A family witnesses their home being packed away as they begin a new transition. Often, the transition is due to a new career or professional endeavor. This transition may be filled with anxiety and anticipation for new experiences, and it may seem to affect only those who are moving, yet the data tells a different story. In the United States, approximately eleven percent of the population changes location each year. As a soldier with twenty-six years in the Army and experience with a share of permanent change-of-station moves, I am familiar with this experience. I often hear families who are in the process of moving ask, “Where are the best schools?” This first question relates to a form of institutional influence. Typically, after the school inquiry, the next question relates to the location of the domicile in relation to the career or professional endeavor. Maybe, if all goes well after the school and house search, the topics will shift to finding a church or a community that best aligns with raising their children and other attributes of communal growth.
What Is the Hidden Assumption?
The hidden assumption is that the best schools will produce the best children. Placing the public school at the center of the community makes it the community’s cultural focal point. A cursory scroll through social media often reveals parents discussing school rankings, teacher quality, extracurricular offerings, and district performance as if these factors alone determine a child’s future success. As a homeschooling father, observing these discussions gives pause to a deeper issue: we seem to have lost sight of the roles families and institutions should play in nurturing future generations into adulthood. Families remain the primary institution of formation because they possess the authority, responsibility, and enduring relationships necessary to shape identity. Schools play a role in intellectual development, but they cannot replace the family’s formative role. Over time, we have come to expect schools to perform functions that properly belong to families, communities, churches, and other institutions. Before determining what schools should do, we must first understand what it means to form a person.
What Does It Mean to Form a Person?
The word formation derives from the Latin formatio, meaning “to form or shape.”1 We see the ideas of formation nested in Aristotle’s four causes. Aristotle teaches that to achieve a desired end state, we must identify what an object is made of, discern its shape or essence, determine the source of change acting upon it, and understand its ultimate purpose or function.2 To shape something is to craft it into an artifact of value. A blacksmith shapes iron into tools, and a carpenter shapes wood into furniture. Every act of formation assumes a desired end state. Aristotle further argued that human virtue lies in the excellence of the soul and in the disposition to act rightly.3 His philosophy of virtue aligns closely with the Christian understanding of being rightly ordered toward God.4 Whether one approaches the question through philosophy or theology, the conclusion remains similar: formation requires a vision of what a flourishing human being should become.
What Does a Well-Formed Young Adult Look Like?
A well-formed young adult is capable of self-governance and individual learning and seeks flourishing through virtue, reason, intellectual discourse, and craftsmanship. Such a person understands that actions have consequences, accepts responsibility for failures, pursues continual growth, and possesses the character necessary to participate meaningfully in family and community life. If formation requires a desired end state, then the question of responsibility becomes unavoidable. Who bears primary responsibility for shaping children toward that end? Modern society often assumes that public schools should carry a significant portion of that burden. The growth of social-emotional learning (SEL) programs illustrates this trend.5 Schools are now expected not only to teach academic subjects but also to help students develop healthy identities, manage emotions, build relationships, and make responsible decisions. Yet before assigning responsibility, we must understand the purpose of the systems and institutions involved. Families and schools both influence children, but influence alone does not determine responsibility. To understand the distinction, we must first understand what a school is designed to accomplish.
What Is a School Designed to Do?
The word school traces its origins to the Greek word scholē, originally meaning leisure devoted to intellectual discussion. The Latin schola evolved into a place of instruction and learning.6 While the language changed over time, the purpose remained remarkably consistent: schools exist as formal settings for intellectual discourse and the transmission of knowledge. At their best, schools teach the tools necessary for intellectual self-governance. Reading, writing, arithmetic, history, science, and rhetoric are not ends in themselves but tools that enable individuals to reason, communicate, and participate in society. Schools help students understand the world around them and provide the intellectual framework necessary to navigate it. In this sense, schools teach subjects, and families form people.
Why Is Time the Currency of Formation?
The distinction matters because formation requires time. A child may spend six or seven hours each day in school. Add transportation, extracurricular activities, homework, and weekend commitments, and educational systems occupy a substantial portion of a child’s waking life. Time is the currency of formation. The people and institutions receiving the greatest share of a child’s time will inevitably influence their development. Schools undoubtedly participate in formation, yet participation is not the same as primary responsibility. Educational systems are designed to educate groups through processes, standards, and measurable outcomes, while families operate differently. They provide security, belonging, accountability, vulnerability, and love. A family remains present after success and failure alike. A teacher may influence a child for a year; a family remains responsible for a lifetime.
Systems manage groups. Families form persons.
Systems shape performance. Families shape identity.
Where Does Real Formation Happen?
Consider the countless moments that occur outside the classroom. A family meal, a church gathering, a youth sporting event, a volunteer project, or a difficult conversation after a mistake has been made. No lesson plan guides these experiences, yet they often leave a deeper impression than formal instruction. In these moments, children learn how adults handle adversity, responsibility, gratitude, conflict, and service. Formation is not merely taught. It is observed, practiced, and lived. This is why families and communities remain indispensable to the development of young people.
Who Should Shape the Next Generation?
Schools and families are not interchangeable. Schools exist to facilitate intellectual discourse and the transmission of knowledge. The family exists to shape identity, impart virtue, foment intellectual discourse, transmit knowledge, and prepare children for participation in family and community life. When we confuse these roles, we begin assigning responsibilities to systems that properly belong to families. When families move to a new community, perhaps the question should not simply be, “Where are the best schools?” A more complete question might be, “What kind of family life, community, and opportunities for flourishing exist here?” Schools should not bear primary responsibility for shaping the next generation. Parents have far more influence over their children’s development than modern systems would have them believe. Children will be shaped by someone. The question is not whether formation occurs. The question is who bears responsibility for it. Schools teach subjects. Families form people.
Notes
- Etymonline, “Origin and History of Formation,” Etymonline.com, Douglas Harper, June 7, 2026, https://www.etymonline.com/word/formation. ↩
- Andrea Falcon, “Aristotle on Causality,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archive, Spring 2019 (Center for the Study of Language and Information, March 7, 2023), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/aristotle-causality/#FouCau. ↩
- Richard Kraut, “Aristotle’s Ethics,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archive, Fall 2022 (Center for the Study of Language and Information, July 2, 2022), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2022/entries/aristotle-ethics/. ↩
- Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Mark 12:29-31, The New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition; Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 2083. ↩
- CASEL, “Fundamentals of SEL,” Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, June 7, 2026, https://casel.org/fundamentals-of-sel/. ↩
- Etymonline, “Origin and History of School,” Etymonline.com, Douglas Harper, June 7, 2026, https://www.etymonline.com/word/school. ↩
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