Below is an edited version of the remarks that Head of School, Mr. Hoch, shared at the 2025-26 Faculty and Staff Kick Off Meeting.
A Parable to Start
A wealthy man once owned a large farm, and despite his means, he had his sons work the land alongside the hired hands. A visitor asked him, “Why have your sons out here working so hard? With your wealth, you could hire plenty of workers and let them enjoy their youth.”
The farmer replied, “I’m not raising corn. I’m raising sons.”
Doing Hard Things
This summer, I found myself thinking a lot about the value of doing hard things. Part of it was our family’s 22-day road trip — over 5,500 miles and 80 hours with six bodies crammed in the cab of a pickup truck. It was beautiful, fun, and full of adventure. But it also challenged us. Setting up our trailer every time we pulled into a new campsite took effort on all our parts, yet my kids loved having designated assignments to complete. We encountered tornados in Oklahoma, a broken truck in Utah, and high winds in Kansas, yet God brought us through safely. Yes, the trip was hard at times, but it was totally worth it.
It came to mind again when my son (a rising 7th grader) told me, after the Spring Athletic Awards Ceremony, that he wanted to run every day during the summer so he could improve for next season. The first day of training came and … his determination quickly collided with reality: improvement requires consistent effort over time. Getting better at something takes a lot of hard work.
And I’ve thought about it as I’ve had my kids do more yard work this summer — partly because I need the help, partly because they need the lesson. Like the farmer in the parable, I’m trying to raise virtuous children. And sometimes that means letting go of my perfectionism: accepting that a strip of grass might go unmowed, or that a task takes three times longer than if I had just done it myself. But the growth in my children gained by taking the time to do it this way is priceless. We all need the freedom to learn by doing, even if it takes a while.
What This Means for Redeemer
At Redeemer, we ask a lot of our students, which in turn requires a lot of us as faculty, and as parents. It requires letting go of control at times. Let’s be honest, it would be far easier to play a Khan Academy video or a Magic School Bus episode than to plan, teach, and engage students with a classical Christian education. And students would probably find it more entertaining.
But ease and entertainment are not our goal. Wisdom and virtue are. And those take time, effort, and sometimes discomfort.
As Epictetus wrote:
“No great thing is created suddenly — any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.” — Discourses I.15
Seneca reminds us:
“It takes the whole of life to learn how to live.” — Letters to Lucilius LXXVI
And Proverbs 2 tells us:
“My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”
Notice the time and struggle mentioned in these verses: attentive, inclining, calling out, raising your voice, seeking, searching. These are not passive words. Wisdom and virtue do not spontaneously appear; they are the result of time and effort.
Resisting the Easy Way
Unfortunately, our world often tells us that speed, efficiency, and ease are virtues in themselves — that struggle means something is wrong. That the wisest man is he who has figured out how to do the least amount with the greatest result. Indeed, that time and effort are the enemy. While I’m grateful I don’t have to spend every day simply working to survive like in Little House in the Big Woods, I would not benefit from bypassing all difficulty and struggle.
We need to learn the difference between virtuous struggle — the kind that forms us — and wicked struggle — the kind that depletes without purpose. We need to know when to take a shortcut and when to take the long way. And we need to pass that wisdom on to our children.
We need to be willing to do the hard thing — not simply because it’s hard, but because of the formative value of taking the tougher route. And we need to understand the deformation of our souls that comes from always taking the easy way out.
Deep Roots, Strong Oaks
Jonathan Haidt, in The Anxious Generation, talks about how trees grown indoors aren’t as strong. Their roots are shallow, and their cellular structure is weakened from the limited and sheltered environment in which they grow. It turns out that the constant swaying in the wind hardens and strengthens trees on a cellular level. As such, trees grown indoors will eventually collapse and fall under their own weight.
The same goes for us. We need the “wind” to help make us strong. So as we seek to grow Oaks of Righteousness (Isaiah 61:3; Redeemer’s Vision Statement) — to help our students put down deep roots, and to be strong and sturdy — we remind ourselves that that development won’t happen in a vacuum. Growth of this kind requires some pushing, struggle, and enduring the storms of life. And we need to teach them how to do so with fortitude, prudence, perseverance, and love.
At Redeemer, this, this is what we’re about. Because we’re not just educating the mind. We’re raising sons and daughters of character. Such a mission takes time. It takes effort. And it takes struggle.
And it will be totally worth it.