In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, Jesse Hake welcomes Zach Howard, professor at Bethlehem College and Seminary, to explore the formation of teachers and the continuing renewal of classical Christian education. Howard traces his own path from homeschooling and Hillsdale College to teaching at Mars Hill Academy and studying Augustine, experiences that deepened his conviction that education should form students for human flourishing rather than merely prepare them for careers. Drawing on his scholarship on Augustine, he considers how rhetoric, memory, imagination, and vivid images can shape our loves and direct our desires toward what is true and good. 

The conversation also introduces Bethlehem’s new Master of Arts in Classical Christian Education, launching in summer 2027 to provide teachers and school leaders with theological, philosophical, and practical formation through in-person summer intensives. Howard explains Bethlehem’s particular emphasis on theological grounding, face-to-face formation, and cultivating educators who are both deeply rooted in the classical tradition and prepared for the realities of the classroom. 

Zach also hosts the Midwest Educators Seminar, co-hosted with the Society for Classical Learning, October 9–10, 2026, at Bethlehem College and Seminary. Speakers include John Piper, Eric Cook, Eric Twist, Keith Phillips, and two Classical Academic Press authors who also present on ClassicalU: Kevin Clark (co-author of The Liberal Arts Tradition) and Tammy Peters (author of Well-Ordered Language). Registration is open now.

Listeners may also be interested in other ClassicalU courses mentioned such as “Spreading the Feast: Classical Education for all”, “The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis”, and “The Festive and Praying School”. 

In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, Jesse Hake welcomes Classical Academic Press video producer Cody Wanner for an illuminating conversation about storytelling, wonder, and his growing encounter with classical Christian education. Cody reflects on formative experiences such as hearing The Hobbit read aloud by his sixth-grade math teacher and explains why poetic knowledge and awakening wonder have become central to his understanding of education. The conversation turns to their recent work capturing stories from graduates of the University of Kansas Integrated Humanities Program, including its radical emphasis on attentive listening, meaningful limits, and learning through beauty. 

Drawing connections to pickleball, flow state, and the rules that make genuine play possible, Cody explores the paradox that boundaries and discipline can actually create greater freedom. Jesse and Cody also consider the formative power of heroes and stories, from The Hobbit and The Count of Monte Cristo to The Princess Bride, and why good education allows students to wrestle honestly with both virtue and human frailty. The episode concludes with a behind-the-scenes look at capturing great teaching for ClassicalU and Cody’s reflections on the creativity, resilience, and shared purpose he has encountered among his colleagues at Classical Academic Press. Listeners will come away with an invitation to rediscover education as an encounter with wonder, disciplined freedom, great stories, and the beauty of learning well.

Listeners may also be interested in learning more about the Kansas Integrated Humanities Program in James S. Taylor's Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education. To explore these themes further, consider the following ClassicalU Courses: The Good Teacher, The Festive and Praying School, and The Art of Poetry. 

In this episode, Jesse Hake talks with Sarah Kwilinski about her new ClassicalU course, Restoring Wonder for Every Learner: Universal Design in the Classical Tradition, and how classical education can faithfully serve every learner through what she calls "durable hospitality." Drawing on more than twenty-five years in special education and the influence of Dr. Amy Gilbert Richards, Sarah explains why universal design is not merely an accommodation strategy but a return to time-tested classical practices that benefit all students. She challenges prevailing assumptions about homework, standardized testing, inclusion, and early academic pressure while offering practical alternatives rooted in narration, the common arts, Charlotte Mason's philosophy, and the principle of festina lente. Sarah also shares how Sundial Classical School & Farmstead's small-group instruction, multi-age classrooms, collaborative culture, and emphasis on building the student before emphasizing academic performance have produced remarkable outcomes for learners with and without disabilities. The conversation explores why assessment should cultivate student ownership rather than anxiety, how parents become indispensable partners in education, and what schools can learn from current research on early childhood education. Throughout the discussion, Sarah and Jesse point toward resources including Chris Hall's ClassicalU course, Common Arts Education, Dr. Amy Gilbert Richards' ClassicalU course, Disability and Classical Education: Student Formation in Keeping with Our Common Humanity, Christopher Perrin and Carrie Eben's The Good Teacher, NOVARE Science, and the Templeton Master of Arts in Classical Teaching program while highlighting research from Vanderbilt University's Tennessee Pre-K Study. Whether you're a classroom teacher, school leader, or parent, this conversation offers a hopeful vision for restoring wonder, dignity, and genuine flourishing to every learner. 

