Thinking about Thinking at JAA

How often do we think about the importance of “thinking”? It’s central to our work at John Adams Academy. John Adams himself admonished, “Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.”

Often, we emphasize learning to read, write, and speak, and we should. However, we tend to give less attention to the act of “thinking” itself. To help with this, one of my favorite activities with scholars and teachers is to bring my sculpture of Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker to class—a sculpture first created in 1904. As I learned from Dr. R.C. Sproul, two things about The Thinker deserve sustained attention.

What’s in a Name?

The first thing to notice is his name. If a sculptor made The Thinker in the last 20 years, he would probably have called it The Feeler, because our culture puts a premium on feeling over thinking. I used to correct scholars who frequently wrote “I feel” on their papers when describing a great novel or idea. There is nothing wrong with feeling—it’s central to the human condition—but our feelings don’t tell the whole story, and they can often mislead us. I’ll admit I use the phrase “I feel” routinely myself, even when it is not what I mean. We’ve grown used to it. On those papers, I wanted to know what my scholars thought, not just what they felt.

We live in a world where preferences have largely replaced objective truth. Many no longer understand truth as knowledge that corresponds with reality. It has become a matter of personal feeling. When feeling outranks thinking, pursuing truth gets harder.

The Thinker’s Pose

The second thing to notice is The Thinker’s posture. He isn’t lounging like a couch potato. Rodin captures him in a moment of intense labor. The Thinker’s muscles are taut because deep thinking is mentally and physically strenuous. After a day of teaching, I would often tell people how exhausted I was, and those outside education never quite understood, but if you’ve done the work, you know
it’s real.

Rodin never tells us what The Thinker is thinking about. Nevertheless, we can tell that thinking itself requires effort, and that such effort can result in a large pay off at a time when so few are thinking anymore. This is partly why we emphasize “thinking” so highly at John Adams Academy, but it’s not the only reason.

Thinking about What?

In The Quill—the governing document of John Adams Academy—we identify “thinking” as one of our manners of implementing our unique American Classical Leadership Education (ACLE). In the ACLE, scholars develop the skills to become liberated from ignorance and ennobled to dignified, virtuous thinking. The following description from The Quill on imitation is very telling:

At the Academy, scholars frequently study the deeds of heroes; imitate artistic and musical masterpieces; model the grammar, logic, and rhetoric of classical arguments; and create works in the forms and styles of the classics. As they do, they develop the skills and habits that liberate them to think and express truth, produce beauty, and live virtuously. In becoming servant leaders, scholars must model their lives on great works and great people.

We support scholars in developing these skills and growing in their ability to “think and express truth.” Truth is the apex of our model, and we want our scholars to consider it in all its dimensions. Whether it's scientific experiments, great stories, musical arrangements, or the statement “We hold these truths” in the Declaration of Independence, truth is real and knowable. It carries weight, and it has changed the course of human history. We must think seriously about it.

Put simply, we think a lot at John Adams Academy, and it’s a virtue in our model and one we are all developing. In a world where we have offloaded so much of our thinking to search engines and AI chatbots, our scholars distinguish themselves because of their thinking and—more importantly—live lives that fulfill their nature as rational human beings. We nurture and foster "thinking" each day. The 18th-century British philosopher George Berkeley encapsulated well what a John Adams Academy scholar might think about on any given day:

…whatever the world may say, he who hath not much mediated upon God, the human mind, and the summum bonum (i.e., the highest or ultimate goods), may make a thriving earthworm, but will most indubitably make a sorry patriot and a sorry statesman.

At John Adams Academy, we cultivate informed patriots and principled statesmen who operate from a foundation of truth. To support this, we think deeply about these matters, and we invite you to come and think deeply with us, too.