The Revival of Classical Education w/ Headmaster Luke Culley

all right everybody thank you very much for being here we have done two full starts of this show and my guest luke kelly is an incredibly patient man uh so just let us know out there in youtube land if you can hear us loud and clear this is going to be a fascinating conversation unfortunately because we had a false start we had to redo the live stream uh we're probably going to lose a lot of people from that link so do us a favor and share this video on facebook social media twitter give us a thumbs up leave a comment for the algorithm because this conversation about the revival of classical education is something i know a lot of people are interested in and for good reason and we've got a glory to jesus christ so we're good sound is good now youtube excellent and they can hear that and we're great ah how are you now oh i'm i'm i've been great yeah good continued that stuff doesn't ruffle you no no love it very good yeah yeah well it's really great to have you uh thank you for making your way out here and i'm really pumped today to be talking about uh yeah classical education and how to form young boys to love what's true good and beautiful great to be here thanks for thanks for having me and i was very impressed with you i'm sure you didn't do this to impress me but it worked i went to the coffee shop and you had a book of poetry and a dumb phone and that to me just says i've arrived yeah well i was trying to look cool well it worked man how are you doing when did you switch from the smartphone to the dumb phone uh you know i can't remember i did have a smartphone for a while and i i i realized it was too too smart for me yeah i couldn't uh couldn't couldn't handle it couldn't handle the pressure so so when went back to the dumb phone and um it's it's it's been good it's a phone now i asked you this question uh in the coffee shop but i'll ask you again because i think it's important um i would love to be as cool as you and some of my friends like mike verlander and uh what's his name at new polity mark barnes right and graduate to the dumb phone here's here's the question i have for you um we as technology advances so too does our means of conversing so people text in paragraphs today with multiple questions and so they expect a detailed reply and almost immediately but when you have a dumb phone you cannot do that so when you graduated from the smartphone to the better phone how did you deal with that well i think i i think what ends up happening is that you you your friends get kind of trained by your your lack of responses that's part of the answer but i guess what i do is i usually respond via email so if it's a quick quick question i'll you know i'll type out the answer on this this uh dumb phone yeah but if it's something more detailed i'll just i'll just go to uh to gmail and and or you know email and and send a response and that you know that slows it down a little bit yeah once you go to that you know somewhat older technology i guess yeah it is true people guys are used to email that's right yeah that's right but then how do you deal with the barrage of text messages i mean that's i guess as you say you sort of train people as it were they ceased to text you but i get text messages all the time like i turn my phone off for the weekend i open it up monday morning and it just i'm like showing my wife like look at this there's like 25 text messages um so it would be it would be difficult to go through that period where everyone thinks you're ignoring them is i guess is what i'm saying right yes i think that's true but i think uh just as you're you know the way your phone works as i discovered yesterday or it doesn't have a voicemail on purpose on purpose uh that that you people figure that out that's true and they uh and they they learn that that they're not going to be able to contact you in that way everybody very politely tries to alert me to this fact your voicemail is full i couldn't leave a message and i say i know i'm it's meant to be full i don't want to have more avenues through which to be distracted right yeah so we but this is a problem i mean our our dean of students mr matthew williams uh fields a lot of questions from parents and and he's but he has many other jobs he's the he's the the scholar master the sacred music teacher and he's he's you know has a charge of the dorms and in many respects so he that's his his only job is not fielding questions from parents so he had to tell them i i will not respond to texting um and this sounds like we're diverting from the topic at hand but in a way we're really not i think we're you know speaking of classical education learning to love and learning to learn this this really is a part of it so yeah let's keep up with this for a second sure i find this really fascinating you know one of the things i said to my wife and i turned my phone on on monday morning and i had 25 text messages was look at this i said i think i just get more text messages than most people and she said no i don't think so i think people just respond when they get the text message but i didn't find that comforting i just thought well that means that's 25 times over the course of a two days that i would have been distracted i would have been doing something like making coffee or talking with my child or sitting with my wife or chatting with a friend and i would have had my mind turned to another matter and i don't want to live like that right yeah that's all yeah apparently it's a rather radical thing to talk about these days but right well no i think i mean as as we were talking about earlier i think you you have to you have to take some radical means to avoid the the inundation of this thing i mean as as as i was saying before i think the smartphone is is is smarter than us in some ways and and and more determined and it's i don't think it is a neutral technology that's interesting it's something that has designs upon us to absorb all of our attention and if you don't if you don't take some kind of aggressive sort of mental stance towards it and and be aware of what's going on then i think that you will you will be completely sucked into it and become an absolute zombie eventually that's what we're all hitting i thought of an analogy that's a little aggressive but since that's what we're doing it's like when people say don't talk to satan he's much smarter than you right you know like adam and eve don't no no don't don't do that and i kind of wonder if all of our little tips and tricks to reduce screen time is essentially us talking with someone much smarter than us who we can't win against and so we might just have to actually think not just might i think we have to make these decisions that look really weird to the majority of people when it comes to putting our phones and computers away i think you're right i think you're right i was chatting with a friend over a coffee it was three of us sitting around and i had a book open up on my lap and i was sort of paging through it and having a discussion you know she was over there and the phone's bing bing bing and she's looking at it like could you bloody put your phone away like we're trying to we're trying to have a conversation and she said well what's the difference you're holding a book i'm holding we're both doing the same thing and it took us a while to get to why that wasn't the case because we both knew that wasn't true but we didn't know what the difference was and what we came up with was that's not true because i am acting on the book the phone is acting on you so i'm able to have an ongoing conversation while i flick through a book in a way that you can't because your phone as you just said is screaming at you and pulling you into it that's right no i think i think that's perfect well here's what i want to do we want to talk about classical education i know that there are a lot of great schools who are beginning to employ this method if you want to put it that way before we do anything else i want to show people a one minute video of gregory the great academy uh just just so they get an idea of the school you are headmaster of so can we play that video let me introduce you to an exciting new venture in catholic education a school that gives the gift of joy a school like no other the world is so full of a number of things i'm sure we should all be as happy as kings gregory the great academy is a school of praise the good the true and the beautiful are not dead subjects on a page but realities deep down things that bring life to the soul according to plato the purpose of education is to learn to love what is beautiful at gregory the great academy we show the beauty of wisdom through lively conversation about the best that has been thought and said god is a musician whose love moves the stars in one eternal song music and poetry awakens students to their place in the chorus of divine praise boys need adventure they need camaraderie our boys work and play in a community where friendship is fostered through intense experience of the good education must nourish what scripture calls the heart the deepest spring of reason and desire in the divine liturgy the heart finds beatitude for the liturgy is the participation on earth in the life of god the world needs the happiness the good education provides is that it that school will be good looks fantastic and is fantastic i took my son there uh when was that now five months ago or so uh was it in december were you there for the america conception december 8th yes and it was remarkable uh well first of all your school's small like i i had this idea maybe hundreds and hundreds of boards it's a big building it's a very big building but 60 60 boys 60 boys which adds up to average of what a class i guess uh about 15 a class 15 a class that's fantastic yeah i remember just yes showing up beautiful building and then in the morning uh we were having coffee and you said hey the procession is starting before the big was a rugby game they were playing that's right that's right and i saw rugby tournament i got to get out for this it was freezing colds no i wasn't dressed appropriately so i came down you see all these manly young men marching through the field and they were chanting a french hymn to the blessed virgin while someone at the front was carrying the statue of the blessed virgin and they they placed the blessed virgin down the statue and then people were laying roses at her feet and offering a prayer and it was but it was so manly to see a group of dudes doing a procession and laying roses for the blessed virgin but in a very masculine way and then they went beat the crap out of each other in rugby for several hours it it was my mind was blown at how how beautiful that school is right in in the middle of winter no less rugby tournament yeah it's a beautiful it's a beautiful tradition how did you get into this uh and and and why are you so passionate about it oh boy well uh let's see i to to be to be honest i i got into it somewhat by accident okay i went to thomas aquinas college oh okay i graduated from there didn't have much of a uh a plan for my life except that i wanted to be a juggler and i wanted to go to europe and be kind of a street performer i had a good friend who got a job at this obscure boarding school and i didn't have any money to get to europe so i uh i took this job and and i i told the headmaster at the time alan hicks the founding headmaster of the school uh one of the students of john senior we could talk about that maybe later on but uh i told him you know i'll take this job but i really i just want to be here for a semester because i my my end game is is uh i want to go to europe and and do this you know live this romantic life and so um he said okay yeah sure you're great you know you teach a class you're gonna you're gonna be a dorm father and so i entered into things and i i just i pretty soon discovered that this was a remarkable place that this was a school that had a very unique vision and uh that it was that that i i couldn't leave at that point i mean i just i could not uh you know had mid point of the year came and of course i had to finish the year and then the end of the year came and i did go to europe and i went on the camino de santiago the first time i went and came back for another year another year another year i eventually did leave for a while i went to grad school then came back again and and uh here i am now but but that's that's the story i mean for me it started somewhat unintentionally i didn't i didn't choose the school quite for for maybe the the best reasons but i i definitely think god was leading me there and uh it and it kept me there because i i discovered that this school that was one of the great fruits of john senior and and the program he started started at ku was a remarkable school that that was transformative i mean clearly had an understanding of of how to put together a number of different things that was transformative of youth and and that's that's the place i wanted to be so for those who've never heard of john senior and without getting into his entire biography who was he and tell us about this program he started at ku and why it was so transformative for so many people absolutely so john senior was one of three professors at kansas university and he decided with two of his two of his colleagues to start a program within this giant behemoth of a university that was called the integrated humanities program and he he was a catholic catholic convert