In light of potential parallels between the transformative effects of the Black Death and Coronavirus, I put forward several ways in which we might see shifts in society today. First, we ought to be prepared for society to change in dramatic ways. Second, we should anticipate new interest in spiritual matters. And third, we should expect that our educational renewal movement with its emphasis on truth derived from the great books of Western society will be a guiding light in a post-pandemic world.

After a year of schooling during the pandemic, we may now be seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Although I am an optimistic person by nature, my disposition toward the end of the pandemic is, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Yet, if we are nearing the end of hybrid learning, mask wearing, health screening and vaccinations, perhaps now is a good time to take stock of insights gained during a crazy year. Here I offer three insights from doing school for a year during the Covid pandemic. Then I suggest three ways we can be prepared for what I’m predicting will be an educational Renaissance.

Technology Cannot Replace Good Education

There were already many online educational platforms before the pandemic. When schools went completely remote in Spring 2020, new technologies sprang into place to enable online, remote learning. Programs like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams allowed teachers to meet with students, set up breakout rooms, and share content away from brick-and-mortar schoolhouses. My school has a reputation for being low tech; really low tech. And yet we pivoted on a dime, devoting three days to teacher training to show them how to use Zoom effectively to lead their classes. When we returned to classes in the fall, our school offered hybrid learning. Families could choose to remain remote. Every classroom was set up to have students join via Microsoft Teams, through which assignments could be distributed to in-person and remote students.

The use of technology to meet the needs of education during the pandemic did much to provide a holistic appraisal of the value of a technology-based overhaul to education. What we learned is that education has largely operated as it ever has. The application of different technologies really didn’t revolutionize education at all. Instead, it tended to reveal disparities in different kinds of schools. Inner city and rural schools were impacted by a lack of devices in homes, especially those with multiple children, or a lack of internet connectivity. Technology did little to address the educational needs of low-income families. Even though one could sign up for a free Zoom account, one still needs a device and quality internet access to participate in remote schooling.

Technology has a tendency to expose good and bad teaching. I have heard many classical Christian schools gaining more widespread reputations for quality education while public schools have been slated for a lack of quality. One reason for this is that parents can sit beside their children during remote learning. Increased access means increased scrutiny. An influx of new admissions at classical schools is due to a growing dissatisfaction with what’s on offer at conventional schools.

Instead of a revolution, we are primed to experience a renewal. Parents, students, and teachers alike are ready for a return to “normal” schooling. For those of us in the classical Christian schooling movement, that means a return from this influx of devices and screen time. In our educational renewal movement, we need to emphasize all the more our distinctives of value-rich education, personal formation and physical presence. Reading actual books and discussing them in the classroom is so important, and the marketplace is primed to find value in what we offer like never before.

Physical Presence is Essential for a Good Education

The experiment in remote learning during Covid has also shown that being physically present in a classroom is so important for holistic learning. One of the challenges of remote learning has been the disconnectedness of students. When a child joins a 45-minute class with the video feed ending when class is done, the child can’t participate in non-instructional time like a snack break or recess. These moments are equally part of the educational environment, providing training in relational and emotional skills. Even during instructional time, remote students seem to have greater difficulty participating in discussion and debate. Technology provides access to the classroom, but it also stands in the way of full participation. For one, it is impossible to see an entire class on one screen. Audio is frequently a problem, making it so that key points in discussion are lost. It is so much harder to stay motivated and attentive when accessing a learning environment through a laptop screen.

Theologically, we know that being physically present with one another is better than being in isolation from one another. The author of Hebrews calls us believers to not forsake meeting together (Heb. 10:25). While this pertains to Christians gathering for worship and scriptural instruction, it points to the benefits we share when we enjoy fellowship with one another. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in his book Life Together:

“It is true, of course, that what is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden under foot by those who have the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us, that the time that still separates us from utter loneliness may be brief indeed.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, pg. 20

We are not meant to be alone. I think this is true in an educational sense as well. I don’t mean to say that the individual doesn’t bear a certain amount of responsibility. But when we have groups of students in classrooms, the sum is greater than the parts. This is not only true in group activities, but there is a sense of accountability and mutual care that is gained when learning amongst others even when doing individual work. Teachers are able to be present with students to “lend strength” in their weakness to instill habits of virtues.