Listeners may also be interested in related ClassicalU courses, including Jason Barney's Charlotte Mason: A Liberal Education for All and Narration: A Classical Guide, which further explore the educational philosophy and teaching practices that complement many of the ideas discussed in this episode.

Recorded on site at True North Classical Academy, Jesse Hake speaks with Patricio Mendez, philosophy teacher and the Director of EdTech & Analytics, about recovering teaching as a vocation of love rather than a transaction of grades. Mendez describes his philosophy course as an effort not merely to teach the history of philosophy, but to help students philosophize, encounter wisdom, and enter into a living relation with texts, teachers, and one another. He explains why he tells students at the beginning of the year that they already have an "A”, a practice meant to unsettle grade-driven habits and open space for love of the true, good, and beautiful. The conversation turns to concrete classroom patterns: beginning with poetry recitation, using catechism to place students before trusted authorities, moving through Socratic circles toward student-led seminars, and treating writing as a spiritual exercise rather than a mere performance of answers. Mendez also reflects on how Classical U, especially a lesson on Flannery O’Connor, has shaped his sense of Christ, scandal, and the true, good, and beautiful as a real encounter rather than a mere academic exercise. The episode closes by considering how data and analytics can serve a school only when they are understood as partial reflections of the student rather than the student himself. Throughout, Mendez presents education as a communal, contemplative act in which students gradually learn to ask genuine questions, participate in truth, and “know the place for the first time”.  

Listeners may also be interested in other ClassicalU courses such as “Awakening the Moral Imagination through Fairy Tales and Stories” and "Teaching the Great Books".

In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, Jesse Hake speaks with Jessica Hooten-Wilson about her forthcoming book on Christian women whose lives and work have often been neglected because they are “too Christian for the feminists and too feminist for the Christians.” Hooten-Wilson looks to women at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as models for overcoming false divides between home and work, motherhood and the life of the mind, and Christian faith and women’s public voices. Through figures such as Anna Julia Cooper, Dorothy L. Sayers, Edith Stein, Mother Maria of Paris, Kate Bushnell, and Julian of Norwich, she explores how narrative portraits can illuminate deeper questions of Christian anthropology, virtue, vocation, and formation. The conversation highlights the need for classical Christian educators to recover women’s stories within the living tradition, not as additions for novelty’s sake, but as models of human flourishing worthy of imitation. Hooten-Wilson also reflects on silence as contemplative stillness rather than speechlessness, motherhood as both biological and spiritual, and the way women’s voices strengthen homes, schools, churches, and culture. The episode closes with practical suggestions for introducing students to women in the tradition through texts by Julian of Norwich, Perpetua, Christine de Pizan, and others. You can find more of Jessica Hooten-Wilson work through her substack and her podcast. 

Suggested Reading & Resources:

• The Black Intellectual Tradition by Dr. Anika Prather, Dr. Angel Adams Parham, et al.
• The Passion of Perpetua by Mia Donato et al. 
• The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan
• The Man Born to Be King by Dorothy Sayers
• The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place Complete 6-Book Set by Maryrose Wood
• Flannery O'Connor's Why Do the Heathen Rage?: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress by Jessica Hooten-Wilson
• Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice by Jessica Hooten-Wilson 
• The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints by Jessica Hooten-Wilson

Suggested ClassicalU courses:

• Women in the Liberal Arts Tradition
• The Black Intellectual Tradition and the Great Conversation