and it was a it was a program that was really teaching the liberal arts but due at which the the university really had abandoned by this time but doing it in a in a unique way uh unlike some of the great book schools that that and even other catholic schools that were were beginning around the same time there's been kind of a renaissance in catholic education on the university level starting i think in the early 70s with christendom thomas quinas college university of dallas later on wyoming catholic in john senior's experiment short-lived though it was was was really in a way part of that but he had a he had he had a bit of a different vision from the great books uh he was friends actually with with the the founders of thomas aquinas college but he thought that something was needed for students before they could jump into the great books he thought that there was a kind of uh a cultivation of the soil of the soul in in music in poetry kind of a cultivation of the imagination that was that was needed prior to to to engaging in any kind of a fruitful way with these books so he would this is a university program uh and and he's they're teaching the the students stargazing they're going out and they're they're learning to identify the constellations and memorizing poetry and um learning how to learning how to waltz you know so there's this kind of um really imaginative poetic approach to to education that that really was a way of of transforming the heart and kind of forming the loves of of the of the students that really is is uh prior to kind of this higher um endeavor of of kind of refining the intellect which is maybe more what um he would say the great books schools are kind of jumping to um prematurely okay yeah so if you've been raised on mtv and uh comic books to go from that to the great books might be jarring exactly incapable of appreciating it you've got to till the soil that's right that's right you have to you have to till this one and you have to you have to kind of change change the soil you know and and um and and woo the heart away from from you know i think uh senior would say bad music to to to beautiful music to better music and and that that you know that that's a whole uh somewhat of a slow slow effort for those who aren't aware what are the liberal arts and why were they and are they dying off in modern universities oh boy uh that's uh i'm not sure how well i can answer that question the liberal arts i mean the the trivium sure grammar rhetoric logic those are the three and then the quadrivium and i can't i can't tell you what all the all of those are except mathematics and astronomy yeah uh but uh those are the you know the more mathematical um uh medieval arts and and these were um all together all seven of them were seen as means to create of a free man so liberal in the true sense of the word right i mean of um free as in as in um free to engage fully his his nature in that sense that that to to kind of become a man in full that you needed to and to engage the world and all of its variety and and and all of its its is truth and depth and wonder that there need to be kind of a development of of the heart and the mind in this development was the liberal arts and i think that the the abandonment of that really is that there's just there's been an abandonment of that understanding of of man there really isn't an integrated understanding of man in the cosmos anymore we live in a world that that is a is kind of an anti-culture whether there is no um we're kind of ruled by by slogans and and um something that'll come along critical race theory or feminism or or um whatever it may be but it's it's it's there there's really no attempt to to to give a complete coherent view of reality it um and and and so i think that that's with the with the loss of that in modernity you get the loss of the liberal arts which come out of this kind of greco uh roman christian synthesis of of who man is and what his relationship with god is that's gone so of course the liberal arts are going to be neglected they exist kind of in an antiquarian way now and and people are still drawn to them even in the universes because it's still so good and people do still want to read books that are are compelling and that's that's how john senior and his friends you know got away with it um for a time i think it was 10 years that their experiment lasted until this is such a great story a sad one but but a great one so the these three pro you mind if i jump back to that story a little bit so these three professors another unique thing they did was that they they all taught together so they're all up on the you know the the stage in front of a big classroom smoking cigarettes if i'm not missing probably probably in that time certainly you could do that even when i was in in in college we had a professor's uh smoke to pipe but um but they would all be up there together and instead of giving lectures and i think they're the this is the only uh universe or um college university that that's employed this particular means they would have a conversation so they would really kind of do it we're beautiful with three people so they they were they're they're just there they have a book they might be talking about a hopkins poem maybe i'll read that later on i want to talk about but um or they'd be talking about the aeneid the the the odyssey whatever it was and they were i mean these guys were masters they mean they they knew these books through and through but they were they're unscripted conversations they've just gone and they would just start talking it is like this i mean it's it is why people love intellectually stimulating uh podcasts today absolutely i think if you were to ask the mainstream media before podcast became a thing do you think there would be an appetite for a three-hour discussion on different esoteric topics that have to do with metaphysics or even economics people would have thought no that's not going to work but here we are here we are and and you know and maybe here we've always been because i uh you know plato invented this with his dialogues so he he he understood that people want that dynamic of a conversation and that that's that's how in a sense truth and maybe one of the most creative ways in which truth can be generated we'll see if that happens here yeah yeah but um but anyway back to the senior the senior maybe that the so so that his students are sitting there and listening to this this conversation by these three masters they were all catholics all three of the not not the the students so this is a typical group of university students who happen to come to this university who happen to enter this program who knows why two of our founding headmasters great friends alan hicks and howard clark were in the audience they were students there and they were you know just describe themselves as hippies of the day and they just they kind of somewhat randomly almost the way i came to to the school originally just said hey let's just do this and they ended up going to these classes and they their lives were transformed they both converted they both converted to the faith even though the teachers were not proselytizing yes but again they were teaching this whole education that kind of comes out of catholic catholic culture and and that's ultimately what led to the the shutdown of the program because what ended up happening is that students of uh students started converting to the faith amazing and doing the most radical things like going over to france yeah and becoming monks yeah tell us about that because this is something that actually happened not a couple right they founded a monastery correct well right right so so they first went to this monastery in focon bone a couple other monasteries that are in the that association these uh very traditional benedictine monasteries and were you know for formed for years in in the um as as monks at focambo in france and and eventually they they they founded their own monastery in oklahoma clear creek monastery yeah and the the abbot of of clear creek uh abbott anderson is a classmate of of my headmaster old headmaster alan hicks and and howard clark and he's and he was you can see and i was looking one of the programs and you could see him as a young man and now his you know he's his hair is shorn down to the down of the bone but uh at that time he had hair you know all the way down yeah and and and and look where he is look where he is now so that's that's been one of the great fruits of of john senior's uh you know revitalization of education which was almost too powerful to continue to exist they shut it down and it was accused of being a cult and um i mean particularly i think what was happening happening is that some um yeah some some very uh uh very highly placed society people in in town um had their sons uh go off after this program and become monks and they were big donors to the school and they said this has to stop this has to the sex drugs and rock and roll yes that's right exactly nothing that's right you tell me if this is too simplistic we've forgotten what man is and so we can't free him if you don't know what man is you can't teach man appropriately but we can at least make use of him uh perhaps and so therefore subjects such as logic rhetoric grammar aren't necessary to make use of man this might sound a little too sinister but this is sort of what we're left with a sort of um a utilitarian kind of view of education like so the point of education i think if you were to ask say my parents or maybe their parents is so you can get a good job right um not to enlighten the individual to free him to be himself and who god wants him to be um so it sounds like what john cena and his fellows were doing was reminding them of who they were like there's nothing that will remind you who you were are by putting you in a field looking up at the stars and contemplating the grandeur of god right um so you have to kind of be reminded of who you are and what you're for and all of a sudden that that gets cultivated and then you can begin to appreciate the great books is that that sounds that's that's perfect yeah yeah i think that's but otherwise that's good yeah and i think i think that the modern education is is exactly that it's it's seen as as a means to to a utilitarian end and you you quickly get the sense as a student that you're you're kind of on this conveyor belt yes you know and you you it's it begins you don't quite realize i think you start realizing you're on it in high school yes as you become a little bit more aware even with the deadening kind of influence of the education that you're you're getting that you're on this and then and then you you continue on you realize okay i gotta get on another conveyor belt called college and then and that will lead me to my job and that's that's about it why do you call modern education deadening what is it about it that's deadening well i think you you've already said it i mean i i think it's it's a it's deadening because it doesn't remind you of who you are it does it doesn't give you a glimpse of of of the world that god made it doesn't give you a glimpse of of the the eternal verities it doesn't give you a um a sense of sort of the joy and excitement of being a man and and living the adventure of life it certainly doesn't give you a sense that there is this this divine mystery that is in that is in everything and behind everything and and that there's there's every reason to be excited about being alive and and it doesn't do any of those things i mean it's almost it's almost a i i'm reminded of a book by i never read it i confess i i want to but if i i love the title by anthony eslin called something like 10 ways to destroy the imagination of your child yes you know and it's it's funny because it's it's almost as if these schools have studied books like that and and that it's very intentional that they've really how can we how can we construct this so perfectly that that uh children will come out of here almost in in near catatonic you know despair and they do such a great job i mean they're they're utterly successful now here's the thing though if you were to speak to a public school teacher and said you know do you want to destroy the imagination of these children do you want them to come out of school almost catatonic they would say what are you talking about no i want what's best for them i love them so it's almost like they would use the same language that you would want to use i want them to be fully alive i want them to have an exciting life so where's the disconnect well i mean and of course there are good teachers i had some good teacher i went to a public school uh and and they're they're they're all you know teachers there are many teachers that are trying you know very hard and and and they do have remnants uh kind of vestiges of of a liberal arts curriculum mixed in you know you're there are some good books you read in a literature class in a public high school and there are many well-intentioned teachers that are trying to do something with that but i think the problem is that there's no coherence there's there's no kind of nothing connects to anything nothing connects to anything else so in the end it's just kind of it ends up being this sort of smorgasbord of information that's not right that well you like this this is something interesting to you and so follow that follow your passion but you're never really given some view of yourself we need to have a view of ourself that's larger than my individual