As we return to normal classroom life, we must be mindful of how powerful the atmosphere of learning is. Being together, while important, is not the chief end of education. Charlotte Mason explores how several different stimuli detract from the most powerful of the desires we should cultivate: the love of knowledge. She writes:

“It will be said with truth that most children delight in school; they delight in the stimulus of school life, in the social stir of companionship; they are emulous, eager for reward and praise; they enjoy the thousand lawful interests of school life, including the attractive personality of such and such a teacher; but it seems doubtful whether the love of knowledge, in itself and for itself; is usually a powerful motive with the young scholar. The matter is important, because, of all the joyous motives of school life, the love of knowledge is the only abiding one; the only one which determines the scale, so to speak, upon which the person will hereafter live.”

Charlotte Mason, School Education, pg. 245-246

When the disruption of our school atmospheres, either through remote learning or social distancing, comes to an end, we can create a false delight in school through an emphasis on school furniture, recess or just being physically together. The true value of life together is not actually the stimulation of being with other people. Instead, it is to enjoy the love of knowledge with others. Schools that have no love of knowledge suffered tremendously during remote learning. Why attend classes? Why turn the camera on? Why participate? The stimulus of the classroom was gone, and there was no true love of knowledge to sustain the children. But when we have cultivated a true love of knowledge, we can truly sustain the life of the mind remotely, during social distancing, and most especially when we return to normal classrooms.

Masks, My Friends, Seem to Work

How is it that masks have become so politicized? I myself have no interest in addressing the politics that have cropped up around mask wearing. It really is a shame the extent to which everything has become political (by which we no longer mean matters concerning policies of state, but whether a person toes a given party line). Yes, I am bringing up masks, but I merely do so to make a simple observation. Masks, my friends, seem to work.

I don’t know the science of the matter. I only know anecdotally that in our school that enacted a policy of mask wearing throughout the school year, we had very few students absent due to the flu or colds. Attendance was outstanding this year. I myself didn’t get sick at all, that is until mask requirements started to go away late this spring. In looking for an explanation for this, it occurred to me that mask wearing actually helped us to mitigate the transmission of just about everything that interrupts the flow of the school year.

Now, I honestly don’t know what to do with this information. It could be that we enjoyed a wild year with mask wearing and just so happened to reduce the number of cold and flu symptoms. Perhaps masks will become so hated that we will never again enjoy the absence of the cold and flu. Alternatively, our society might become slightly more comfortable with masks as has happened in other cultures. Voluntary mask wearing seems to be a way to show kindness to others to stop or slow the transmission of disease. Again, I’m not sure what to think about all that we’ve learned about masks, but I imagine in the aftermath of Covid, discussions about masks won’t entirely go away.

Being Ready for the Renaissance

As I listen to friends and family, the impact of Covid on schools has been dramatic. Conventional schooling did not show itself to be nearly as adept as expected. If anything, remote learning revealed all the more the shortcomings of progressive education. More and more parents are questioning the “normal” school options. The uptick of interest at my school might be an outlier, but I sense that the classical Christian school movement will get a closer look from parents who have become dissatisfied with the education on offer during Covid. What can we do to be ready?

First, we need to double down on our identity as an educational alternative. The temptation, particularly for small schools desperately trying to grow, is to look and sound like the big schools with all the bells and whistles. It is not the programs that make for a quality education. It is a love of knowledge based on great ideas drawn from great books. That’s what our educational renewal movement is based on. That’s what we need to stick to.

