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The Revival of Classical Education (Headmaster Luke Culley) | Ep. 274 — Transcript

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0:00all right everybody thank you very much
0:02for being here we have done
0:04two full starts of this show and my
0:06guest luke
0:07kelly is an incredibly patient man uh so
0:10just let us know
0:11out there in youtube land if you can
0:13hear us loud and clear
0:15this is going to be a fascinating
0:16conversation unfortunately because we
0:18had a false start we had to
0:20redo the live stream uh we're probably
0:22going to lose a lot of people from that
0:23link so do us a favor and share this
0:25video
0:26on facebook social media twitter give us
0:29a thumbs up
0:30leave a comment for the algorithm
0:31because this conversation about the
0:33revival
0:34of classical education is something i
0:36know a lot of people are interested in
0:37and for good reason
0:38and we've got a glory to jesus christ so
0:41we're good
0:42sound is good now youtube excellent and
0:44they can hear that
0:46and we're great ah
0:49how are you now oh i'm i'm i've been
0:52great
0:52yeah good continued that stuff doesn't
0:54ruffle you no
0:56no love it
1:00very good yeah yeah well it's really
1:02great to have you uh thank you for
1:04making your way out here
1:05and i'm really pumped today to be
1:07talking about uh yeah classical
1:09education and
1:10how to form young boys to love what's
1:12true good and beautiful
1:14great to be here thanks for thanks for
1:16having me and i was very impressed with
1:18you i'm sure you didn't do this to
1:19impress me but it worked
1:20i went to the coffee shop and you had a
1:22book of poetry and a dumb phone
1:25and that to me just says i've arrived
1:29yeah well i was trying to look cool well
1:31it worked man
1:33how are you doing when did you switch
1:34from the smartphone to the dumb phone
1:36uh you know i can't remember i did have
1:39a smartphone for a while
1:40and i i i realized it was too
1:44too smart for me yeah i couldn't uh
1:47couldn't couldn't handle it couldn't
1:49handle the pressure so
1:50so when went back to the dumb phone and
1:53um
1:55it's it's it's been good it's a phone
1:57now i asked you this question uh in the
1:59coffee shop but i'll ask you again
2:00because i think it's important um
2:02i would love to be as cool as you and
2:04some of my friends like mike verlander
2:07and uh what's his name at new polity
2:09mark barnes
2:10right and graduate to the dumb phone
2:13here's here's the question i have for
2:14you
2:15um we as technology advances
2:18so too does our means of conversing
2:22so people text in paragraphs today
2:25with multiple questions and so they
2:28expect
2:29a detailed reply and almost immediately
2:32but when you have a dumb phone you
2:34cannot do that so when you graduated
2:36from the smartphone to the better phone
2:38how did you deal with that
2:41well i think i i think what ends up
2:44happening is that you you
2:46your friends get kind of trained by your
2:48your lack of responses that's part of
2:50the answer
2:52but i guess what i do is i usually
2:55respond
2:56via email so if it's a quick quick
2:59question
3:00i'll you know i'll type out the answer
3:02on this this
3:03uh dumb phone yeah but if it's something
3:05more detailed i'll just
3:07i'll just go to uh to gmail and and or
3:10you know email and and send a response
3:13and that
3:14you know that slows it down a little bit
3:16yeah once you go to that you know
3:18somewhat older technology i guess yeah
3:21it is true people guys are
3:22used to email that's right yeah that's
3:24right but then how do you
3:25deal with the barrage of text messages i
3:27mean that's i guess as you say
3:28you sort of train people as it were they
3:31ceased to text you
3:33but i get text messages all the time
3:34like i turn my phone off for the weekend
3:36i open it up monday morning and it just
3:38i'm like showing my wife like look at
3:39this there's like 25
3:41text messages um
3:44so it would be it would be difficult to
3:46go through that period where everyone
3:47thinks you're ignoring them is i guess
3:48is what i'm saying
3:49right yes i think that's true but i
3:52think uh
3:52just as you're you know the way your
3:54phone works as i discovered yesterday or
3:56it doesn't have a
3:57voicemail on purpose on purpose uh that
4:00that you
4:01people figure that out that's true and
4:03they uh and they they learn that that
4:05they're
4:06not going to be able to contact you in
4:08that way everybody very politely tries
4:10to
4:10alert me to this fact your voicemail is
4:13full i couldn't leave a message and i
4:14say i know i'm it's
4:15meant to be full i don't want to have
4:17more avenues
4:19through which to be distracted right
4:20yeah so we but this is a problem i mean
4:23our our dean of students mr
4:26matthew williams uh fields a lot of
4:29questions from parents
4:31and and he's but he has many other jobs
4:33he's the he's the
4:35the scholar master the sacred music
4:36teacher and he's he's
4:38you know has a charge of the dorms and
4:41in many respects
4:42so he that's his his only job is not
4:44fielding questions from parents so he
4:46had to tell them i i will not respond to
4:49texting
4:51um and this sounds like we're diverting
4:53from the topic at hand but in a way
4:54we're really not i think we're you know
4:56speaking of classical education
4:58learning to love and learning to learn
5:00this this really is a part of it so yeah
5:01let's keep up with this for a second
5:03sure i find this really fascinating you
5:04know one of the things i said to my wife
5:05and i turned my phone on on monday
5:07morning and i had 25 text messages