wants and desires and even what i'm good at because at the end of the day we're we you come eventually you kind of realize you're kind of boring and and so we need this sense of a larger reality within which we have a place and that's what's exciting i mean that i think that's where that you you can that's the only place i think you can give somebody a true sense that life is worth living life is an adventure you know just going on um even you know you see the attempt for people to kind of have this vibrant life whether it's mountain climbing or jumping out of airplanes or all this kind of stuff but i think in the end all that's going to kind of fail because it's it's it's so grounded in my own personal sort of interests and and the the little bit i can uh the little world i can construct out of my own ego and it's ultimately not compelling interesting this reminds me of a talk that fulton sheen gave where he talked about the difference between being free from something and free for something if you were to say he said to a taxi cab driver are you free and the taxi cab driver said oh yes and you said hooray for freedom well that wouldn't make any sense we're not and so i think today the modern understanding of freedom is freedom from constraints right but we don't have an understanding perhaps of what are we for exactly exactly no i think that's right so our right and now and now we're not even really free from constraints it seems like the world is is um clamping down on what we can say and yeah it does isn't that interesting the uh what was it that benedict the 16th called a dictatorship of relativism whose only goal consists solely of one's own ego and desire i'm thinking too of augustine's quote about passing by the wonders of the world and passing by ourselves without noticing it something to that effect yeah right right and that's i mean the without noticing it i think is is a as a problem that we are we face in this age of of sort of you know technological inundation yeah even our experience of nature is contracepted with technology people walk around with apps that show you the constellation as if i don't know how to look at the stars or not terribly interested in contemplating a plant unless i can see it through an app that tells me its name right yes that's maybe a cynical look on digital apps and how they help us connect with nature but do you see my point oh absolutely i mean i think again i mean i the the the trajectory of all this is to seemingly it is to is to remove us completely where where there is eventually no connection this is what that's what scares me about virtual reality goggles right yeah yeah no i was just walking with my son peter the other day we were going on a hike and he said dad what's that and i i know nothing because i'm an idiot so it's a bloody plant i guess you know but i thought it's probably a lot more interesting if i squatted down with him let's have a look at it what do you think it is what do you like about it you know that sort of thing as opposed to here's my phone and i'll type it in this is a that yeah right right and i sometimes i think people think well sometimes i think people think there you go so this isn't some grand conspiracy it's not like there are a group of people conspiring against making us all catatonic but it does feel like maybe a demonic conspiracy religious we're being increasingly separated from nature and from ourselves right yeah no i mean i i agree with you i i don't think i don't think they're prone as i am at times to conspiratorial thinking perhaps but um but because you're right it does seem like it it all seems to fit together so well and there does seem to be a project that is kind of coalescing like how is it the big tech you know hollywood now government universities all seem to be singing to the same sheet of music so there there there doesn't be some kind of conspiracy whether it whether any any group of individuals is intentionally in charge or not some some somebody seems to be in charge so and uh one of the things i well let me just tell you this experience i had of your school and then maybe you can talk about it um just being with those boys at your school just i was watching them juggle and uh there was a bit of that in the in the video clip we just played but if when i say juggle i'm not talking like here's three tomatoes i'm talking these boys are standing on each other's shoulders throwing flaming sticks back and forth and i just sat there watching this as they were playing folk music and singing i started to cry almost in sorrow for my childhood um i don't know if that sounds too dramatic maybe it's not dramatic enough i feel like i was raised on heavy metal porn and horror a lot of my time was just spent with these things and that's not really an exaggeration and and uh video games and whatever good there may be in them that's what i was exposed to that's what i was raised with and here i am at the school where these boys are playing rugby butchering their own animals yes yes yeah butchering chickens there's no pigs and my understanding is there's no or little electronic music allowed on campus so the boys are playing folk songs and singing war songs absolutely right so again i mean this is a something that our original founders of the school were very adamant about there would be no there would be virtually no technology technological availability to to the students so no cell phones no mp3 players uh nothing of that kind and and and the the point the idea was that there there needs to be a kind of a sanctuary where uh boys can learn to do normal boyish things again and and and there needs to and and they're you know they're a lot of our guys are are they they've heard the same music you've you've heard and and um they they live they like some of that stuff too they've listened to pop culture music but what's what's been so remarkable and it's still remarkable to me in some ways is is how much they love learning folk songs so we we sing irish songs we sing scottish songs american folk songs the guys learn the uh polyphony uh gregorian chants just and glorious all that kind of stuff and they love it and they love it i just want to point out too because at your school you have both the divine liturgy celebrated as well as the latin mass yes and i was stunned by how good the boys were at singing it was probably better than most choirs i have heard at latin masses and byzantine churches it was glorious yeah and we have uh our school of director matthew williams to thank for that he's he's uh remarkable so the guys that they have this chance to sing for the byzantine and the the latin liturgy this the highest level i mean it's that that itself is is such a uh such a transformative experience for everybody who's there but for them as well and these are the same guys the guys who are in the scola who are as you mentioned earlier who are playing rugby yeah and so one of the things i love about the school is that there isn't the same kind of dichotomy that i experienced in public school you really do those cliches those cliches are real to some degree about the job yes it is right the drama people and all that kind of stuff and and really everybody should be doing drama everybody should be learning how to juggle everybody should learn art everybody should play rugby everybody should sing folk songs everybody should should sing uh je vous salud which is the the french hail mary that you heard that was so powerful and and when and when you have a school where you don't you don't ask them would you like to do this but you just say this is what we do okay now we're learning this song now we're doing this how long does it take until the boys say well i'm bad at singing or i'm bad at rugby i don't want to do that i'm not good at art how long does it take from that point to okay i'll just jump in the mix and do what i can is there a probably about probably about five minutes so no i mean you know obviously it's like anything else i mean you have you have uh you have kids who are great at sports and then and then we have we have i would say probably half of our students have really never played sports at all and if they'd gone to another school they never would have joined a team but at st gregory's we don't give them that choice you're gonna play soccer and you and you're gonna play rugby and some of these guys that have never played before love it i mean in in excel and are you know play the asa actually many if not most of them are are go all the way through so yeah there's an apprenticeship there's a and there's rugby is uh especially the way it's done at our school i mean rugby training begins begins is it basically after christmas rugby training begins so that means outside in the snow guys are are playing rugby and so there's a there's a long intense apprenticeship which is now you know they're enjoying the fruits of where we're in the middle of our sea actually we're coming up to our our championships now and uh we we've had an undefeated season so we've been congrats we've been very blessed uh our coach coach van beek and his coaching staff are uh outstanding so uh we have a quite up quite a tradition of of rugby excellence and but yeah no i i think it's i think it's something that uh the guys understand it's just it's part of the life it's part of the life here yeah and what do you say to those who say aren't you sheltering the boys not allowing them to have ipods and this sort of thing how on earth are you preparing them to go into the real world aren't they just going to go from this sanctuary as you call it to the real world right it's going to be bowled over you're not actually training them to engage with the world you're just sheltering them it's just going to make them weak and they're like sitting ducks right well i mean i would say we are sheltering them first of all and very intentionally so and and i think that that's a that's become that shelter that sanctuary has become more important now than than it's ever been because because these these guys these these boys they need to have these real experiences they need to they need to experience what it's like to to tackle a guy in in rugby to get in a boxing match to have conversations with friends to learn to learn poetry to sing songs not i mean one of the amazing things about about the school is that you know in contrast to my education with in in many others i remember going to to uh a music class we had a required music class at one point i actually kind of liked it but it never spilled over into your life it was just you went into that class and they taught you a lot a couple of of songs and then and that was it but but at st gregory's it just it spills out the guys are playing songs in the hallway they're learning songs they're you know they're they're showing everybody a new song they learned at a banquet i was woken up by them they're they uh i was sleeping in that that guest room at greg's and i actually had gone to sleep and i woke up by the thunderous roar of these bloody folk songs that were being played sometimes the banquets go exactly so in in yeah so that that's there's this this um experience of that is really again something so important for all of us to have this this experience of brotherhood in song for example that is that is this experience of something larger than yourself the song itself and sort of the meaning of the song but this experience of of when you're singing uh full-throated your whole heart this group of guys like you've seen at the banquets that there's you you have this experience of of i think even wonder and awe um of i am part of something that is is beautiful and is deep and is profound and i'm getting back to the technology thing and i think it's it's experiences like this whether it's slaughtering it slaughtering chickens whether it's being part of this brotherhood in song whether it's it's it's being out in the freezing cold in rugby and then going and having an ice bath in the stream which is it's a common feature uh and learning how to tackle a guy twice your size these are the things that the these are the things that that are are actually going to help you to become somebody who knows how to use technology and not be swamped by it has that been your experience of those who have left the school i mean have you done any kind of follow up with those who are a few years into there not enough not not not enough but but i but what typically what you do see is that that there is a period where the boys you know they they do kind of dive in headfirst you know they get their smartphone and and they they they kind of they they sort of enter very you know avidly into that into that world and kind of catch up with uh you know with all that they missed but but i think that that without us even preaching it very much i mean we we have a uh a you know an ethic if you will of what we call technological poverty which is everything i'm talking about but we don't we don't really talk about it that much we just do it and yet the students they get it they unders they understand that what we were able to do here what we were able to experience the conversations they were able to have with one another the the the many experiences adventures uh growth that they experienced was had a lot to do with not being you know tied to this thing so my my my conversations with with alumni uh certainly bears out that they they do get it they do get doesn't mean they they become luddites and give up all technology but but they they they really want