Second, we need to take our message to the market. For the longest time I was skeptical about marketing. Having taught Logic, I thought of marketing as synonymous with advertising, which is rife with logical fallacies employed to mislead and manipulate customers. What I learned, though, about marketing is that the marketplace – your area of influence – needs to learn accurate information about who you are. What are your values? What is the distinctive approach to education you offer? How does your school benefit students and families? I realized that marketing in these terms was simply teaching. Now my classroom was not the four walls inside the school, it is the entire western suburbs of Chicago. I could help someone truly understand what we offer at our school. So, come up with a simple marketing plan. Post pictures of students in classrooms on social media. Write blog articles. Invite people to small-group coffees in the neighborhoods where your current families live. The more you educate your market about what makes you distinctive, the more you will attract families who are missionally aligned with you.

Finally, we need to be clear on our boundaries. As more and more families turn from conventional education, the more we need to clarify the policies that are non-negotiable. This requires effective board structures and workflows. Schools are best served by delineated standards for admissions and community culture. If your school is weak on policy, now is the time to start writing policy. If your school has good policy, set a schedule for reviewing policy, ensuring that faculty and staff are aligning practices with policy.

I think the future is bright for classical Christian education. Even though our educational renewal movement has been around over a quarter century, it really feels like we are primed to experience a new influx of interest. Let’s keep this educational Renaissance spreading!

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One of my favorite podcasters, Brian Johnson who put out a great series of YouTube videos called Philosophers Notes, had this tagline on his podcasts: “Isn’t it a bit odd that we went from math to science to history, but somehow missed the class on how to live?” This idea always resonated with me, not because we need an extra class on living, but because the idea of how to live should be resonating throughout all of our classes. Educators have often missed the fact that math, science and history are to be learned in order to know how to live. If math, science and history don’t seem like subjects where you would learn how to live, then you’re probably like me, having been raised in a system of education more focused on functional outcomes (getting into the best colleges or getting into the best careers) than on living meaningful and purposeful lives. 

You might be skeptical, and rightfully so. The dominant mode of education, the one we see in mass media, is all about the systematic approach — a conveyor belt of educational product. But consider my geometry class. The major goal of the class is to see our world differently, especially those parts of our world that appear most obvious. Why ought we to do proofs? Why transform polygons? Why inscribe triangles within circles? To help us to grapple with the world around us in fascinating new ways. We live in a three-dimensional world that is often depicted in two dimensions. Let’s get to the bottom of that. And in so doing gain insight into what it means to live in this space. Now you kinda want to take geometry again, don’t you?

In this article I want to go beyond just academic subjects and consider the entire enterprise of education as it pertains to life. There are many dimensions to this, so I don’t expect I will fully extract every morsel in this essay, but hopefully it will provide you with some suggestive avenues to stimulate your own thinking about life. Additionally, I would like to relate these thoughts to our current response to the COVID-19 epidemic.

(One more thing, before diving in. A justification of a seemingly inadequate title. You might think that I’m missing an indefinite article, since you know my heartfelt devotion to Charlotte Mason. Yes, she states, “Education is a life,” and by that she means that the child’s mind is fed on living ideas. I’m extrapolating that idea to demonstrate that there is another level of understanding Mason’s claim. Furthermore, you will notice the preposition “on” instead of “of.” Many teachers are asked to express their philosophy of education, in which they will describe their teaching techniques and practices, sometimes elaborating on their view of the child as a whole person. What I am doing here is not really a philosophy of education in that sense. I am instead thinking about education as a whole and its place in life. Maybe the preposition “on” will rattle a few feathers. Thus ends the deconstruction of an inadequate title.)

Two Forces: Achievement or Inspiration

To begin with, I think it is important to make a distinction between two competing forces in education. These aren’t mutually exclusive, but they do exist in tension with one another. The first force is what we might call achievement. Students, parents and teachers want what’s best for their child, and this often gets translated into measurable categories. The grade in a class is a measure of the student’s achievement. The class rank, SAT score, National Merit selection index number and a plethora of other measurements let everyone know how this particular student stacks up against all others. It’s actually really valuable to incorporate measurement in education, but it’s really difficult to measure what really matters.

