:: Wisdom and Virtue in Action

Profiles of Classical Christian Education Graduates

Samantha Ward

Accomplished Fiction Writer Sets Sights on Career in International Affairs

When Samantha Ward began crafting a short story entitled The Alliance in her journal one evening about faeries, elves, evil villains and enchanted lands, she had no idea that she had begun writing a tale that would eventually lead to a multi-book publishing contract involving four authors in a unique approach to collaborative fiction writing.

“I started writing The Alliance when I was 15,” Ward explained in early 2009, months before graduating from James Madison University with a degree in International Affairs. “Soon, it involved two other students and our Algebra teacher.”

"I was comfortable saying what I thought and believed. I was in an Honors seminar my Freshman year that had a very clear, liberal agenda. I was challenged a lot, but never had a place where I was nervous about what I was saying. I knew what I thought and had a reason for it."

In 2004, after Ward and fellow student Chrystine Kern had written a few pages of what would eventually be published as the first book in the Faeltheon Trilogy, she took the story to her tenth-grade math teacher, Michelle Yardumian, herself an accomplished writer who had coached several other Ad Fontes Academy students on their writing. Yardumian immediately recognized the standout quality of the storytelling and encouraged the students to continue writing.

“The idea to write together came out of a conversation I had with Chrystine [Kern],” Ward said. “We both enjoyed writing and had been told we had similar writing styles. So we started talking about it and soon began really expanding the story. And we’ve worked to put moral lessons and a spiritual message into the book.”

As a way to help keep focused on the project, Ward and Kern approached fellow Sophomore Rachel DiDomenico with a proposition – to collaborate on writing the story by authoring sections independently of one another. Yardumian would supervise the effort.

“So the idea was that we would each write a section, then pass the notebook to the next person,” Ward said. “Everything that we write gets edited by the others, so it gets edited by all four authors. This makes the process really unique. It is a true team effort.”

Yardumian helped with the writing, but soon took the role in organizing and leading the team. “A lot of publishers don’t trust things to flow properly with books written by multiple authors,” Ward said. “Michelle [Yardumian] took the lead in working with the publisher and she was the organizer in getting all our story themes laid out.”

The work continued as the team developed a storyline that would span three books. Five years later, the notebook has given way to writing and collaborating electronically. Ward, DiDomenico and Kern attended separate colleges in different states. Yardumian has since moved to New Mexico.

Originally slated to be a trilogy, the final book was divided (at the publisher’s request) into two volumes for four books in the series. Tate Publishing began selling The Alliance in 2007 at major booksellers and online. The second book, Run Before the Wind, is scheduled for publication in Summer 2009.

“The most exciting thing for us is that all the feedback we’ve gotten so far has been great,” Ward said. “There has not been a single return of the book. The testimonials that we get clearly show that readers have been able to take something away from the experience.”

When Ward enrolled at James Madison as a Freshman, she had no idea how important her personal writing experience and exposure to classical Christian education would be. “I definitely think the classical Christian education was invaluable,” she said. “I had to write ten page papers for every class at Ad Fontes. As a result, the papers in college were so much easier. There’s just not as much expected from students.”

Ward recounted a time during her Freshman year that her roommate came to her in a panic one night because she had a ten page paper due, and had no idea how to proceed. “Even though she was dual-enrolled in English, she never had to write anything longer than four pages,” Ward recalled. “I had to go through the process that night and teach her how to write effectively at that length.”

The challenge of making oral presentation is also something Ward appreciates about having received a classical Christian education. “Many of my college friends have never had to do an oral presentation,” she said. “I was comfortable saying what I thought and believed. I was in an Honors seminar my Freshman year that had a very clear, liberal agenda. I was challenged a lot, but never had a place where I was nervous about what I was saying. I knew what I thought and had a reason for it.”
Ward said she is grateful to have gone through the process of exploring and affirming her beliefs before heading off to college. “I didn’t have to be nervous or scared on a more personal level that those beliefs could be wrong.”

Having already established herself as a writer of engaging fiction, Ward is eager to set the writing aside to focus on her “real-life calling” – international affairs. She is finishing up a three year internship with a defense contractor in Northern Virginia and has already gained exposure to issues in public policy and the Middle East following a six month opportunity to study abroad in Egypt. She is an Arabic language minor.

