See what our Alumni are saying about Tall Oaks!
Christian Principles — Classical Methods — Amazing Results
Comments from Alumnus and First Teacher to Graduate from Tall Oaks,
Karl Mason - Class of 2003
Comments from Gentry Williams Rench - Class of 1999As an 11th grader entering Tall Oaks, I wasn't sure what to expect. I thought I knew about classical education—I had already been to a classical school and learned some Latin and Greek. Tall Oaks was a different kind of place. Classical education wasn't just learning how to conjugate a Latin verb, apparently. It was an approach to knowledge that permeated the entire curriculum of the school, not just a few subjects. All things could be learned just as, for hundreds of years, children learned the Latin language.
First, the grammar—the terms and facts of a subject—must be learned. Then, as terms and facts fall into place, students in the logic phase can begin to understand how these elements fit together. Finally, they can learn to articulate and synthesize these elements in a cohesive and beautiful way in the rhetoric phase. I was particularly daunted by the many public speaking opportunities throughout the school year. A bashful teenager, I nonetheless became accustomed to weekly and even daily impromptu speeches. The thesis was the most challenging task I ever faced in high school. Imagine: having to speak for twenty minutes on one topic in front of the teachers! Somehow I survived all of this. Even though I never learned to relish every public speaking assignment, I realized that I was at least capable of doing any sort of public speaking that would ever come my way in college and beyond.
Mr. Greydanus, who gave out a number of awards every year, gave me the "most improved" award for rhetoric. I can't say that I have been prouder of any award I have since received. Now, seven years after graduating, I'm back here at Tall Oaks. As an English teacher in the dialectic school, I look forward to being a part of the academic program that changed my life. Karl Mason, Class of 2003
Excerpt taken from Jeff Loux's State of the School Speech - January 2010Gentry (Williams) Rench currently lives in Moscow, Idaho with her husband, Aaron, and their three children, Eve (4), Cyrus (2) and Cormac (7 months). She received her B.A. in Liberal Arts and Culture from New Saint Andrews College in 2003 after marrying Aaron in 2002. Aaron finished his Masters in creative writing from Oxford University. Gentry enjoys applying all that her classical education has given her in the raising of her three fantastic kiddos. Aaron stays plenty busy working in the publishing and film industries.
"We have thoroughly enjoyed watching Tall Oaks grow up over the years. We love receiving all the news out here in Idaho and we are continuing the classical education route for our own kids at Logos School here in Moscow.
I remember the days when my parents and many others decided they needed to open a school. It was just a little school with 3 teachers, 20 students and lots of volunteers sacrificing so much behind the scenes. It is truly a wonderful thing to witness their vision come to fruition with the school growing and flourishing full of new parents and students. As a parent now myself I have a new understanding of how important the work of schools like Tall Oaks and Logos are. May God bless you and all the staff at Tall Oaks as you do His good work."
(To hear the full speech, please visit see our teacher's comments and click on Jeff Loux)
When I came to Tall Oaks as a fifth grader, I had never heard of Hermeneutics, Homer's Iliad, or the formal rules of logic; I knew nothing about Latin much less Greek, and, unlike my classmates, I could not recite the history of the world from creation through the Middle Ages. I won't say that coming into a school where my friends had been classifying sentences since the first grade was easy, but it was by no means impossible. No teacher ever left me behind. I received as much help as I needed to ensure that I too could have the benefits of a Tall Oaks education, and that is one of the many things which stand out about Tall Oaks. The teachers and staff work hard every day to help each student succeed no matter where they start.
But Tall Oaks does not merely help students succeed within the environment of the school; they also prepare them for life after graduation. Though I'm sure many students don't completely appreciate the scope of the education they are receiving here at Tall Oaks, they are being given a set of invaluable tools that will help them excel not only in their careers but also as strong Christian men and women.
I remember years ago one teacher said to our class, "We are not preparing you for college; we're preparing you for graduate school." We are learning how to think. Unlike many systems of education, we are not simply expected to absorb and regurgitate information. Although this is an important foundation of the grammar stage in Classical Education, it is not the be-all and end-all. In order to excel in our modern age, we must be able to think for ourselves. I have seen this played out in many of my own classes. All of our teachers challenge us to decide why we agree or disagree with a disputed point. In Mr. Turley's Theology classes for example, we are encouraged to argue our beliefs. Mr. Turley doesn't want us to hold to a doctrine only because that is what our superiors have taught us. He wants us to know why we believe it. That in itself ensures that, should our faith be challenged, we can defend it.
