, worried together, cried together, and celebrated together. We have deep roots that spread throughout years of growth and learning and friendship, and I am truly grateful for each and every one of you.” This theme of community was also emphasized by fellow graduate Azra Dees in her Salutatorian speech. Dees offered a prayer that “we never forget each other and the time we spent here together. I pray that we never forget that we are loved.”

Allie Good’s closing remarks are a fitting way to remember the Class of 2016: “This is what

Valedictorian Allie Good will study biomedical engineering at The Ohio State University.

I hope we find as we go out and ‘conquer the world.’ I hope that as we depart and go our separate ways that what Covenant has imparted to us, is the example of a truly Christ-centered, loving, unique community. I hope that in our lives beyond these walls, we all seek and find something like this, a community that we can consider a family. And I know that if we ever get lost and need a little reminding, we can always follow our feet back home.”

Hello. My name is Allie Good, and I am a senior. I’d like to invite you to an annual special event for Covenant Christian Academy, Senior Thesis. I’ve attended Covenant since kindergarten, and for the past thirteen years, I have seen and heard about this daunting task each senior faces. The thesis is a year-long research project culminating in a public speech and defense before the entire Upper School student body – along with parents, guests, and an intimidating panel of school board members.

As I approached my senior year, I must admit that I was nervous to uptake such a momentous assignment. The process took all year and a great deal of effort. However, I knew I was prepared, not only because I had experienced thesis teachers, but because of all I have been given leading up to this year. Senior Thesis represents the focus Covenant places on writing and rhetorical skills, but it also shows the commitment and years of work our teachers have poured into their students since kindergarten. They have each guided, molded, and prepared us to attack Senior Thesis with experience and confidence, and we are excited to share what we have learned.

Covenant’s senior class of 2016 will be presenting their theses on Tuesday, May 17^th and Thursday, May 19^th in the Edger and Elizabeth Dunlap Center starting at 8:30am. In addition, three students will also be presenting at Messiah College at 7pm on May 23^rd.

– Allie Good, Covenant Class of 2016