I’ve written elsewhere that most of our educational measurements select only a few areas of learning and growth, solely because they are easy to measure. Unfortunately, much of what we measure has little value in predicting future success. Our tools simply cannot measure determination, the ability to hold pleasant conversation, kindness toward others, piety, resilience, or delayed gratification. So we need this first force — achievement — but it is a force fraught with fallacies.

The second force I will call inspiration. My hunch is that most teachers go into education because they want to inspire students to love subjects they themselves love. Most teachers look back at their own education and can point to a few teachers that inspired them. They want to make a difference in the lives of their own students. Unfortunately, there are far too few teachers who retain this high level of inspiration for the entirety of their career. Teaching is a demanding job, calling for long hours preparing lessons, learning technology, sitting in staff meetings, and grading homework. Teachers who truly want to inspire students find the nature of their work rather intense, because it means you need to bring massive energy to every lesson, you have to work with struggling students, you need to motivate fringe students, you need to coach and counsel both students and parents, and sometimes you need to flex your schedule to reach those students who need extra help. The first force – achievement – can also steal from the second force. The most inspirational teacher can get caught up in tracking the measurements, not only as a way of looking at her students’ success but also to measure her own success. Don’t get me wrong, we shouldn’t be graduating a group of fantastically inspired students who are complete and utter failures. We need achievement. But we also need inspiration. Both forces are necessary. If I’m honest with myself, though, I greatly lean toward the force of inspiration, sometimes wishing the other force could go away. 

These thoughts on two forces have lived with me for quite some time. So when I came across this quote by Charlotte Mason, I felt it was time to really wrestle with it philosophically for a while.

“It seems to me that education, which appeals to the desire for wealth (marks, prizes, scholarships, or the like), or to the desire of excelling (as in the taking of places, etc.), or to any other of the natural desires, except that for knowledge, destroys the balance of character; and, what is even more fatal, destroys by inanition that desire for and delight in knowledge which is meant for our joy and enrichment through the whole of life.”

Charlotte Mason, School Education, pg. 226

The strength of Mason’s feelings is matched by the power of her vocabulary. The character of learners is “destroyed” when education becomes focused on the desire for wealth or success. The only sure educational desire is for knowledge. She calls it fatal to base education on anything else. The word “inanition” means that a thing is emptied of all of its nourishing content. Take your bleached grains, your generic white bread, with its crusts cut off, and try living off just that. That’s the picture Mason paints for education when the focus is shifted away from the life-giving enrichment of knowledge. I would guess that Mason sides more with the force of inspiration than the force of achievement, too.

Mason, however, was very much aware of the force of achievement, and most definitely saw that a good education entailed success at such things as examinations (Vol. 3, pg. 301). So we can’t minimize the role achievement plays in education. There remain standards that must be met in order to be considered a well-educated person. But Mason also recognizes that our standards ought to be measured against what truly matters in life.

“But the one achievement possible and necessary for every man is character; and character is as finely wrought metal beaten into shape and beauty by the repeated and accustomed action of will. We who teach should make it clear to ourselves that our aim in education is less conduct than character; conduct may be arrived at, as we have seen, by indirect routes, but it is of value to the world only as it has its source in character.”

Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, p. 129

Achievement, then, is not only necessary, it is of fundamental importance. It is actually the goal toward which inspiration aims. The two forces that tug at each other actually cohere elegantly when put together properly. If our aim is on top marks, a 4.0 GPA, college entrance, merit-based scholarships, and the like, our aim isn’t truly aligned. What Mason is articulating is that true achievement is a life so well lived that the world is made a better place. This life of great value is achieved through character. Here is achievement that is truly inspirational.

The Classroom is a Microcosm of Life 

The vision of a life well lived is our ultimate goal of achievement. But that vision seems so far off that it feels impractical on a daily basis. Time presses upon us each day holding in our faces the immediacy of the lesson at hand, the upcoming assessment, or the report card soon to be released. Achievement snaps into focus, pushing inspiration out of the picture.