...Tall Oaks provides more than just a good education. It provides each and every student with the ability to think for himself, and, in this increasingly secular world, nothing is more important. Tall Oaks ensure that all its graduates are ready to face the challenges ahead knowing that they can stand firm in their beliefs as they begin their journey in life as young men and women of God. Jeff Loux, Senior, Class of 2010
Comments from Alumnus Jonathan Williams - Class of 2009
Comments from Alumnus Carly Winstead - Class of 2009Tall Oaks emphasizes the importance of giving its students an education that begins and ends with Christ. God tells us in Revelation 21 that He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. We are taught that all of our subjects cohere because Christ is at their center. Our teachers here understand this and incorporate it into how they teach their respective subjects, striving to show us the relationship each subject has to every other subject. We are shown the connection between God’s relevance in mathematics, art class, and even physical education. God is the God of all of it." Jonathan Williams, Class of 2009
"Each student encourages other students in their school work, in their walk with God and in whatever sport the Titans are playing...The learning experience here is challenging but extremely engaging and rewarding to the students as there is a common theme in every class to know more about God and the plans He has for each of us. In my years at Tall Oaks I have been challenged and pushed to do my best, I have been nurtured in the most important areas of life; knowing God and how to live for Him using invaluable tools received through an amazing education." Carly Winstead, Class of 2009
Listen to Alumnus Chris Brearly - Class of 2008 - as he reads his essay for his Freshman Honors English class on the Penn State University Radio spot (April 2009)
Comments from Alumnus Brant Hauser - Class of 1998
What I found in college classrooms were high school graduates with little or no idea how to process the information given to them. Their learning process mimicked the learning process our first graders employ at Tall Oaks. Listen. Memorize. Repeat. Even more apparent was their lack of ability to piece together a sound logical argument, much less a coherent sentence. Let me remind you that these observations impressed me while I was in the honors program. These students were supposed to be Delaware’s best and brightest. My favorite example came in an honors colloquium class entitled “Freedom and Equality”. The class was meant to be a relatively open forum discussion on the difficulties in simultaneously enforcing both freedom and equality in a society. It was a disaster. Time after time the students would come in to class having read the assignments, most of which were the founding documents of this country, and having absorbed none of the meaning. This course was nothing more than a volley of canned arguments the students had heard elsewhere. Prodding them for any explanation would yield a repeat of the argument at a higher volume. This was a class with two students who had scored 1600 on their SATs. Believe me now when I say that being “smart” had nothing to do with thriving in that setting. The tools to learn that were instilled in me at Tall Oaks were what enabled my comprehension of the subject and my ability to discuss it intelligently. This was a theme that I found threaded through my years of undergraduate and graduate studies at both the University of Delaware and the University of Idaho. Whether it was English 101 or Honors Chemistry or my architectural thesis, I found myself thankful to God for the meager four years I had here learning about more than just the grammar of life. Those “archaic classics” that I read at Tall Oaks that I never thought would be applicable, are nothing short of the finest lessons history has to teach. Brant Hauser, Tall Oaks Class of 1998
Comments from Alumnus Iain Roush - Class of 2004
The task of any musician who is worth his salt is to take the great ideas translated by the composer into notes and emotion and to make them immanent and appealing to any listener. This is where one has to be able to dialogue with those foundational ideas and to process them into something meaningful so one does not become another talking head or simply add to the meaningless noise so very prevalent in our contemporary society. There are two examples that come to mind when thinking about this concept. The first would be from my weekly guitar lessons that serve as the centerpiece of my Peabody education. I have had the extreme good fortune to be studying with a man who could serve as a living compendium of Western achievements in thinking. In a lesson he may approach a piece of music from a work of Sophocles, from the philosophy of Heidegger or perhaps the opening of the Book of John. Because of classical studies in Greek literature and Greek language, from philosophical surveys in classes such as Christian Apologetics, and obviously from the Biblical underpinning to everything in the Tall Oaks curriculum, these are all ideas that are familiar to me and can be readily integrated into understanding the music I am playing. And what’s more, I’ve been given the framework to understand that these ideas are not discrete ideas that have no connection to one another, but can be arranged into a larger worldview. The production of a note can be a finger crossing a string or pushing a key, or it can be nothing passing into being or a word becoming embodied in sonic flesh…
…When I was leading a class in which we were discussing the Confessions of St. Augustine, I overheard one of my fellow guitarists asked, “What does St. Augustine have to do with music? How is this making me a better musician?” The question gave me pause for quite a few days and didn’t seem entirely invalid. But I finally came to the conclusion that what St. Augustine had to do with music was everything. He says, “My heart is restless until it rests in you.” What Augustine is talking about is the foundation for everything we do and music, or art in general, is a recognition of the frailty of beauty in a fallen world and is striving to echo and make manifest the beauty and truth of God and to share it with others. Iain Roush, Tall Oaks Class of 2004