Teacher Feature: Alexis Toussaint

In a classical education classroom, students read books that tell humanity’s story not just a few centuries worth, but sometimes stories thousands of years old. Students read of challenges, loss of friendships, love, forgiveness, faithfulness, honor, justice, and they discuss it in Alexis Toussaint’s 7th grade class at Highland Rim Academy through the prism of biblical faith.

In Homer’s The Odyssey, written 800 years before Jesus was born, students read about sacrifice, selflessness, selfishness, friendships lost – either through discord or death, surviving in less-than-ideal circumstances, battles lost and won. One of Toussaint’s favorite quotes comes from Homer, “There will always be a new dawn tomorrow” (The Odyssey).

As Odysseus tells about the loss of his friends to Cyclopes, he also says, “Bear up my heart, you have endured more than this” (The Odyssey).

While our youth today aren’t facing a literal cyclops, they are facing fraught challenges from media, culture outside their family, the how-to of building and maintaining healthy friendships, even a healthy self-image.  Sometimes, these challenges might feel like a Cyclopes is circling. Through the literature Toussaint brings to her classroom, students are able to address those same issues through both a historical and a biblical lens.

Another favorite quote of Toussaint’s is the following:

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end; 
they are new every morning; 
great is your faithfulness."
~ Lamentations 3: 22-23

Toussaint admits that her favorite quotes are similar, explaining, “These are all helpful when a student feels overwhelmed by something. There is always a fresh start tomorrow.”

Toussaint’s students are learning to do hard things. “We ask our students to apply themselves diligently to hard things,” she said. “We teach them to put in the hard work now so that they can reap the benefits later.”

Toussaint has been teaching students to do hard things for 15 years at Highland Rim Academy.

“Primarily, I am an ancient and medieval Great Books teacher. I have taught several other classes through the years, but Great Books is where I thrive. This year I am teaching 7th and 8th grades, but I have taught several others as well. Seventh and 11th are my favorites. Great Books is a ‘Great Conversations’ class. We cover history, theology, literature, philosophy, government, and other topics. We read and discuss and learn from the ‘Greats’ through history. Among several other books, my 7th graders read Homer and Plato,” Toussaint explained. “My 8th graders read Eusebius and Shakespeare. My 11th graders read Dante and Chaucer. We read everything through a Christian worldview. We can take what is good from Socrates while making sure we hold Biblical teachings as ultimate. When Socrates asks ‘What is goodness?,’ we weigh that question with scripture. What does the Bible tell us about goodness? Psalm 34:8 tells us the Lord is good. How does that compare with the answers Socrates receives? What can we do with this knowledge?”

On the day I visited Toussaint’s class, they were reading from Socrates and discussing the question, “What does it mean to live honorably and justly?”

Maybe you’re wondering why that question is important. Maybe you’re also wondering why reading classical and historical texts are important.

In an era where students, both secondary and tertiary education levels struggle to analyze anything from advertisements to text to numerical results, allowing students to ask questions, teaching students the logical precepts for analysis, and have conversations in the Socratic method that teaches students how to build an argument and break down an argument, Toussaint is equipping students to handle challenges—challenges to their beliefs and the challenges of bearing responsibility.

Toussaint said, “When everything feels chaotic, we know there is objective truth, goodness, and beauty.”

Through literature, she teaches how great men handled hard challenges: “A classical education teaches us that we are not buffeted about by the culture around us. We know what Homer says about hospitality. We know that King David was a man after God’s own heart - but he made mistakes. We know that Chaucer wrote about a church that needed reform.”

Reading classical literature and having conversations about man’s humanity isn’t going to prevent challenges. Understanding history, the rise and fall of man and civilizations, and his struggles through the lens of what God says about man, about their relationship with Him, that is what impacts the future of each student. They are going to face the same challenges unbelievers face. The difference is that they are learning to face those challenges through a biblical perspective.

Toussaint said, “Our students are not going to have easy lives just because they know what Augustine wrote as Rome was falling. They are going into a fallen world. They are fallen people. My hope is that they are steady.”