In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, Jesse Hake—joined by guests Dr. Brian Williams and Jake Tawney—explores the pressing question of AI and human formation in the classroom. Framed by the classical vision of education as the formation of the whole person, the conversation challenges the assumption that efficiency, output, or technological adoption should drive educational practice. Drawing on philosophy, theology, and classroom experience, Tawney and Williams argue that AI risks not only replacing essential learning processes but also reshaping students’ understanding of what it means to be human. Echoing insights from thinkers such as Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, George Grant in Technology and Justice and Technology and Empire, and Jacques Ellul in The Technological Society, they examine how modern technologies subtly form habits, attention, and culture. The discussion highlights how AI differs fundamentally from human thought—operating through pattern prediction and persuasion rather than truth-seeking and embodied understanding—while raising concerns about dependence, identity, and the loss of higher-order thinking. At the same time, the conversation points toward a hopeful alternative: classrooms rooted in wonder, dialogue, and embodied learning that cultivate intellect, virtue, and community.

These themes resonate deeply with the vision of classical Christian education found in ClassicalU courses such as The Scholé Way and The Monastic Tradition of Education by Dr. Christopher Perrin, as well as John Amos Comenius: A Visionary Reformer of Schools by Dr. David I. Smith, all of which emphasize contemplation, attention, and the formation of student loves. They also align with the broader tradition of technology critique found in George Grant’s essay “The Computer Does Not Dictate How the Computer Should Be Used” and Craig M. Gay’s Modern Technology and the Human Future: A Christian Appraisal. In a cultural moment shaped by distraction and technological acceleration, this conversation reinforces the enduring value of slow reading, rich discussion, and embodied community as the surest means of forming students who can think clearly, love rightly, and live wisely.

With gratitude to Joelle Hodge for convening this conversation and to Great Hearts Academies for recording it.

In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, Jesse Hake speaks with Dr. Patrick R. Manning about his book Be Still and Know: Contemplative Practice for Christian Schools and Educators. Drawing from the deep wells of the Christian contemplative tradition—from the Desert Fathers and Mothers to Benedictine, Ignatian, and Dominican spirituality—Manning argues that contemplation is not foreign to Christian education but central to it. He explores how reframing time, cultivating attention, and building intentional rhythms of silence and prayer can transform classrooms into “attention sanctuaries” in an age dominated by distraction. The conversation addresses pressing concerns such as student mental health, shrinking attention spans, and the pressures of productivity culture, offering both theological grounding and practical strategies for school leaders and teachers.

In dialogue with themes familiar to classical educators—such as those explored in ClassicalU courses The Scholé Way and The Monastic Tradition of Education by Christopher Perrin, and John Amos Comenius: A Visionary Reformer of Schools by Dr. David I. Smith—the episode connects contemplative practice to a broader recovery of attention in Christian schooling. Manning engages contemporary voices such as James Lang in Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It, Matthew Crawford in The World Beyond Your Head, and James Williams in Stand Out of Our Light, while drawing on the spiritual wisdom of Simone Weil in Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God, Wilfrid Stinissen in Eternity in the Midst of Time, and Sofia Cavalletti in The Development of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.  Through practices such as Lectio Divina and the Ignatian Examen, he calls Christian schools to reclaim their heritage—not by retreating from excellence, but by rediscovering how stillness strengthens attention, deepens community, and renews the soul of education. 

In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, host Jesse Hake—joined by Scholé Academy Director Dr. Joylynn Blake—welcomes the leaders of Scholé Academy’s three Houses of Study: Monika Minehart, Fr. Nathan Dickinson, and Presb. Maria Koulianos. As representatives of three great Christian traditions, Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican, these classical educators engage in a rich conversation on soul craft, or spiritual formation that is both personal and communal. Drawing from spiritual practices found in the Book of Common Prayer and the Student Prayer Book, the Orthodox vision of theosis, and Catholic sacramental life, the guests reflect on how Christian education shapes the whole person. Informed by C. S. Lewis’s image of the Great Hall in Mere Christianity, the discussion explores how shared Christian foundations give way to distinct faith traditions where formation is lived out with depth and integrity.