We need to start viewing the classroom differently. The classroom is the place where life occurs. The temptation is to think about life as truly occurring outside the classroom. Students feel this way, since home is where they most often eat, rest and play. Their youth group, sports team or the Starbucks where they hang out with their friends feels more like the locus where life occurs than the classroom does. School is where they have to go to do the work that’s required of them. How often do we get sucked into that way of thinking as well? But life occurs in the classroom all the same, even if students don’t place the greatest importance on that aspect of their life. To be clear, I don’t think one can say one sphere of life is more or less important than others. Our existence as living beings transcends time and space, and we are unified beings no matter what space we inhabit. To view ourselves as more alive in one place than in others begins to disintegrate the coherence of our being. In light of this, we must strive to breathe genuine life into the atmosphere of our classrooms, lest we cause real harm to ourselves and others.

So what does it mean when I say life occurs in our classrooms? For one, it means that our students are whole persons. We are not just interacting with our students’ minds. Students are also emotional, social and spiritual creatures, just like we are. All dimensions of their personhood come into the classroom. All dimensions of their personhood are being trained and cultivated. This means that teaching that doesn’t connect to their multi-dimensionality will actually not get assimilated because it isn’t fundamentally important to their existence as living beings.

But wait, you might say, aren’t there things you just have to learn, even if there isn’t an emotional, social or spiritual connection? Let’s consider a recent geometry lesson. We are just starting to learn trigonometric functions. This is hard stuff when it’s brand new. I could see the look of frustration on their faces. Lurking in the background is a feeling that if this doesn’t relate to real life in some way, what’s the use of putting in the effort to figure out when, how and why to use inverse sine? In this very moment, though, real life is happening before our very eyes.

What I did was take a step back from the lesson about the law of sines, to help them grapple with their encounter with things that are difficult to learn. “You are feeling the fog right now, aren’t you?” I helped them to see that some things we learn aren’t fully clear at the outset. This might have been true when they first learned long division in early grammar school. This might have been true when they learned factoring in algebra 1. I was connecting them to their emotional state. “Hey, we’re all experiencing this together.” It is very common for us to feel that we are the only one who doesn’t get it. But when there’s a recognition that we are doing something together, a deep bond is formed. The “ah-ha” moments become a group celebration. Learning is a social and relational thing. I was connecting them to their social state. “This seems pretty out there, doesn’t it?” The deeper you go in mathematics, the more abstract and esoteric things become. In this moment, I was showing them that they were exploring something almost mystical. I could relate this to something as practical as navigating an airplane. But the practical application will actually compound their frustration in the moment. Instead, I helped them to see how their imaginations were gaining new tools. I was connecting them to their spiritual state. Real life was occurring in a specific learning environment. The temptation was to think in terms of achievement. “We’re not getting it. Our grades will suffer. I won’t go to the best school. I won’t get a good job. I’ll likely be homeless for the rest of my life!” Instead, we thought in terms of life and saw geometry as a field of endeavor in which we can gain an understanding of meaning and purpose. (I might add that these students have done well using trigonometric functions. As an experienced teacher I knew the fog would dissipate through more practice.)

What does this mean for you as a teacher? We must become observers of life. We only get a relatively small amount of time with the students God gives into our care. By being watchful for real life occurring in our midst, we position ourselves to seize every moment we can. The little arguments that erupt between students, the games that are played on the blacktop, the struggles to learn new concepts, the disorganized backpack. All things are avenues into genuine life connections.

Application of Education is Life to COVID-19

If we agree that education is about life, then this COVID-19 epidemic presents a huge teaching and learning opportunity. We are confronted with the frailty of our humanity. A few weeks ago I compared our present epidemic with the black plague in the mid-1300s. A confrontation with death and our own mortality is not a topic we should shy away from. We ourselves as teachers might be wrestling with new emotions and concerns about safety. We must also assume our students are wrestling with the reality and implications of COVID-19. Their world just got turned upside down.