How can the Ancient Greeks and Romans, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens fit in with a Christian perspective? Toussaint explained, “Ultimately, all truth is God’s truth. We can pull out what is good in these books and cast aside what is evil. We recently finished reading The Histories of Herodotus in 7th grade. It’s a thick, monstrous book at over 900 pages that the students balk at when they see it for the first time. We read about one quarter of the book which covers the Greco-Persian Wars (around 490 B.C.)”

Toussaint said she asked the students what they had learned from a man who lived 2,500 years ago. The 12-and-13-year-olds of HRA responded with the following answers:

Her 8th grade class had a weighty discussion of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Toussaint said, “My 8th graders were reading Macbeth. We got to the spot where Lady Macbeth is trying to sleep-wash her guilt from her hands. I thoroughly enjoyed the looks on their faces as they slowly realized what she was doing. Then, suddenly, class was over. I took them outside, so they could play four-square for 15 minutes. When we came back for our second class of the day that afternoon, they were refreshed and raring to discuss the fact that Lady Macbeth’s sin was eating away at her.”

Toussaint said, “Our students can do the things - they can read and write and speak better than I could when I graduated college. They have been trained to work diligently. They know math and science and music and art. Ultimately, though, that is all for nought if they have not become virtuous. Everything we do must point them to their Savior.”

What do her students think about all the reading they do? Like many teachers, she’s found that students thrive when they are challenged beyond their comfort zone.

“I recently asked some of our seniors what books they have learned from the most through the years. Their answer surprised me - they learned more from the hardest books we read. Namely, they mentioned Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost. When I asked them why, they said ‘Because we took the time to sit in them. We read them for a long time, and we discussed and deciphered them.’”

Working hard and resting? At the same time? Toussaint explained, “Scripture calls us to both work and rest. A major tenet of classical education is ‘scholé’ - or work from rest. A classical education teaches that we don’t have to be in a hurry. We can slow down and enjoy learning. This is what scholé allows us to do. We work hard, but we also rest to allow the truths of the great conversation to permeate into our lives. We recognize the importance of play - and not just for small children. Middle school boys need to be outside. They need to run. They need to move. Our schedule allows for not just work, but also important rest.”

In one way, Toussaint said she’s not that different from the students in her class. “I recently came across the idea that teachers are just more mature students and students are just immature teachers. I thought it was a perfect description of a ‘life-long learner.’ Part of classical education is knowing that we don’t have to do everything right now. We are opening discussions that these kids will be contemplating for a lifetime.“

It’s probably not surprising that with such a love of literature, one of Toussaint’s hobbies is book binding. When the binding of her books she uses in her classroom wear out, she designs and replaces them, as in the photos shown.

Toussaint and her husband Joe enjoy board games, museums, and outdoor life with their three children, Des (5th grade), Nell (3rd grade), and Hendrik (kindergarten). When school is out, her children can be found building small forts in the woods or hiking down to the creek. 

Toussaint said that a few days ago, all her children were discussing The Little Pilgrim’s Progress. Her kindergartener’s teacher is reading it to her son’s class. Her oldest read Pilgrim’s Progress in the 4th grade. Her daughter received the book as a Christmas gift and has been reading through it on her own. Toussaint said, “I loved hearing them each talk about it at their different ages. They all gleaned different lessons from it. It made me really excited for what those conversations will look like in five years. . . and ten years, and then as adults.”

Toussaint strives in both her home life and in her classroom to equip her students “to become good husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. I want them to spend their lives on what is good and virtuous. I want them to be people who repent when they do wrong. I want them to work- in whatever work they do- to the glory of God.”

Maybe at the next family dinner, whether you still have children in the nest or children out of the nest, maybe a good dinner table discussion could be started with some of Toussaint’s questions: What is goodness? What does it mean to live honorably and justly? What would help someone with a Lady Macbeth-sized guilt find peace? What’s something big you’ve been working on? Have you slowed down to let the great truths God is trying to reveal to you in that work?

I’m not sure those answers would be a conversation I would readily forget. Afterall, classical conversations are just for the classroom. They are for real, everyday ordinary living—that’s what makes them so very classical!

"There will always be a new dawn tomorrow”
~ The Odyssey, Homer