Great Books Education

Let us introduce ourselves!

 

 

I am from a family of seven and am the proud husband of Christy (who graduated from Westmont College) and father of six children, one in heaven and three sons and two daughters in our home. I am also uncle of twenty nieces and nephews and two great-nephews. I live in Escondido, California, attend Grace Bible Church (http://grcbible.org/ )and work as a tutor with homeschool students. 

During my college years I desired to be a philosophy professor but as I came to understand that at most universities that would mean spending most of my time lecturing to large groups of students and trying desperately to get published on issues that were too esoteric to be of interest to any but those of the ivory tower, I decided that working on my own and being an educational entrepreneur (gasp!) would be a much better idea. 

My undergraduate work was done at St. John's College in Annapolis, MD (
http://www.sjca.edu/ )which is not a Christian college but is the center for classical education at the collegiate level. It had the honor of being named the "most politically incorrect college in the nation" by the Washington Post recently for its unwavering dedication to the study of western history and the writings of dead white males. The St. John's curriculum consists of what is called the "Great Books" program which is essentially a survey of the great books of the western tradition in philosophy, theology, history, mathematics and science. Rather than reading textbooks that summarize and simplify history for us, the St. John's program requires you to grapple with the flow of history first-hand by reading the original books themselves.  Yet, it should be remembered that "Fritz Hinrichs is the youngest man alive."

Despite being officially non-affiliated, the college has a Christian influence, not only from some tutors but also from the fact that they do not downplay the tremendous influence Christianity has had on our own history. You cannot read the books on the program (e.g. Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, Milton) without having to face the fact that Christianity has been the central theme of the last 2000 years of western history. Christ is the source of eternal salvation but He also changed the course of history and the everyday lives of men. 

After St. John's, I had the great privilege of studying at my hometown seminary here in Escondido- Westminster Seminary. (
http://www.wscal.edu/ ) Even though many of the professors at Westminster do their students the great disservice of making them read many dry modern textbooks, the seminary is grounded in an attempt to uphold the truths of historic Christianity as articulated by the reformation. Westminster was a terrific supplement to my time at St. John's. St. John's exposed me to the ideas that have shaped our culture and Westminster gave me two years to critique those ideas in the light of the biblical world view. This combination convinced me that the best method for developing discerning Christians minds is the study of western history accompanied by the attempt to bring all thoughts captive to Christ. 

During my time at Westminster I became convinced that conventional education would be a dead end. Conventional education seems to be following an industrial model of education; students are educated in a cookie cutter fashion by large educational factories where mass production rather than individual craftsmanship is the norm. Lecturing and publishing can be efficient means of dispersing information, but an essential part of education has always been dialogue and discussion which cannot be accomplished in a classroom of 35 students and certainly not in a lecture hall of 200. 

This is why starting a tutorial service in my own home seemed like such a good idea. Working out of my home, I can hold tutorials of 15 rather than 35 and run the classes based on discussion and the reading of great books. Currently I am running Geometry (using Euclid's Elements: 
http://www.gbt.org/geo.html ), a five year Great Books tutorial (http://www.gbt.org/gbt.html ), Greek and Western Civilization (where I use the Great Books method). Working with homeschoolers is great; they are willing to work and even though they have found the reading in the Great Books tutorial difficult, they are showing an exceptional level of comprehension and biblical discernment. 

As Christian educators we have the blessed privilege of studying with the confidence that all of creation cries out the veracity of God's existence and the depths of his wisdom.


Peace in Christ, 
Fritz Hinrichs 



Mrs. Hinrichs' biography

I am the happy wife of Fritz and mother of six. When I married Fritz in the spring of 2000, I became the aunt to a slew of nieces and nephews.

I grew up in Southern California and attended three different high schools, two public, one private Christian. I chose to attend Westmont College in Santa Barbara where I majored in English. During this time, I had opportunity to learn from some incredible teachers and spend four months living in Great Britain visiting the homes and landscape of my favorite literary friends such as Wordsworth, Herbert, Eliot, Yeats, and Shakespeare. After graduating in 1994, I moved to the Sacramento area and I decided to be a substitute teacher until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. The Lord used that time to show me the joys of high school students and I eagerly began night classes to obtain my credential. (Note: Fritz always said he would never hire a credentialed teacher, but I suppose marrying one was acceptable.)

Five years of teaching in a public high school were challenging, frustrating, and exhilarating. I enjoyed my students and pressing them to work hard, think deeply, and take pleasure in literature, but I was not pleased with the bureaucratic pressures to teach technical writing as the only valid form of writing, among other things. I was irked by days spent in "teacher training" wherein I learned little more than how to waste time and government money. I began to read about classical education and observe my friends as they homeschooled and I wondered if I might try teaching elsewhere.

Some friends from Sacramento visited friends in Escondido who are in ETS tutorials, and they decided that I should teach for Fritz (and perhaps marry him). When I contacted him, I was interested in teaching, but he quickly decided that I needed a promotion that would require a lifelong commitment, and we were engaged four weeks after we met.

Since we have been married, we have lived in Switzerland for three months, hosted groups of teenage boys and fed them (and lived to tell about it), taken students to Europe, lost an infant daughter, and enjoyed the wonderful births of three healthy sons and two healthy daughters. We have experienced the heights of joy and the depths of sorrow in a very short time together but through it all, we know that the Lord is faithful to us in all things. I taught an English literature course for two years online (www.gbt.org/englishliterature.html), but am taking this year off (and possibly future years) as I focus on mothering our five little ones.

May the Lord bless you in your endeavors,

Christy Hinrichs



More Personal Stuff

Hear the Hinrichs brothers on some bluegrass. (Requires Real Audio Player)
Lonesome Road Blues
Old Joe Clark
Red Wing
Cripple Creek
David Hinrichs- Guitar; Fritz Hinrichs- Banjo; Joe Hinrichs- Bass; Nathaniel Ahern- Fiddle


Woodworking

During the Summers I try to get away from the books and get into the shop for some woodworking.

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David Newheiser and Nate Ahern helped mill these pieces for two sideboards.

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Dovetails are a must for any fine drawer construction.

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Here the sideboard carcasses are complete.

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The completed sideboard.

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Corner Cupboard


My timber framing webpage.

 

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