to find a way not to be um sucked sucked into the to the abyss and i think you could turn that accusation around and say on the contrary it is you know most of us are sheltering our kids from learning how to slaughter animals true brotherhood good music you know what i mean like we're living the sheltered life that's right that's these are boys who have who have have get have been given a lot of you know real world experience of the real world not the not the surreal or the virtual world but the real world and and so i think that that in you know in in not giving boys an experience like this you're absolutely right you use that that's your that's the sheltering that's that's the bad sheltering from reality and i don't know if this was your experience but for me i mean i only went hunting recently and i felt terribly sheltered slightly embarrassed that i had really no idea what to do or how to shoot or how to butcher a deer these were the experiences i didn't have which i'm now having that i wish i had earlier well it's not too late and and and i'm i'm actually like you i mean i i've i've watched our guys butcher hundreds of chickens from from the window and ask myself when when are you going to go out there and do that and i haven't yet so i have i i i did you know thanks to my parents i did grow up on a you know a small farm with my my my parents were not farmers but they thought it was important for for us to have animals so i grew up milking a cow and that was and and caring for sheep and and and chickens but slaughtering was not something we've done and so i still do have i confess it you know before everyone uh you know a squeamishness about cutting it you know a chicken's head off yeah but i'll get out there good for you we'll do it together okay we should we should yes now there might be people watching this right now and they're thinking this is terrific um i'm a female though uh i have female daughters are there schools like this for women do there need to be oh that's a good one that's a good question and i i don't i don't have um don't have a definitive answer on that um i i do i know i know of somebody who is who is planning to make a school like that in dallas texas and you know in in this this woman is she she loves our school actually is is hoping to send her her son here at some point has talked about that but one of the things she said is that i want the girls school to to be like your school in in in um in a lot of ways less butchering less density yeah maybe so maybe so but but she she's uh she says that you know girls will will do the things that you do in a different way because they're girls and they need to be led into these things but but they're they also need adventure they they you know resisting a little bit maybe that victorian model of well girls should just you know be learning how to knit and which i think is a great thing to learn um and and sort of take care of a home um you know kind of social deportment and so thing things like that but that that they also need to learn to ride horses and not that we have horses yet someday and and uh learn archery and and and do these some of these active things so i thought that was interesting that she she had that um i do think that boarding school is is more appropriate to boys i mean i think i i don't i know of of of girls who've gone to boarding schools and loved it i know of girls have gone to boarding schools and and hated it but but i think there's something about boarding school for boys that fits so much into the the male nature why well because i think you know it's when you get to those teen years there is this impulsion to kind of go out you know and and and seek adventure i mean we see this in in fairy tales i mean this is this is in in in in all the literature boys want to go out and and and find adventure and and move out of the family as a kind of a preparation for coming back to the family or forming their own family and so i think that there are many ways of doing this but one way is to go to a boarding school where you are in a place where you where you you do move a little you do move out of of your family away from your family for a time but you're we you're in a you're in a sanctuary you're in you're in a place where you can do brave uh adventurous things but in a in a with with mentors with with uh male mentors who are who are guiding you and really saying a lot of the things that your dad was saying that um you know that helps you to to think well maybe my dad wasn't crazy you know these guys are all saying the same thing so there's an advantage there uh that they they get they go out from the home and then then they actually get the home gets a lot of reinforcement from the kinds of the kinds of things they're learning from these other men that they're they're admiring for different reasons because of all the extraordinary experiences they're having so is that that's the beginning of an answer i'd say yeah i mean i've i this has happened to me on multiple occasions i'll go over to a friend's house they have older children and if by chance i walk by the boy's room maybe he's 16 17 slightly younger maybe i'm in there for some reason and i just think oh bloody hell here's this young man wasting away in a sea of xbox games as an axe deodorant like he needs to be let loose and i felt like that i think from 15 i was like freaking just let me go let me go um yeah but that would have perhaps been imprudent if by letting me go it meant go rent an apartment right live randy but if it's you know come under the discipleship of these other men that's that's different that's right that's right randy man's dream i think i got that from peter craft he talked about how modern universities are around me his dream with their free that's what he said not me but we could say something equally as disparaging of the men in many universities who act like themselves mindless roots that's right yeah and and and you know i there's a there's a excellent book written by leonard sac leonard sacks called boys adrift you ever i've heard of this i haven't read it anyway one of the things he talks about in there is is video game usage and and he makes the interesting point that it's it's blaze it's men who are addicted to video games not so much that's right not so much women that's in my experience it's really yes men who who love video games and why adventure maybe i think that's it it's it's this so they they want to be questions through these war games and and and go on these adventures and and yet haven't been initiated into it haven't been invited into the biggest story exactly they're left with their smaller stories so they go so it's you you have that you have man's nature craving what it craves it's it's trying to find the real thing it's trying to find what it wants and yet it's just sort of it's it's kind of getting stuck in this fake world that's not going anywhere and it's not teaching you the things that you would learn an adventure like perseverance hard work courage things that you learn by playing rugby or going on a pilgrimage or something like that so it's it's a dead end but it's you can see you you can see the telos try you know trying to reach it they're trying to they're trying to find what what they need you know through that which is interesting so we can we can help those boys and and give them real real world adventures which are harder than playing video games but the the exultation of winning a rugby title um is is is nothing you could ever you could ever have by playing fifa soccer or no matter how good you are tell us about the um the european adventure that the boys go on i think in their senior year because sure this uh really captured my son's attention imagination yes so so the the traditionally the and this has changed unfortunately we'll see for how long with with the whole covid uh situation where we're in now but um there's a couple european adventures so junior year the boys go to go to france and they visit a number of beautiful places in france and eventually they they make their way to fukumbo and they have about a five-day retreat sometimes it takes place over holy week and they're you know they're there for easter at fukumbo and i i went i was there for easter week once and it was the most amazing easter of my life it was if anybody ever gets a chance to be a fukumbo during easter that that is take that chance uh take that opportunity but so that's that's one european adventure and and the boys do some juggling while they're there too they they're these these uh trips are done you know something of on a shoestring so while they're there the boys the boys raise some of the money that they need to to feed themselves um in the towns they're going through through singing and juggling through singing and juggling so when they get to their senior year the senior year culminates with an extraordinary pilgrimage um we used to go on the the community of santiago across northern spain and then since then we've moved to italy and we we went on we've been going on the way of saint francis which is from florence to assisi and then to rome and uh we've done this with in different and you're walking or well we started out biking but now we we do it walking and walking is the way to do a pilgrimage i believe you know it's it's the pace of conversation it's the pace of of prayer and it's it's the pace of being in touch with god's world so you you i mean i love viking it's it's it's wonderful and it's better than going in a car but but you're going too fast in a sense to sort of see just let let the the scenes the road the the trees the houses the people you're you're going past kind of sink in and become part of it so a pilgrimage has to be walking um and we the other we bring no money with us so the seniors this is after their graduation and there's no they bring absolutely no money for the whole adventure it's about a three-week journey and they they you know by by this time they have a whole you know uh backpack so to speak of songs and and they're they they're a juggling troop i mean they've been the freshmen right now have been have been juggling all year and and most of these guys have never juggled before but they're already amazing they're all real very good so by senior year that our guys are basically semi-pro jugglers you know and and they need to be because that their livelihood once they graduate depends upon it so they they we walk about i don't know 15 20 miles a day and arrive in town and europe is is is wonderful in the sense that you have these town squares with no cars and you know there's still a culture of of uh you know pedestrian walking and cafe culture and all these kinds of things so people people are out and and there's you know there's of course other other street performers um not not in a lot of the small towns we're going through but so we we arrive usually around six seven o'clock and we we start doing our show and it's a it's a very simple show just a combination of uh folk songs maybe some sacred songs if they're very compelling and kind of intense um a lot of irish scottish uh war songs whatever it is we bring instruments with us and then at the same time you have the jugglers out front doing all kinds of tricks and getting on each other's shoulders and of course we bring fire and then we pass the hat and then we go to the grocery store or if we can go to a cafe and eat and it's just there's nothing like it and uh we we uh we bring our chaplain with us so we have liturgy every day and we i meant to bring the prayer that we we say when we we go but it's it's from matthew's gospel and it's it's the it's the lines where he says um you know don't worry about the morrow look at the in the flowers of the field how god has clothed them and the birds of the air how god has you know cares for them and do you think that our lord is you know has more concern for these than for you don't don't be like the gentiles remember that god loves you put your put your trust in god's hands and so we that's that's how we start our day and and it's just it really is this radical i'm sure there are more radical forms of this i mean saint francis himself who's our our mentor and inspiration but uh it it really is a radical action of of putting yourself in god's hands and if you don't know what's going to happen there's no when is you know um the guys don't they don't ask after a while when are we going to eat i i don't know i don't know don't ask me that i don't know i don't know for if we're going to eat have there been times that it's been a bit dicey where you haven't made the money you know amazingly there there have never been uh bad dicey times yeah yeah that doesn't matter but there's been a lot of good days i mean there's been there's been some uh i mean there i remember one one time this was in spain where we we biked about 130 miles um fasting all day the guys didn't have no breakfast they but it was the last day they biked into santiago and they had they had nothing but you know you can do it you can do i'm probably scaring everybody who would not hear this no i want to come with you but it's um but it yeah it's it's really uh there's there's really nothing i nothing like that and that's a and and and it's just such a great and talk about freeing i mean that's that's a that's a liberal experience in so many ways but but but the the confidence that that young men get from an experience like that that you know here you are and you know not just confidence in yourself but confidence in god that that