The Founders
Mike & Alyssa Maden
Why start a school?
In my bedroom at my parents hangs a poster I did for a staff development meeting when I was volunteering at Youth for Christ, 13 years ago. It lists physical characteristics, passions and dreams. Next to the category labeled “Hopes” it says, “to seriously change the world”.
Ever since I can remember, I have had an intense passion to study history and politics and theology and how they’re all intertwined. Dutch theologian, Abraham Kuyper says, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign overall, does not cry, Mine!” ... The story of the world is written by the omniscient, omnipotent hand of God and I’ve spent the majority of my life trying to piece it all together.
I knew I wanted to be a teacher by the time I was in the 5th grade. I can remember I would make mental notes of how and what I would do if I could teach one day. As I got older and my understanding of the gospel deepened, I wanted to somehow effectively convey the truth of the gospel to others, so they too would know the power of the life changing, dead raising gospel. Not that I have any power to convey that. But that somehow people would know the power of the cross of Christ.
In my head, these thoughts culminated into a school. I would look around and think, “yeah all this philanthropy is good. But how do I make a lasting change? There has to be more than canned food drives and good deeds. Souls have to be stirred and moved by the truth right?!” A school could combine the truth of the Bible, academics, discipleship and service to our neighbors and community.
Then I met my husband, Mike. We would spend all our time talking history, politics, theology, war, literature, philosophy, and they all seemed to be woven together by one common starting point: the God of the Bible. When our daughter was three and our middle son was one, I began researching methods of education. I had spent many years working in public education, and I had many friends that were homeschooling their own children.
I wasn’t fully convinced that either of those options were what I wanted for my kids. I stumbled across Classical Conversations one day and loved the content and methodology but still, it was a homeschool program. I continued to search until I came across the Association of Classical Christian Schools and that’s when the voice in my head said, “this is it!”
Classical Christian Education was the culmination of history, literature, philosophy, great ideas, creation, complex numbers and formulas, and biblical truth. It was exactly what I had been looking for in my own education and for my own children. The ACCS offered tools to start a school and I ran to Mike and gleefully squealed, “The ACCS will give us all the resources to start a school. A real school! Want to try?” to which he laughed and replied, “you’re insane. We cannot start a school” I convinced him to take me to the annual ACCS conference in Frisco, Texas in June of 2018.
The second day we were there he said, “we don’t have a choice, we have to start the school”. Keith Nix says, “It’s dangerous. The easy part is to catch the vision (of CCE) the dangerous part is when the vision catches you.”
