God regularly gives us tasks that would be impossible apart from His grace, and bringing up kids in the fear and admonition of the LORD must be one of the foremost among these. I remember – only two U.S. Presidents ago I was a kid making life difficult for my own parents. Four years at Freedom, however, have convinced me that this school is an extraordinarily helpful conduit of God's child-instructing grace. Freedom represents the confluence of excellent teachers, heavily-involved parents, classical educational philosophy, and unflinching commitment to the authority of Scripture. Finding all of these together in one institution is rare; how many schools build a good reputation based on only two or three such elements?

The quality of Freedom's teachers became increasingly apparent during my freshman year in college. Fellow Freedom alumnus Ryan Lang and I were in Chemistry for Engineers, one of Cedarville University's "weeder" classes. A weeder class is one which, intentionally or otherwise, would help about half of the incoming students in our major decide that perhaps engineering was not for them. Ryan and I found it easy; Mrs. Sharpe had taught us the material so thoroughly in 11th grade that we were able to excel where equally-intelligent classmates struggled. For several of our classes, including General Physics I, Speech, and especially Composition, we discovered that the academic standards of Freedom teachers were actually higher than those of our professors. The head start we enjoyed as Freedom alumni enabled us to provide leadership in the classroom and devote precious time out of the classroom to our other assignments. I should add that Freedom's teachers are incredible about getting to know their students personally. Attending athletic events, leading extracurricular projects, visiting graduation open houses, even inviting us to their own homes – Freedom faculty far surpass their job descriptions (and salary grades!) to invest in the lives of their students.

God places final responsibility for a child's education not on vocational teachers, but on parents, so another facet of the school's excellence is that it encourages and experiences a high level of parental involvement. The consequence of this involvement is that parents come to know the administrators and teachers very well, and can be confident that what their children are learning will align with their values and expectations.

Freedom may also even exceed their parents' expectations. As a school committed to the classical model of education, Freedom employs some of the same pedagogical practices as Oxford and other elite colleges of today, and nearly all great colleges of the past. For me, that meant training in formal logic, learning directly from the great works of western civilization, and much practice in synthesizing facts and reasoning to craft persuasive communications. Hopefully I have not conveyed the impression that the classical approach is for elite students while the "normal" approach is for normal students; the difference between them is one of worldview presuppositions rather than of targeted student categories. The "normal" approach in America is the one pioneered by John Dewey, an atheistic social Darwinist who denied the existence of knowable ultimate truth. Ideas have consequences, and Freedom's educational model is better for all kinds of students because it rests on better ideas.

Of course, the best ideas come from God Himself, and the last thing I love about my Freedom education is the extent to which Scripture permeated it. I do not refer only to the chapels, the Bible classes, the mission trips, the daily Bible studies, or the prayer meetings, though each of these was phenomenal – rather, the whole experience was Bible-centered. Originally, the word "university" alluded to "the universality of knowledge," the understanding that every field of study was just part of a larger, unified body of God's truth. Freedom maintains this tradition, even as most "universities" today offer a fragmented and disconnected education. The Bible was our foundation, our theater, our contact lens; a required textbook in classes ranging from Physical Science to Modern History. It became a part of our student culture – my class matured and bonded dramatically during our four years of high school, and many of us still keep regular contact. At the time of this writing, in fact, two other Class of '04 Freedom grads are spending the afternoon with me in my Chicago apartment.

Therefore, because Freedom is such a rare and excellent school making such a tremendous impact on the lives of its students, I invite anyone reading this testimonial to join me in pledging to donate to Freedom, despite today's hard economic conditions. I also urge those with school-aged children to consider giving them the same educational opportunity I've enjoyed – and it might not require as much financial sacrifice as one would expect. My own family recovered about 85% of my high school tuition in the form of college scholarships, earned in large part through the knowledge and work ethic I picked up at Freedom. Even if it does require financial sacrifice, however, Freedom is exactly the kind of sacrifice which, in God's economy, starts to look a lot like a savvy investment.