you know here we've you know i've done these difficult things and and god was there to support me and everything worked out and we're just going to do this crazy thing and show up in these towns and put on shows and i mean i say that we're when we show up we're a semi-professional troop that's not really true um i wish it were but what ends up happening is i'd say about midway through the trip we become we've become you have a vested interest in being as good as you can possibly be absolutely if people are watching you and you want their respect and their ore you also want their money you better be bloody good that's right and so so you know the guys start out pretty listless in a way they're not that they haven't done this before and then they they learn we gotta we gotta make this happen we have to put on the best show that any of these people have ever seen we have basically one chance to do this and they do it and they do it so by the time we get into into rome if we're going to rome or to santiago and we're you know in the piazza navona and and we're kind of in this mix of of all the other street performers and i got this from one of the the street performers i i befriended this this will sound a little bit bit bragging uh but but on behalf of our our our guys um he said when you guys come he's like we all just stop because because you're the best these are professional buskers it says when you now i mean great we're a group bragging you guys are incredible 15 guys and they've got you know they you know young men we've got a big troop but but he said that he's been doing this for years and he he said yeah there you're just you're there's nothing like the show you guys put on um and it and it's and it's all those things and it's it's the joy of the pilgrimage that is coming through which which itself is utterly compelling not even knowing who we are and what we're doing i want to move this in a minute to those who are watching who are like gregory sounds great but i didn't go there and my children may not be going there and so how can i sort of apply this to my life as a 40 year old 30 year old 50 year old how do i help my children enter this this sort of more classical way of learning but i want to stay on this for a bit because it's just so fascinating um yeah the boys i'll say this when i when i have spoken to people about my desire that my boys go to gregory's there's a kind of uh quizzical look uh this idea and you've touched upon it but the idea that why would you send your kids to a boarding school that you're abandoning them sure um this is probably a place for bad boys whose parents can't deal with them isn't this rather irresponsible shouldn't at the very moment surely your boy your boys need you at that point in their life trying to give them up or ship them off is aren't you just kind of uh abdigating your responsibilities as a father or a mother what say you well let's say i well again i think that uh the place to start is is it it's you know we read it i read a recent really a good book recently on this i think connects to this which is it's it's a book called leaving boyhood behind and if you ever heard of this book recently written by i think the guy's name is jason craig and and he talks about how there's women have of a natural kind of biological initiation experience in in marriage and motherhood and giving birth menstruating that's right and and but boys need uh a kind of a constructed initiate initiation experience and it's something that really cultures have always had there's there's you know the american indian cultures with kind of the vision quest and then you come back and you join the tribe and um you know all cultures have had this but it's really lacking in our culture now and i'm sure there are many ways to do this and and and and we need i think we need to start thinking about what are these ways of doing this but i think that school like ours is is one way to do this that it really does function as this kind of initiation experience where boys become confident in their masculinity confident in their ability to be part of the pack it's a good pack it's it's a it's a pack of guys who are are striving for good things uh it's you know um and it's with with mentors to guide them and it's it's not you know to send them out on that that four year adventure with breaks to come home over the summer and in christmas and easter and so forth is is not an abdication of responsibility it's i think it's it's it's one way of fulfilling your responsibility because it's it's giving it's giving your boys this experience to to take this critical step into manhood and and i think that what we see over and over again is is boys coming back and integrating with their family in a new in a much more fruitful way and kind of understanding their family in a bigger way but having a deeper appreciation for it uh i mean i it seems to me that that the our boys come come back to their dads for example with with even a bet stronger relationships not weaker it's it's not as if i've lost i mean it i'm sure it's difficult you know to to to let your boy go away for that long but it is a sacrifice but like any good sacrifice i think it bears fruit it it's it's worth making does that that that makes sense and i presume that your school isn't filled with boys who wish they weren't there in other words this isn't no correct me if i'm wrong but i'm sure this isn't a matter of parents shipping their boys off to a place they'd rather not be no absolutely no choice in the matter yeah no so so when when we when we interview boys when we when the whole admissions process is in part a discernment of does this boy want to come and and for sure there are there are boys who come who are not totally gung-ho you know they're a little leery of this experience but they're they're they're good kids their parents think it's a good thing and they and they say okay i'm gonna try this out so it's not as if every boy that comes to the school is just on fire to be there but what happens for the most part is that boys who who stick it out and and and give their best to it and say i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna come and i'm going to do the best i can and it's it's a little difficult because it's you're entering into kind of a whole little world and i would say it takes almost you know good half a year uh to to become acclimated in a sense and to really start to feel i'm i am part of this now but once that starts to happen the boys love it i mean these are happy guys and you see that when you're there they're they're so proud of their school they're they're having such a good time and it's and it's and it's a um i mean i'm sure every moment of their time is is not filled with with uh the same kind of joy some of it is arduous but uh but they're we i mean i'm so fortunate to be at a school where i'm filled with students who love our school this is almost unheard of it at the school i went to i didn't even think that was possible i hated school i didn't think that i actually liked school i really liked it but i had no devotion to it i liked recess and lunch but okay yeah devotion to it you know and so but but here at this school there's a there's a there's a kind of a there's a devotion to it there's a there's a desire to kind of understand you know what what this school is about and uh i mean i had a student come up to me a senior he's graduating a couple weeks and and was asking a question like this you know what is what kind of you know what is this school trying to turn it you know make of us and this kind of kind of going deeper and trying to understand not just you know again not the conveyor belt attitude but but a awake alive love for for their school and for what's going on and for everything that it can lead to greg seems like a needle in a haystack if it were to shut down tomorrow which it won't thank god where would you tell their parents to send the boys is there another boarding school that's as good as yours there is there is actually i'm glad to say and i and i hope that that more start up uh there's there's a school called saint martin's academy which is in kansas in fort scott kansas and we are are it's a school that's very much like ours they they have um you know there's some differences there they're they're not quite as big at this point i think that they're about four years old so they're they're growing but coming out of the same tradition i mean they're they're it's a john senior-esque school in fact the headmaster dan kerr is an alumnus of our school so so there's a there's a real intimate connection i mean we're very friends we're friends with all the faculty there and just went out to one of their events great event called the prairie troubadour and um you know there it's it's a it's a school with the same vision um you know pursued in somewhat different means but but doing the same thing and this i would love to see more schools like this spring up people need to support this kind of a school all right here's what i want to do i'm going to take a quick break we'll do a little intermission three minutes when we come back we have a ton of questions from patrons which we're going to talk about and have you respond to i also want to get into the nitty-gritty of how we can develop our own interior life if we weren't raised with classical education okay all right sound good sounds good [Music] my [Music] so hello hello hello welcome back okay uh so uh thank you for being here do me a favor and you can walk past that poor guy he's locked outside uh you do a favor like the video and subscribe and share it i think this is a really fascinating conversation that a lot of people want to have and uh that's one way you can help it do us a favor i want to say thank you to our sponsors hello you're good you're fine yeah this is good our sponsors hello are fantastic if you are not as cool as headmaster kali here and you still have a smartphone one way that you could do better at praying at least is by downloading the app hello h-a-l-l-o-w dot com slash matt frad there is a link in the description below go check them out uh there you can pray lectio divinas learn how to pray the rosary if you don't know already or it'll lead you through it there's nightly examines litanies even sleep stories read to you by people like father mike schmitz and others it's a fantastic app it's the number one downloaded catholic app on the itunes store and for good reason so go check out hello h-a-l-l-o-w dot com slash mattfradd hello.com mattfradd how you going did that freak you out oh not too much but i was wondering what would happen next uh for those uh for those at home uh uh mr kelly just got locked out of the studio so that was uh that was terrifying but uh no you're doing good all right sweet okay um all right i want to take some questions and some of these we may have addressed already sure so feel free to you know maybe answer them a little more succinctly if that's the case and um and then we i really want to get into like what can we do as i said earlier as older people who didn't grow up with this sort of classical education how to educate ourselves uh dan capes thanks for being a patron dan says can you address the worry from parents like myself about not having significant emotional and formative time with their children if they were in boarding school i guess this gets to the topic i brought up earlier sending your kids away you're no longer forming them some of these we may have addressed and don't need to address again but if you have something else to say um well i i guess nothing nothing really new i i think that yeah we've addressed that yeah maria schroeder thanks for being a patron says would boarding school make children despise their parents in any sense or make them feel like they're being sent away for being in all boys school do you think that inhibits their okay so there's two questions there let's deal with that one first sure yeah with it would it would it what was the first cause them to despise their parents right right i mean that's just not something we see i mean i i think that there there might have been there have been very rare occasions where a boy feels like he is being sent away and then and that ends up not being a good experience even if it's only in his own head you know and then those boys don't really work out because they can't because there is too much of a sense of some kind of abandonment you know there but that's not what i mean our boys feel they don't they don't feel like they've been sent away and and again there there's we we see over and over again that their the the relationship with their family is reinforced we hear this over and over again from from families that my son has come back he's he's helps out more around the house he's learned some things about responsibility that we couldn't teach that him in in some ways and so that's that's uh that's overwhelmingly yeah the the experience i see in my conversation with our friend mutual friend verlander who's sending his boy in a couple of years please god de gregory you know he was saying that no this has just been part of the discussion of the family since the boys were young that this is something that they get to do and they can kind of bring get the the newsletters that are sent in from gregory's they read them around the dinner table so it's it's not a you're a bad kid we can't deal with you we we need you out of the house right right it's uh here's an adventure that all the boys are going on that's that's