“I’m thinking a lot lately about graduate school – maybe doing it part time while I’m working,” Ward said. “That won’t happen immediately; perhaps in the next few years. I would really like to go abroad for grad school to improve my language skills and gain more experience in public affairs. I have a heart for the Middle East. I enjoy the culture and it’s the area I would most like to focus on in a public and a spiritual manner.”

While attending James Madison, Ward has been actively involved at Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Harrisonburg, VA.

Holley Peters

Classical Ed Grad Helping Start New School

From student to teacher, Holley Peters has come full-circle.

The 2002 Graduate of Westminster Academy, a classical Christian school in Memphis, Tennessee, recently accepted the position as Director of Development for Pinnacle Classical Academy, a start-up classical Christian school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Peters is one of a handful of classical education graduates nationwide who have latched on to its merits so tightly that they commit themselves to working in education vocationally.

She contributes her enthusiasm for classical Christian education to the fact that her family was deeply involved at Westminster during its critical first founding years.

“Being in on that founding process was fun as a kid,” she said. “My heart was into it going into [Westminster] as a 7th grader.”

Her parents have taken on a variety of leadership roles – including serving on the board of directors. Like many classical Christian schools, Westminster became more “classical” in its approach through trial and error on part of the founding leaders.

“I received a lot of benefits from attempting to do things classically in the early days,” she laughed. Today, the benefits of learning classically are evident in all areas of Peters’ life – professionally and personally – and are a testament to both the model and Westminster’s quality of education.

“Looking back, Westminster was the place where I was challenged and pushed theologically and thought about things I had never heard before,” she said. “When I think of when I really started growing as a Christian – it was in high school as I understood what it meant to be forgiven and have God’s grace. Westminster holds a special place in my heart because of that spiritual growth.”

The classroom environment of a classical Christian high school held the right ingredients for faith challenges resulting in significant growth, Peters explained. “In those rhetoric classes I benefitted from the value of a broad range of relationships rather than simply being self-absorbed in my teenage life.” Academically, Peters’ education was equally challenging and beneficial – something she realized much more after graduation and attending Bryan College in Dayton Tennessee.

“In rhetoric and English classes we learned how to do significant research,” she recalled. “That forced us to take apart topics and higher level thinking and argument. So as a freshman [in college] I had already been forced to do deeper research, maybe sooner than what some of my other peers had in freshman English. Having been taught how to structure a paper logically, I had built a framework that applied to every writing assignment from then on that I adapted depending on the audience.”

After graduation, as Peters pursued a teaching career which eventually landed her on staff as a high school English teacher at Little Rock Christian Academy, she came face-to-face yet again with a critical component of her high-school education – the ability to speak clearly, present a logical argument and defend it through public speaking. This, of course, is something she would do every day as a school teacher.

Having to present papers at Westminster was huge because it stepped up the level of quality that I was trying to turn out,” she said. “I had to defend what I had written so that put a higher level of accountability on me for the quality of my work. That was a great experience – having to know my argument well and be confident about it.”

While in college, Peters was not certain about pursuing career in education, so she earned her B.A. in English. But when she began teaching, she felt well prepared even though she never took education courses in college.

"My experience at Westminster really taught me how to teach,” she explained. “In some ways it was more influential than my college experience. It was the preparation that I had as far back as high school that taught me how to think analytically, research, write papers and provided teaching models for me to think about how I’m going to be a teacher myself. I heavily, heavily relied on the teachers and people that I had influencing me and the ideas of classical education and how the brain of a child develops at different phases.”

In her new role at Pinnacle Classical Academy, Peters is the school’s first and only employee for the upcoming year reporting directly to the board. She finds herself in a unique position of advising and assisting the board how to educate classically, and looks forward to the challenge when Pinnacle opens its doors in Fall 2010 to students in grades K to 6.

“I’ve benefitted so much from classical education that it’s really fun to think about being able to help provide that opportunity for other students,” she said. “It’s sort of a coming of age – it feels a little that way – where it’s now my turn to do it for another generation.”

Peters and her husband Luke, who is in his third year of medical school, have been married for two years.

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