Throughout, the educators describe how The Great Hall and Scholé Academy’s Houses— Aquinas House, Canterbury House, and St. Raphael School—cultivate theological clarity without dilution, honoring real differences while remaining united by the tenets of the Nicene Creed. The episode offers a compelling picture of classical Christian education as soul craft—patient, relational, and rooted in tradition—made tangible even within online classrooms. Explore courses at Scholé Academy where thoughtful attention has been given to the concept, courses, and the atmosphere that foster formative Christian education. ClassicalU courses closely related to this episode are School Culture Symposium: Top Presenters on Community and Virtue Formation and The Scholé Way.

In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, Jesse Hake speaks with Dr. Shannon Valenzuela about her new course releasing this spring on medieval literature and the harmonics of story. Beginning with Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and culminating in Dante’s Divine Comedy, Dr. Valenzuela shows how medieval authors understood stories as reflections of cosmic order, proportion, pattern, and harmony—a “story math” that structures their designs and animates their themes. Her approach integrates literature with the the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. The conversation ranges across texts such as Beowulf, Cædmon’s Hymn, The Dream of the Rood, and Judith, revealing how Anglo-Saxon poetry unites heroic culture with Christian theology. Turning to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, including the General Prologue, Knight’s Tale, Wife of Bath’s Tale, and the comic Tale of Sir Thopas, the episode highlights medieval play, parody, and invention. Dr. Valenzuela also explores medieval drama through The Chester Play of Noah’s Flood and The Second Shepherds’ Play, alongside continental works like Christine de Pizan’s City of Ladies and Chrétien de Troyes’s Knight of the Cart. Throughout, the discussion contrasts harmony with disorder by examining monstrosity, transgression, and imbalance, engaging thinkers from Aristotle’s Poetics to Hildegard of Bingen. The episode invites educators to recover a vision of reading and learning in which literature, theology, mathematics, and music together disclose a world that is meaningful, ordered, and alive. Watch for Dr. Valenzuela’s forthcoming ClassicalU Course “The Harmonics of Medieval Storytelling” in the early spring of 2026.

Listeners may also be interested in other ClassicalU courses mentioned such as Junius Johnson’s “Teaching Medieval History: The Age of Light”and “Women in the Liberal Arts Tradition”.

In this Christmas-season episode, Jesse Hake speaks with author, retired parish priest, and former university chaplain Addison Hodges Hart about Father Christmas, St. Nicholas, and the meaning of the Nativity, drawing on stories and poetry ranging from Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas, C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and "The Turn of the Tide", John Masefield’s The Box of Delights, to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Their conversation touches on the legends of St. Nicholas—his dowry gifts for the three daughters, the tale of the three murdered boys, and even the stories set beautifully to music in Benjamin Britten’s St. Nicolas Oratorio. Hart reflects on Mary through the lens of The Protoevangelium of James and the theological symbolism found in iconography, echoing themes explored in his own book Four Gospels: Four Hearts, One Lord: reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in Context.

The discussion explores the wisdom of keeping Advent through fasting and restraint, enriched by traditional carols such as “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and recordings from the Robert Shaw Chorale. The episode warmly recommends ghost-story traditions associated with Christmas—especially works by M. R. James, E. F. Benson, and Arthur Machen—alongside Hart’s own collection Patapsco Spirits: Eleven Ghost Stories. Hart shares how Norwegian customs, from the Jule Nisse to festive foods like lamb ribs and kohlrabi, shape the season where he lives. Throughout the conversation, the Incarnation emerges as a cosmic event—one that overturns the powers of darkness, fulfills ancient hopes, and invites Christians to keep both Advent and Christmas with depth, joy, and imagination. Listeners may enjoy further writings by Hart at the Pragmatic Mystic: An Orthodox Miscellany. Additionally, listeners may be interested in Bishop Eric Varden’s book Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses and ClassicalU's course “Chastity as the Power to Love: A Discussion as Parents and Teachers on the Reconciliation of the Senses Toward the Fullness of Desire” that will release soon in our last newsletter before Christmas.