that's the right approach and and that's that's the the experience of our boys uh she also asks for being an old boys school do you think that inhibits their ability to interact with girls either now or later in life absolutely not uh yeah my experience with with uh you know seeing how our alumni do uh after they've graduated is it doesn't seem to have inhibited their their ability to relate to girls at all um marriage is uh is is alive and well among our our graduates and you know there's it's not also it's not as if there's no contact with women you know during this period uh the school the families who are involved with the school are very integrated um with the school so you'll see kids uh running around the property you know children of of faculty members um you know so so there's there's not it's it's not some kind of um you know blocked off almost like mount athos where you know women and and the female insulin influence is completely banished we can't even have female chickens or something i think that's what i heard about mount athos don't know if it's true but so it's not like that and there's some really wonderful traditions that we have that i think are are conducive to them having a fruitful and healthy relationship with girls when the time comes for them to to do that for example there's a there's a custom that we have that that goes back to the earliest days of the school called roving and this is this is something that the upper forum guys do that the juniors and the seniors and what roving is simply is is going out in a group and and singing love songs to women they meet of every age um you know one of their favorite places to go is is the university of scranton where there are ladies closer to their age but this is this is an amazing you know life you know a transformative experience not only for them but for the girls who are are sung to i would also just imagine that a man who knows how to tackle another man a man who knows how to sing a man who knows how to recite poetry a man who just knows how to butcher a pig probably has a good degree of confidence in his own masculinity exactly exactly so i think that they're very well equipped and you know in all of these ways to to court women to be confident and um and if anything i think you know absence makes the heart grow fonder i mean it's it's a um they they appreciate the women very much when when they are when they're in their presence louis thank you for being a patron he says don't boys need their mother's presence in their developmental stages so where's the maternal influence on these boys from the ages of 14 up so we've talked about the father maybe abdicating and that might be a concern you know how can i just initiate my voice if he's not around but yeah what that's a that's a concern i've heard don't these boys need their mother well they still have their mother you know it's it's not as if their their mother uh disappears they have their mother we do have telephones where they can call they can write letters which is a it's a great skill and practice that our guys learn and really love give writing uh sending and receiving letters my son loves that now it's so it's such a unique uh interesting thing because really do it that him and thomas ferlander and others are writing back and forth that's great so so that so it's not as if these relationships are are end i mean they're they're they go into they take a different form and so it's this this idea that the you know the boys are gonna go away for this time and they're gonna have this experience but there's there's still a relationship with the mother through tel you know occasional telephone calls letters and things like this that um you know of course are important they do need their mother but they also i think can can stand to to to be away away from their mother for a little bit we'll get a question here about homeschooling but before we do that i need to say something about this upcoming camp next month okay of course now for those of you who are watching in the live stream the top two links the first is to say oh sorry gregory's academy so people can check out that school the next link is to this excellent uh boys campus taking place next month my son will be there uh we i know friends from georgia and elsewhere who are making the trip up i know you still have spaces available i sure do do do a pitch for this camp if you don't mind okay yes no we'd love to have uh we've got about i don't know maybe 10 or 15 more spots so uh come come one come all this is uh this is a a window into the school and and we're hoping to give uh boys seventh and eighth grade an opportunity to kind of see what our school is about um a little bit so they're gonna be doing some bushcrafting they're gonna be camping out every night they're gonna be learning some some songs and some poetry they're going to be listening to some incredible stories told by sean fitzpatrick and a story a story series called gods and monsters around the campfire they're going to be learning how to throw throw knives in axes and shoot arrows they're going to be learning some rugby and they're going to be participating in divine liturgy and it's so it's it's it's a little bit of a you know a little microcosm of of many of the things that happen at saint gregory's it's going to be a blast tell us about this naval war or this sort of uh don't the boys make their own boats and yeah there's gonna be they're gonna even make a boat so they're they're gonna they're gonna make boats out of cardboard and duct tape and and then they're going to have a battle on our lake which is a pond and uh and they're and they're going to in the the object is to make your boat seaworthy enough that's fantastic that you last to to the end and and your boat is the is the victorious oh my goodness it sounds so terrific i was talking to dan from your school and he says we're just having a difficult time getting insured i thought bloody makes sense we're doing knife throwing axe throwing sleeping under the stars oh that's fantastic that's our first year doing this so we're really excited yes as i say my son's going they only have 10 spots available so if you want to send your boy if he's in seventh or eighth grade uh check out that second link in the description below that's june i think around 14th 15th thereabouts june 2 i think it's june 12th through the 20th i should know this yeah that's all right fantastic oh i know my son's really pumped about that okay paul binner thanks for being a patron paul he says we homeschool our kids to protect them from the prevailing culture as well intentioned as a boarding school may be i doubt that they are able to filter out kids that would bring all of the cultural junk we're trying to avoid into the school with them but i guess that's my question how would they do this how would they do this well you know we all have cultural junk in us and and so you know we can't filter it all out there's we don't have our boys aren't perfect our culture isn't perfect so so we're all dealing but i mean the main way we filter it out is that the our boys do not have access to these things and and it's i i think what's what's what's you really unique about the school is that we we do what we do in a way that's compelling so if you you could have all the rules in the world you could have the most draconian punishments for getting caught with this or that but if you don't somehow build a culture a positive culture that is utterly compelling then you don't get buy-in and then students are just always you're going to be playing this game with the students where they're they're going to constantly be trying to to subvert the teachers which is what i did i was a student absolutely and i thought that's what school was and i loved it i didn't think there was any any greater joy than than that kind of getting around the rules exactly i thought that you know they set up this great game for us and we're going to play it one of the things i one of the things that struck me when i first came to the school when i was just out of college expecting really nothing was that how this was not the case at this school that that there was this there was this kind of friendship between the faculty and the students and i had i didn't think that was possible so so there's i mean that's in a sense you you you've got to win the boys over and you do that through all of these means where they they they become part of this very active culture of song of liturgy of of juggling of poetry of all these different things that are that are compelling and so they you know they they abandoned willingly sort of the junk that they might have brought with them i also uh for myself i think three years ago i would have been terribly concerned about this it just would have been on my right like i wouldn't but as my child's gotten older my eldest who's a really awesome boy um i trust him a lot more you know there's like there's actually a you know and i see that he's interacting with the culture anyway of course he has to the culture's almost like a tidal wave in a sense like it seeps in somehow right and i i'm learning to to to trust him and um to let loose the reins a little you know and i think that's very important um and so there's this kind of relationship of trust as you say you can have the draconian rules but if you don't have the heart then it's it's a it's a lost battle but this is something i'm far less concerned about not that i'm not concerned about it um but yeah i don't know i mean if this if this father has like a 10 year old makes sense if he's but once he's 14 in a few years maybe to answer answer this man you know if if we see a student who who really has some kind of a subversive quality to him in some kind of way you know he's too attached i mean he really doesn't want to be part of what we're doing on some level even if you know sometimes that can happen where he wants to stay there for some reason he doesn't want to leave but he also doesn't want to enter into what we're doing now that such a student can be can't um can be corrupting in some ways and so ultimately we we asked those students not to return yeah so and living with them that's very very small minority and living with them 24 hours a day seven days a week and with so few students i'm sure you have your finger on the pulse it's not as if there's thousands of students no no that's i mean that's so we're deliberately small uh and and that you so there is this familial feeling quality to to the whole school everybody knows everybody there's this you know there each class has a real identity very strong identity but it's it's so wonderful to see how they're all they they're there's a brotherhood that just goes throughout all the classes you know they really they they all know each other so well and we know them so yeah absolutely right marcus james says hi luke i am a public high school band director who wants to get his masters in sacred music and work for a catholic school so i can be more open about my faith and take a more direct approach to evangelization through music however it is very difficult for me to make the switch seeing as private religious schools on average pay their employees much less than public schools do and offer very little if any benefits pension etc that publicly funded that publicly funded schools offer what do you think can be done to help private institutions make room in their budget to be more competitive when hiring faculty uh great great question great question uh it's what can be done p catholics with with uh with money can can be can be more generous with with uh with it can not they are generous but can recognize that schools like ours are worth supporting that we're doing a really important work um i don't know what to say about that i mean what he's saying is right i mean there there is we're not competitive and and we we have a staff that is that's really willing to work at our school i think because of they realize it's it's an extraordinary place and an extraordinary place to work but for less money than they would be getting at a public school okay do you have any ideas what no idea zero zero ideas yeah um so it's a good question yeah i wonder i wonder how many of us are going to have to begin the other way around uh and i don't mean this is an accusation and i'm not pretending it's as easy as this but rather than changing my job to satisfy my lifestyle do i need to change my lifestyle in order to have a job that can support me in that moving to stubenville one way to do it right like honestly moving to a from a big city to maybe even a more economically depressed town or scranton or you know country town in kansas right um i tell you what i mean just a plug for steubenville here like you sell your house you come here you can probably buy one and not take out a loan i think that's the i think that's the great answer i think that's the answer yeah you you you go to a place that is worth going to and you you might have to change your lifestyle to be there but in the end it's worth it it's worth it's completely worth it uh this book emmy tan says just tuned in i had classical education in high school because we all studied latin ha ha it was a catholic school i quite liked it all right i suppose some people might claim to be teaching a classical education and by that they might mean something like we had a latin class but we talked about that earlier about what constitutes a classical education right yeah so i i think uh a classical education there's there's