Philip E. Dow - Virtuous Minds: Intellectual Character Development

Virtuous Minds

Intellectual Character Development

For Students, Educators & Parents

Philip E. Dow

www.IVPress.com/ books

InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400 Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
World Wide Web: www.ivpress.com
E-mail: email@ivpress.com

2013 by Philip E. Dow

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at www.intervarsity.org.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

While all stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information in this book have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Cover Design: Cindy Kiple
Images: Benjamin Howell/iStockphoto

ISBN 978-0-8308-8433-9 (digital)
ISBN 978-0-8308-2714-5 (print)

The Graduate Profile for Rosslyn Academy, 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 School Years

Intellectual Character Elementary Curriculum: Suggested Devotional Series for Grades One Through ThreeRosslyn Academy

Assessing Intellectual Character

The Berean Bursary

The Bear Creek School National Honor Society Intellectual Character Evaluation Form

The Bear Creek School Senior Project

Philosophy (the Love of Wisdom and Truth) and Logic (the Tools Needed to Find the Truth): Rosslyn Academy Course Outline

Introduction for the Intellectual Virtues Academy, Long Beach, California: Charter School Petition

To the students, families, teachers, staff and administrators of

Rosslyn Academy (Nairobi, Kenya)

and

The Bear Creek School (Redmond, Washington)

Philip E. Dow (Ph.D., Cambridge University) is superintendent of Rosslyn Academy in Nairobi, Kenya. Dow has over a decade of classroom experience, teaching advanced courses in social studies and history at the high school level. He is the author of "School in the Clouds": The Rift Valley Academy Story.

Page numbers refer to print edition: ISBN 978-0-8308-2714-5.

Antoinette, Marie, 73

Aquinas, Thomas, 96

Baehr, Jason, 131

The Bear Creek School, 137, 139

Blair, Jayson, 62

Brand, Paul Wilson, 55-57, 104-5

Brooks, Philip, 143

CBS News, story about George W. Bush in the National Guard, 62

Chesterton, G. K., 48, 70

Covey, Stephen, 126

Chariots of Fire, 77

Davies, Robertson, 81

decline of Western civilization, causes of

Bennett, William, 40

Bloom, Allan, 40, 46

Postman, Neil, 40

Edison, Thomas, 41-42

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 142

Green, Keith, 141

Hammarskjld, Dag, 61, 67

Harris, Bob, 64-65

Havel, Vclav, 106-8

Hutton, E. F., 83

intellectual bias, 21, 133-34

intellectual carefulness, 12-13, 15, 21, 23-24, 32-38, 88-92, 102, 143

intellectual carelessness, 12, 21

intellectual character

benefits of, 81-109

and cheating, 21, 64

definition of, 22-24

and education, 15-17, 125-39

and Greek philosophers, 12, 34, 51

and infidelity, 21

and the media, 36, 62, 133-34

and medieval theology, 12

and worship, 94

intellectual courage, 12-13, 16, 19, 21, 23-24, 27-31, 89, 106-7, 143

intellectual cowardice, 12, 21

intellectual curiosity, 16, 24, 55-60, 90, 92, 105, 143

intellectual dishonesty, 12

intellectual fair-mindedness, 12, 15, 24, 46-54, 89, 102, 143

intellectual hastiness, 36-37

intellectual honesty, 15, 21, 61-75

intellectual humility, 15, 24, 70-75, 89, 102, 143

intellectual laziness, 12

intellectual open-mindedness, 12, 15

intellectual tenacity, 12, 23-24, 39-45, 90, 92, 105, 129, 143

James, William, 34, 123-24

Jesus, 14, 15, 24, 77, 93, 96, 100, 108, 141-42

Johnson, Samuel, 32

Kepler, Johannes, 19-21, 51-52

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 125

Kstenberger, Andreas, 98

Lewis, C. S., 28, 39, 49, 70, 74, 78, 85, 96, 113, 123

Liddell, Eric, 78

Lincoln, Abraham, 72-73

Luther, Martin, 19, 21, 29, 30

Mariner I disaster, 32-35

Masaccios Holy Trinity , 82

McCullough, David, 35-36

Merton, Robert, 104

metacognition, 134

Milosz, Czeslaw, 71

Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della, 46, 48-51

Moreland, J. P., 103

Moses, 129

Muntzer, Thomas, 48

Musyimi, Mutava, 106, 108

Newton, Sir Isaac, 20, 56-57, 82

Paine, Thomas, 45

Paul the apostle, 13-14, 24, 55, 95-96, 98, 116

Peter the apostle, 97-98

Piltdown Man, 67-68

Proverbs, 13, 24, 113, 114, 128

Psalms, 14, 94, 95

relativism, 46-49

Roosevelt, Theodore, 65

Rosslyn Academy, 118, 127-30, 136-37, 139

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, 131

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 36, 63

Suk, Hwang Woo, 63

Tolkien, J. R. R., 75

virtue epistemology, 16

Weber, Max, 104

Whitehead, Alfred, 52

Wilberforce, William, 20-21

Willard, Dallas, 56, 68, 117, 120

Zidane, Zinedine, 87-90

Thinking Sheepishly?

On a magically white Christmas in 1981, I was given my first Walkman and a cassette tape The Keith Green Collection. Of the many powerful songs on that tape, the one that stood out to me as an eleven-year-old boy was The Sheep and the Goats. In this song, Green recounts the New Testament parable of the final judgment in which those who will spend eternity with God (the sheep) are separated from those who will be eternally apart from God (the goats). Keith Greens closing words still ring in my ears, The only difference between the sheep and It was a musical prophets powerful call for Christians to begin living out the faith they claimed to have. I was inspired then, and I am inspired now. But today I am moved for a slightly different reason.

I have read and reread that passage in Matthew many times since that day and have become convinced that while Keith Green was technically accurate, he missed the central point Jesus was making. My scholarly friends tell me that the point of many parables is wrapped up in a surprise, and the surprise of this story is not who is rewarded and who is punished but how they both respond to the judgment. The sheep and the goats are both genuinely mystified. When God recounts the things they did that earned them their eternal reward, the confused sheep ask, When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? (Matthew 25:37). The response of the goats is no different, But when did we see you... a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you? (Matthew 25:44). I always found their confusion curious until I figured out that their confusion was the point. It was the surprise.