Because one of the forces of education is inspiration, I think now is the time to inspire our students with a deep and profound vision of what life really means. There are some students who miss their interactions with friends through daily contact. Students presently feel a deep sense of loneliness and isolation. Many students miss the life-structuring order of our daily schedules. We can share with them how all of these feelings point to their yearning for meaning and purpose in their lives. Our texts and discussions can take on new importance if we are forthright in our response to the impact of COVID-19 on them and us right now. You may have a chance to model for them how your faith is upholding you in this moment, or what practices you’ve incorporated during this time of social distancing.

As an example, I teach a health class for sophomores and juniors. We spent time this week talking about meditation and mindfulness as a Christian practice. When I planned this unit, coronavirus was not in my thinking. Now that we’ve gotten to this unit, I opened up about how just a few minutes of quiet meditation in the morning helps me to calmly approach my day. I contrasted this to mornings when I opened up a news feed and saw how many new cases and deaths there were. They were able to see how I was responding to COVID-19, and then I asked them to share their own responses to the epidemic. We explored how stress can impact our health and well-being.

Clearly there are boundaries that we need. I am always careful not to make a class about me, my feelings or my viewpoint on current matters. I am also careful not to traumatize my students by forcing them to talk about raw feelings or controversial matters. Yet we should be open to teachable moments when we can provide insight through our transparency. We should equally be open to discussing matters that are hyper-present in their minds. How odd it would be for a teacher not to mention COVID-19 or social distancing.

Application of Education is Life to Online Learning

Speaking of social distancing, online learning has meant that we are all accumulating new technological skills. You are using student management software in new ways, or you are becoming masters of Zoom or Skype, or you are learning how to use Google Classrooms or MS Teams. Your students are also accumulating new technological skills. If you’re like me, they are learning these skills quicker than you. You might be asking them questions about how to upload assignments or share your screen. With this in mind, don’t be afraid of being a learner. Show them that you are learning how to do some new things. Ask them questions. There’s something empowering when a student is able to teach a teacher. If we are promoting life-long learning, then there are moments when we need to let our guard down so that our students can see that we ourselves are life-long learners.

My other piece of advice as we dive deeply into technological solutions to educating amidst social distancing is to make sure the techniques and technology of education don’t drown out our experience of life. I have told my students how much I miss them at the end of our Zoom sessions. There’s something about being able to see them eye-to-eye in the hallways. I can casually ask them how they’re doing, and they can see the care in my eyes. The technology enables us to connect, but our pixelated, two-dimensional connection is no replacement for embodied presence with one another.

Teach Like Life Depends on It

Someday — hopefully sooner rather than later — we will return to classrooms. We will return having learned some lessons about the nature of education. My hope is that one of the enduring lessons is that education is about life. My hunch is that the reason you come to our humble website is that you get this concept, and that you are striving to provide an education that nourishes the lives of your students. Let me encourage you that I think it will be teachers and schools that feed their students’ souls who have the best hope of surviving this epidemic and even thriving during and after this epidemic. Why do I think this? It is because when people confront forces like our frailty and mortality, we begin to ask questions of meaning and purpose. Parents and students will be looking for this kind of education, one that engages the mind and the soul. Now more than ever is the time to teach like our lives depend on it.

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An infectious disease causes a pandemic that decimates the major urban centers in northern Italy. Doctors are recognized by their masks. The economy is disrupted through the loss of a workforce. The social order is overturned. Many turn to religion as a response to the pandemic, yet dogmatic norms are questioned. The pope issues indulgences for both those who must practice social distancing as well as for those who are deceased. 

The parallels are stunning. It’s truly hard to tell if we’re talking about the 14th century or the 21st century. The parallels, though, enable us to comprehend our own situation by analyzing a previous situation. In doing so, we can start to plan for an uncertain future by considering new possibilities that are likely to emerge in a post-COVID-19 society. After taking stock of the outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1348 and its impact on European society thereafter, we can then consider some of the similarities and differences between then and now. The goal is to identify how we can anticipate changes in education that are likely to emerge after COVID-19. Last week Kolby wrote an excellent article that looks at our present situation, giving guidance for how we can best approach education while we are social distancing. This article looks to the past to help us consider a possible future.