been you know like as there's been a revival in in catholic classical education on the university level that's kind of spilled down into into high school so we see all of these these classical schools arising even charter schools with great hearts academy founders academy and in you know hundreds of of catholic schools and what what does this what does this mean i mean i think it's again a kind of an embrace of the liberal liberal arts the the trivium the quadrivium reading of good books reading of great books studying of study of things like logic grammar and rhetoric i don't know if this uh this would be a good i i think i think there's a when you talk about the revitalization of of classical education i think that a school like ours and saint martins is doing something particularly well in in in in focusing on on poetry on song on the imagination and on what john senior called even the gymnastic by which he meant not just sports in in making your body stronger but contact with with primal realities like the nature in in in walks in pilgrimages in in caring for animals in in um you know processing chickens and that that there needs to that we need to have this kind of contact with primal realities even before or alongside this engagement of of of of the imagination and this and um this you know with song and poetry this kind of thing but just to to not of course other schools are doing that as well but i think john senior really was a pioneer in kind of showing the importance of this development of what you could say is the heart you know and and that there needs to development of of love and so and i think that that's that that's a that's a feature of classical education that has not been developed as well as it it could be suppose there's somebody watching right now they homeschool their children i imagine you get many homeschool boys i'm sure you get this asked question asked a lot where do they need to be academically in order to be fit for your school well or is the answer just breathe and make sure your boy is of good will uh when i think you know we we where do they need to be be academically we'd like to we'd like to have guys who can who enjoy reading good books who who have a taste for for literature uh who have some ability with with mathematics where they're going to be starting their freshman year with with algebra so some pre-algebra would would be good and and things like that but but basically if if a boy can read read read well and enjoy his good books and and can write tolerably well i think he's he's in a good all right good position to come join us good stuff um i'd love your kind of quick take on how do educate myself how do i begin to love what i should love and distance myself from that which to which i've become accustomed that may not be beautiful we talked a little bit about it earlier in the show about phones and distancing ourselves and but for those who haven't had a classical education but their parents and or adults and they want to sure where should they start where should they start for themselves or for their kids for themselves well i think i think that that it's there you want to cultivate a sense of of of the of of beauty and in yourself and i think that can be done through through taking walks i mean just you know making making sure you you go outside and you walk and you're the bar is pretty low then the what the bar is pretty low get outside get outside get out for a while um read read a good book i mean there there's you were talking about uh a short story by dostoevsky a gentle creature read read something like this um learn a poem learn a song i mean one of the you know there's the the we we have so many means there's almost too many things a bewildering uh a variety of of opportunities for us to to you know with books and and and songs whether it's on the internet or or what have you but uh learn learn upon learn a poem i was going to read let's let's do this i love this poem and i'd love you to read it for us so go go get yourself a a book of hopkins poetry and and learn this poem okay i'm going to read it right now it's called god's grandeur world is charged with the grandeur of god it will flame out like shining from shook foil it gathers to a greatness like the ooze of oil crushed why do men then now not wreck his rod generations of trod have trod have trod and all is seared with trade bleared smeared with toil and where's man smudge and shares man's smell the soil is bare now nor can foot feel being shod and for all this nature is never spent there lives the dearest freshness deep down things and though the last lights off the black west went oh mourning at the brown brink eastward springs because the holy ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with ah bright wings oh my goodness gracious that is absolutely good so you you learn i should have recited it because i i think i could have done it but but uh learn a po a poem like that and and you i i think the reason to do that is because you you because the poetry song gives you a participation in what the poet is seeing and here he's seeing that he's seeing that the world is charged with the grandeur of god that that this this this world that that we we pass by is is just there's there's a resonance behind this is god's glory god's beauty shining forth and he's he's seeing this and he's he's he's captured this in language and we can experience this you know we can we can so this is education this is a kind of a changing of our perception by learning a poem like this where we we can become attuned to the presence of god in our lives so this is something you can do we can learn a poem okay s silly question maybe how does one learn a poem okay well i'll tell you how we do it and it's i suppose you could you this this one this is a great thing to do with your your children or even yourself but we do we teach all of all poems and all songs in an oral method meaning we take a line and we the world is charged with the grandeur of god and the whole class says the world is charged with the grandeur of god the world is charged with the grant of god it will flame out like shining from shook foil and then they repeat that and then just you and then you'll do that for a couple minutes and then next class you do a couple more lines and in the same with me same with learning songs do it in the same exact way and it's amazing how how quickly the the memory which is a muscle of a kind develops so we live in a time where the they don't need to remember that of of memory so the so you can develop the memory and which is such an important thing to do but um because yeah even as a child i would know the numbers of my friends okay my best friend's number three three one seven two six right right my mom's number uh at work three three one two seven two you know i'd remember him right i don't know i know my wife's number i don't know anybody else's number i don't need to so you know so something similar has happened right and and what does that mean for us i mean i don't know if anybody's thought enough about what what that means that we were gradually becoming a people with almost no memory depending on an external memory i mean how much of of of uh you know having a personality let's say a vibrant you know even identity a real sort of uh you know your own personal identity is tied to having it having a memory i i don't that's a very interesting something something to think about and what does that mean that we don't have memories we don't have you know not that we don't have any memory but but we don't have the memory we used we used to have in in oral cultures and and then beyond but but we're but our but our hearts and minds are just awash with yes stuff what is that a million does that do and you know i said earlier and i think you're getting to the same point now and um hopkins said it much better i talked about we can't even encounter nature without it being contracepted through some artificial app that tells us about what this constellation is or what this plant is right right and and uh you we talked about having external memory but but here is this what he means when he says you know he talks about all of nature uh but he says and where's me and smudge let's see uh the soil is bare now nor can foot feel being shod i had that kind of view of i'm now separated from this thing right right right i think so i think so right and and it's it's a funny i don't know quite what to make of that because it almost sounds like he's he's sort of saying you know what you know what who invented this terrible technology of shoes yeah separate us from from nature but but i think you're you're right that there he is getting at this idea of of this kind of the the soil is is is there but we can't feel it and and you know he's talking at a time of kind of the beginning of industrialization and the world is seared you know with with um with toil and and this kind of obscuring of the face of nature and as you're pointing out i mean this this poem and this obscuring uh is is so much more serious and devastating now with with um as you say i mean just the separation that that takes place because of screens even your map you know even unfolding a map and the frustration that sometimes entails is no longer necessary i don't even know where i am i don't care to know where i am and to your point about being sort of overwhelmed with a sort of multiplicity of things and distractions and pieces of information uh it can feel overwhelming even in this discussion of classical education the person hearing this might be like well i don't have time it's like read all of these you see again all of these books but it sounds like what you're saying is memorize this poem right and you'll do more for your interior life just doing that over the course of a week or two than if you were to try and read a hundred different books in the course of a year i don't know right yeah absolutely i would agree and i think people i think i think well can't speak for everybody but i know i have time to do a many more good things than i do and and um and you know cut out that that um uh news feed that you're you have to watch every day or or whatever it is and and and learn a poem we do we do we can't we can't find pockets it doesn't take long to learn we're very good at making excuses for ourselves that's right um adam says i'm a classical grade school educator who got hired two days before school started over the summer i want to improve my teaching where are good resources for that looking to raise future saints science good resources for teaching well i i i would recommend two books that that give give a really nice overview of of catholic education as it is it could be by stratford caldecott one is called beauty in the word and the other one i don't remember but stratfor caldecott he's uh he talked about revitalizing classical education i think in some ways he's kind of written a blueprint for for a new um you know vision of of classical education so i think those would be good those would no what is he teaching this um i miss oh i am a classical grade school educator who got high doesn't say okay we got some questions here about what do you do with autistic children and then somebody else said i'd like an answer to that as well uh i have two children on the spectrum is this something you've encountered at greg's or how if not that's directly how do you deal with children with different learning disabilities or well i what we i suppose we we might have had some students that are i mean on the spectrum now i mean what does that even mean you know um is you know does uh somebody have a little asperger's or um i suppose we there we've had some some students that could be described in that way and we don't really do anything different i mean we just we don't have a special ed department and we take boys that we think are going to fit fit in well with with everybody else and do what everybody else is doing so if if we think we think a candidate is is that kind of a candidate then however you might a psychologist might happen to describe him we'd take him and he'll do everything that everybody else is doing and seems to work fine it sounds like maybe this has been something of a progression for you i mean um you know you were at thomas aquinas college you had a desire to go to europe you went and stayed right so this has been maybe less violent than maybe some of us would would like to be in order to reclaim this beautiful life or not to even reclaim it just to claim it to begin with would you say that's that's right or have you put in a lot of effort to fend off these distractions in order to immerse yourself in beautiful things so you're saying for me it's been kind of a gradual gradual yeah it sounds like that's from the little i know i might be wrong no i think that's right i think that's right i've yeah it's i suppose effortless in in some ways so how can we be that cool that's what i want to know okay because i want to make like i think we all kind of want to make radical decisions when we see somebody living a beautiful life and it's we see our own and it scares us and we see how immersed we are like just a moment ago you said no we have time like if you watch netflix if you watch amazon prime if you listen to ben shapiro on a daily basis like you have bloody time you're just filling it with things that maybe you shouldn't be filling it with um or maybe there are better things that you could be filling your life with and so there's this desire to like change or