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

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

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

Suggested Reading & Resources:

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

Suggested ClassicalU courses:

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

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

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

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