The End of an Era

It’s important to recognize that the people of the middle ages didn’t think of themselves as the people of the middle ages. It is a label we’ve placed on a rather long era from the fall of Rome (476) to the fall of Constantinople (1453). There was no headline, though, in 476 that stated “The Middle Ages has Begun.” It is difficult to argue that the middle ages is indeed a coherent label for the 1000 year span. So much developed during that time frame that the label becomes meaningless. Yet when we think of three major eras: the ancient world, the middle ages, and the modern world, we can see how the middle ages functions as a bridge from the ancient world to today. The bubonic plague is one of the major events that demarcates a change in era. Europe in 1347 looked and operated very differently than Europe after 1453. We could say, then, that the bubonic plague began the end of an era.

What was the bubonic plague? The strain of bacterium called Yersinia pestis was carried by fleas and rats transported from the East to the West on trade ships. It is not surprising that Genoa and Venice were the epicenters of the European pandemic, as they were the most eminent trade ports in the 14th century. Marco Polo, for instance, was a Venetian who opened up new trade with the East. Venice dominated trade and became a center of massive wealth. The communication between the far East and the West directly led to new ideas and innovations pouring into Europe. But it also opened Europe up to a new infectious disease, and Europe was not well positioned to meet the challenges of Yersinia pestis. Something like 20,000,000 people (or roughly 30% of the population) in Europe died of the bubonic plague during the 1350s. One can only imagine the fear that spread throughout Europe as everyone was either directly or indirectly impacted by the plague.

The structure of society shifted drastically, eventually leading to massive economic, political, religious and social changes. The feudal system of lords and serfs eroded as the decrease of property value diminished the power of the lords and as labor shortages encouraged serfs to leave manors in search of higher wages. Confrontation with death and mortality caused many to become cynical and many others to become religious. The hegemony of the Roman Catholic church in European society slowly broke up. Many priests who were called upon to give last rites themselves contracted the disease. New priests were rapidly ordained with less training, leading to an erosion of theology and an increase in corruption within the church. Simultaneously, major centers of learning began producing new thought leaders questioning the authority of the church.

The Protestant Reformation can be seen as a consequence of the shifts in society caused by the Black Plague. Education turned away from the authority of the church and toward human reason and the autonomous individual, namely humanism. (Too often humanism is viewed as an anti-religious philosophy; however, I see no evidence that humanists were anti-religious. Instead, humanists examined religion critically as they did every element of society. When we look at the art of the humanists, they were as inclined to treat religious themes as any other.) The end of Christendom meant the emergence of new political configurations, approximating something like the nations we now know in Europe. In other words, many of the trends that demarcate post-medieval Europe from the middle ages can be traced directly or indirectly to the outbreak of the bubonic plague in the 1350s. The 1350s may not have been the end of an era, but it was at least the beginning of the end of the era.

An Educational Renaissance

The impact of the bubonic plague on education was significant. Almost immediately after the outbreak of the plague, students vacated centers of education, such as the new universities that had popped up in northern Italy, Paris and Oxford. The loss of enrollment and qualified educators led to the decline in the quality of education between 1350 and 1380 (See William J. Courtenay. “The Effect of the Black Death on English Higher Education.” Speculum 55 (1980): 696-714.) However, given the massive decline in the general population due to the plague, it’s all the more surprising to find that enrollment at places such as Oxford increased already by 1375, so much so that Oxford established New College in 1379. It is interesting to note that four colleges at Cambridge were established during the heart of the bubonic pandemic – Pembroke (1347), Gonville and Caius (1348), Trinity Hall (1350), and Corpus Christi (1352) – perhaps indicating that a flourishing of education was already underway concurrently with the plague.