at least there is for me i just have that kind of temperament i suppose well you know that's i have to think about that i love to think about that i mean i i'm fortunate to have a job you know that sort of requires me to live this way and that helps because we all need help so for me i'm just i'm very fortunate to to be in a place that is my job is to foster this kind of culture so i have to do it you know so in its and i love to do it but but it's but but but you're right it's it's it's these these other these other things are are seductive and draw us away and and i think that i think i think the the answer is to try to found your life in some way on a kind of a contemplative awareness of of what you're about you know in in and to you know to find time each day in prayer to recollect and this might be you know for for me i like to to go on a walk and and say the rosary which ends up not saying the rosary and thinking about a lot lots of things but kind of a mini pilgrimage and with something like that whatever form that might take you can remember you used that that word before kind of like we need to remember who we are we need to remember what it is we actually want to do yes yes because we we we really want to do these better things and yet these other things more deeply we want to do these better things but but but if you don't kind of re recollect that and give space for those deeper things to kind of come back up yes to the surface then then you lose them so i think you just have to you have to find a time to kind of keep remembering very very beautiful man you are you're preaching to me right now i i heard a analogy from a priest in a homily once and i think it was a good good one this analogy he said if you think of um sand pebbles and rocks okay the sand represents those insignificant things that we engage in those distractions that we willingly allow us to tear us away from ourselves and others right the rocks might be the somewhat important things oh sorry the pebbles then the rocks the very important things you know family prayer god he said all right now imagine a imagine a glass and this kind of glass represents your life well if you were to fill it up with sand there would be no room for the pebbles and the rocks but if you would begin with the important things the rocks and the pebbles well then there's still room for the sand but it doesn't take up everything and i wonder if we're at risk of just losing our lives in a myriad of distractions the the the what was it called the um when you sink into the sand that's like a quicksand quicksand yeah yeah yeah exactly all can be sunk in in this the quicksand there's no rock under there it'll hold us up that's great yeah it's a great image i think i think i need to come up with a plan people in the comments section let me know if you want me to do this it would be cool to come up with like a seven week plan to to get rid of your cell phone to get rid of your smartphone so you didn't want to do it you know it's interesting because that i i did a sort of a version of exodus 90 with a couple of friends we didn't quite something happened we didn't we didn't quite persevere okay but i think that movement is really interesting and that it seems to be and maybe you know more about it uh than i do but that it seems to be in giving up social media and in technology it seems to kind of be moving you in the direction of you know this is this would be a good permanent yes giving up yes that that again i think in in a different form that our our school is doing that kind of thing look you're gonna you're gonna be giving this up while you're here and and you're gonna remember what it was like to be free and that's a great experience don't forget that so it and i think the exodus 90 is kind of doing a similar thing they're saying let's give this up for 90 days but then they're also kind of saying hey you want to keep going with this that was nice wasn't it yeah yeah yeah that makes sense i mean and and you know we have jobs and we have to make decisions about him you know we can't we can't all live in a medieval village we could try we could try so yeah i i said to you in the coffee shop pride uh coming here that after this interview i'm leaving my phone and my computer here and i'm gonna go home and for because i was in florida last week traveling a lot and speaking and working so i need to take some time off for the family you know so i'm really looking forward to just spending two days without it but i'll tell you what it's and i say this not just kind of i hope this doesn't sound like i'm boasting it's but but i think many of us can kind of relate to that you will i'll walk out of this office with you and we'll go to the elevator and we'll go down to the bottom and we'll walk out and within that time i probably will have had three um temptation interaction to grab my cell phone as well sure sure you know oh i gotta i get it absolutely and some of it's trivial and some sure it's less so some of it's like i need to get back to that guy or sometimes you just feel awkward you're standing in an elevator with somebody and i don't like talking to people in elevators it doesn't seem to be any reason except to cut through the awkwardness and so if you look at your cell phone that kind of gets you out of that conversation and i keep saying i wonder what you think that the cell phone the computer is both the cause and relief of our anxiety so it appears to relieve it but it agitates us still further that's been my experience that sounds that sounds accurate and how on earth am i going to learn to memorize poetry right exactly no it really i mean it's it's a it's a cause of anxiety i think it's it's it's an enemy to to contemplation you know in in and by contemplation i don't i don't mean um you know anything particularly high and and and supernatural even although i think it's it's connected but just simply having a a of of yourself and of the world and being kind of being at peace i like how you put that and it's quiet yeah and it's so and i think that this this all of these things it's almost like we talked about the design or the the conspiracy it's like a com a conspiracy against that any kind of interior silence out of which really i think our true personality and and in our awareness of these deep down things out of which our vocation grows you know the gifts of the holy spirit grow this is all being kind of attacked i think by these things so it's very very important that we we think seriously about how to navigate this realm lots at stake what would be some good book suggestions for those watching okay well uh for themselves not for children sure sure a great book suggestion would be the restoration of christian culture and did that makes me think of this just to give a little this is a little excerpt from that book to uh wet people's appetite this is by john senior who's he's really the the godfather of our school and here's what he says our lord explains in the parable of the sower that the seed of his love will only grow in a certain soil and that is the soil of christian culture which is the work of music in the wide sense including as well as tunes that are sung art literature games architecture all so many instruments in the orchestra which plays day and night the music of lovers and if it is disordered the love of christ will not grow so this you know talking about this need for developing this christian culture so the soil of christ can the seed of christ can grow in us and anyway this book is is really a wonderful book and it's it it's a kind of a sequel to a book with a much more scary title called the death of christian culture where he he really diagnoses kind of how we got here and and goes through the stages of of the death and that's that's in a way more of a philosophical analysis of of of you know kind of the um encroachments of modernity maybe starting i don't know where his story starts if it's the middle ages or if it's the renaissance i can't remember but but the restoration was was was is in a certain sense it's a it's something of a practical book it's kind of how what do we do now how can we how can we revive the culture what what can we do what what can we one of the first things he says and this is uh he wasn't living in the time of the internet but he said the first he said smash the television get it get a bat and literally smash your television and then get a piano and and um or a guitar and start learning some songs imagine what he would have had to say about the phone yeah so how do we radical i love it how do we implement this implement this without falling into a perfectionism that that leads us to fall into utter despair yeah and may even lead us to sort of crush our children as it were you know right you begin to see everything as poison right you mustn't talk to the children across the street and you mustn't have the video game and you mustn't ever watch television right i could see that being an unhealthy thing for both parent and child yes good good question i mean i i you know short of saying don't become like that um and pray for prudence and and and and be aware that that that would be a a pitfall to fall into um and yeah i mean i think i think being a purist yeah i i don't know i mean i think i think if you're there there's a as long as you're continuing to kind of to do these things to do these important things and and you're doing your part to to to raise your children in a way that is more more real and put them in contact with with things that are more real and whether it's animals or nature or good poetry good songs that trust that that this is going this is going to bear fruit and that that you don't have to construct some kind of an isolated insulated universe that god will that that good and beauty and truth are more powerful than than their their their fake you know substitutes and that those will win out so you know and i mean doesn't jesus have a parable answering this like the the the thistles and the the the flowers grow together you're not gonna we're never gonna be in in the pure world there's always gonna be both together so but you nurture the good you just continually focus on nurturing those good things and then don't be freaked out about the the the things the imperfections that are still there too i don't know if you've read this book by jacques philippe uh what's it called it's a gorgeous book i've got it somewhere over there um it's right by that blue book is there a little pink book by that blue book there over here yeah is that it no no that's not it it's cool yeah let's see here there we go it's glorious yes so this book's called searching for and maintaining peace and i would highly recommend that everybody get a copy of this and you know one of the things he talks about and drawing from the fathers is this idea that if we're not in a place of peace and you've already referenced that of being in a state of peace we won't see things properly the fathers use this analogy of a pond and if it's disturbed by throwing pebbles in it or something it doesn't reflect the sun right properly uh so i think being you know if we're constantly anxious uh and restless and and upset and falling into a sort of perfectionism it's difficult to then lead our children into something true good and beautiful i also think and i wonder what your point on this um your thoughts on this sometimes you'll encounter a family whose children seem to be in a defensive posture against the culture a continuous sort of i'm not sure what i mean by that do you know what i mean by that that's sort of um defensiveness with some parents maybe more um i'm trying to think of an example of something like we're always sort of kind of doing what i'm doing always kind of complaining and whining about the culture and uh right as opposed to embracing uh what's true good and beautiful it's more right right always ready to sort of smack away sure yeah and i i think that's yeah that that that's a danger that i mean i think that's that's something to be avoided you don't want you want you don't want to right you want your you want your children and you want yourself to be somebody who's in love with the good rather than consumed with avoiding that's exactly that's not the good yes and yeah and that's yeah absolutely yeah that's beautiful well as i already mentioned the first link in the description below dear friends is gregory the great academy go check out their website also the second link is to all boys camp's gonna be taking place next next month daily latin mass is that right i think that's what i've been told that it's either latin or byzantine one of them one way pretty awesome uh our priest is uh our chaplain's by rituals he does knife throwing axe throwing sleeping under the stars poetry memorizing and as i said i've got a friend who's driving out from georgia so don't think that the fact it's in pennsylvania that uh you know so go check it out they have 10 spots left this has been really fantastic i've really enjoyed chatting with you uh anything else you want to touch upon before we wrap up or i i think that's good all right we'll leave it to the next time cool all right well thank you so much for your time this has been awesome lovely [Music] [Laughter] [Music] you

Channel: Pints With Aquinas

Views: 30,192

Keywords: aquinas, catholicism, catholic, pints with aquinas, matt fradd, theology, debate, religion, st. thomas aquinas, thomas aquinas, philosophy

Id: CEtQdwYmLss

Length: 132min 39sec (7959 seconds)

Published: Tue May 11 2021