The long-term increase in enrollment against the backdrop of a decrease in population is a curious matter. All the more curious is the increased enrollment in theological programs at Oxford. Courtenay (“Effect,” 713) looks at several economic reasons why enrollment in theology flourished after the pandemic of the 1350s. A significant factor was the increased mobility and improved conditions of the European peasantry, especially in places like Italy and England. Families who would have never imagined a university-bound son were now able to place their child in the path of learning. This began in the local feeder or prep schools, where children learned basic writing, English and Latin grammar, as well as hymns and songs to support the weekly mass. Parish children would have learned in monastic schools. Boys as young as 13 could expect to sit entrance exams for the universities.

Obviously society didn’t experience a complete upheaval, and the peasantry of the 1300s didn’t become like the middle class of today. But enough people were able to take advantage of the economic circumstances of the post-plague situation to enroll in theological studies. Apart from economic circumstances, I would venture to guess that the plague inspired theological reflection in light of the confrontation with death and mortality. A yearning for theological insight seems to be a natural response to a global pandemic.

The implications of this new rise in enrollment at local schools and universities led to an educational renaissance and in time to the historical Renaissance. We can see how the devastating impact of the bubonic plague cleared the ground for new people and new ideas to emerge. Concern for society and the role of the individual led to Humanistic ideas. I’ve written previously about how in the unsettling events of the 14th and 15th centuries people looked to the past for guidance in making a new future. The classics were read once more, with profound political and religious movements emerging, most notably the Protestant Reformation.

Our Plague and Our Educational Renaissance

More and more figures are speaking out that there will be no return to normal after COVID-19. When we look back on the bubonic plague in the 1350s, there was no return to normal. There are many significant differences between then and now. They were dealing with a bacterium, and we are dealing with a virus. They had terrible standards of hygiene. We have a superior medical system. But there are some lessons we can learn that may help prepare us for what is to come after our plague.

First, we should be prepared for an overturned society. My family is fortunate that we can all work from home. My children can do online learning at home. My wife and I can work remotely. But what about those who can’t work remotely. I think about those people who have to work at the factory to make the face masks, the hand sanitizer, the toilet paper, and the respirators that we need. Will there be economic trends that enable the poorer segments of our society to be more upwardly mobile? I hope so. Will we classical Christian schools be prepared to receive new enrollment? We should have already been marketing our educational model to communities who assume their kids don’t belong at our schools. But if we haven’t been, now is the time to make ourselves known in under-served segments of our society.

Second, we should expect new interest in theological and spiritual reflection. Whenever we are confronted by death and our own mortality, a window of opportunity opens for gospel proclamation. The dance macabre image at the top of this article is a portion of a larger painting by Bernt Notke from St. Nicholas Church in Estonia. The church in the 1300s was able to conceptualize the seriousness of the pandemic, while also playfully addressing our human nature. Yes, we are frail, but we are not left without hope. The cross and the resurrection are ours to proclaim. We can expect greater cynicism about God and faith. The more people question biblical Christianity, the more we need to be prepared to teach. I would anticipate that a post-COVID-19 world will see people dissatisfied by secular mass schooling. Small schools teaching biblical Christianity will become more attractive in the wake of our plague.

Third, we should anticipate a turn to the past to chart the future of our global society. A global pandemic is likely to disrupt our trust in modern society. Schools like ours that have taught the classics, Western history, and the great books will be well positioned to meet the needs of society in ways that other schools aren’t. So many modern schools have abandoned the past and will not be able to easily retool themselves to glean the insight our society needs to feed our collective imaginations and address our deepest concerns.

Our plague will lead to our educational renaissance. This is a time when we should highlight our unique features as classical Christian schools. Most of our schools have shown we can handle the rapid transition to online learning environments. So many children are starved for learning with meaningless assignments, while our students are doing meaningful work. As we provide meaningful, purposeful and valuable education, we position ourselves well to gain the trust of those who will be looking for more substance in a post-COVID-19 world.

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