5:09was look at this i said i think i just
5:11get more text messages than most people
5:14and she said no i don't think so i think
5:16people just
5:17respond when they get the text message
5:20but i didn't find that
5:21comforting i just thought well that
5:22means that's 25 times over the course of
5:24a
5:25two days that i would have been
5:27distracted
5:28i would have been doing something like
5:30making coffee or talking with my child
5:32or sitting with my wife
5:33or chatting with a friend and i would
5:35have had my
5:36mind turned to another matter and
5:39i don't want to live like that right
5:42yeah that's all yeah apparently it's a
5:46rather radical thing to talk about these
5:47days but
5:48right well no i think i mean as as we
5:50were talking about earlier i think you
5:52you have to you have to take some
5:55radical means
5:56to avoid the
5:59the inundation of this thing i mean as
6:02as
6:02as i was saying before i think the
6:04smartphone is
6:06is is smarter than us in some ways and
6:09and and more determined and it's i don't
6:12think it is
6:13a neutral technology
6:17that's interesting it's something that
6:18has designs upon us to absorb
6:21all of our attention and if you don't if
6:23you don't take some kind of aggressive
6:25sort of mental stance towards it
6:28and and be aware of what's going on then
6:31i think that you will
6:32you will be completely sucked into it
6:36and become an absolute zombie eventually
6:39that's what we're all hitting i thought
6:41of an analogy that's a little aggressive
6:43but
6:43since that's what we're doing it's like
6:45when people say don't talk to satan
6:47he's much smarter than you right you
6:48know like adam and eve don't no no don't
6:50don't do that
6:51and i kind of wonder if all of our
6:53little tips and tricks to reduce screen
6:55time
6:55is essentially us talking with someone
6:57much smarter than us
6:58who we can't win against and so we might
7:01just have to actually think not just
7:02might i think we have to make
7:04these decisions that look really weird
7:07to the majority of people
7:09when it comes to putting our phones and
7:10computers away i think you're right
7:13i think you're right i was chatting with
7:15a friend over a
7:16coffee it was three of us sitting around
7:19and
7:20i had a book open up on my lap and i was
7:22sort of paging through it and
7:23having a discussion you know she was
7:26over there and the phone's bing bing
7:28bing and she's looking at it like could
7:29you bloody put your phone away like
7:31we're trying to
7:32we're trying to have a conversation and
7:34she said well what's the difference
7:35you're holding a book i'm holding we're
7:37both doing the same thing
7:39and it took us a while to get to why
7:40that wasn't the case because we both
7:41knew that wasn't true but we didn't know
7:43what the difference was
7:44and what we came up with was that's not
7:47true because
7:48i am acting on the book the phone is
7:51acting on you
7:52so i'm able to have an ongoing
7:54conversation while i flick through a
7:56book in a way that you can't
7:58because your phone as you just said is
7:59screaming at you and pulling you into it
8:02that's right no i think i think that's
8:04perfect
8:06well here's what i want to do we want to
8:08talk about classical education
8:10i know that there are a lot of great
8:12schools who are beginning to employ this
8:14method if you want to put it that way
8:15before we do anything else i want to
8:16show people a one minute video
8:19of gregory the great academy uh just
8:21just so they get an idea
8:22of the school you are headmaster of so
8:25can we play that video
8:38let me introduce you to an exciting new
8:40venture in catholic education
8:43a school that gives the gift of joy a
8:46school
8:47like no other the world is so full of a
8:50number of things i'm sure we should all
8:52be as happy as kings
8:54gregory the great academy is a school of
8:56praise
8:57the good the true and the beautiful are
8:59not dead subjects on a page
9:02but realities deep down things that
9:05bring
9:06life to the soul according to plato
9:09the purpose of education is to learn to
9:11love what is beautiful
9:13at gregory the great academy we show the
9:16beauty of wisdom
9:17through lively conversation about the
9:19best that has been thought
9:21and said god is a musician whose love
9:25moves the stars in one eternal song
9:28music and poetry awakens students to
9:31their place in the chorus of divine
9:33praise
9:34boys need adventure they need
9:37camaraderie
9:38our boys work and play in a community
9:40where friendship is fostered
9:42through intense experience of the good
9:45education must nourish what scripture
9:47calls the heart
9:49the deepest spring of reason and desire
9:52in the divine liturgy the heart finds
9:55beatitude
9:56for the liturgy is the participation on
9:58earth
9:59in the life of god the world needs the
10:02happiness
10:03the good education provides
10:08is that it that school will be good
10:11looks fantastic and is fantastic i took
10:14my son there
10:15uh when was that now five months ago or
10:17so uh was it in
10:19december were you there for the america
10:21conception
10:22december 8th yes and it was remarkable
10:25uh well first of all your school's small
10:29like i i had this idea maybe hundreds
10:31and hundreds of boards it's a big
10:32building
10:33it's a very big building but 60 60 boys
10:3560 boys which adds up to
10:37average of what a class i guess uh about
10:4015 a class 15 a class that's fantastic
10:42yeah
10:43i remember just yes showing up beautiful
10:44building and then in the morning
10:47uh we were having coffee and you said
10:48hey the procession is starting
10:51before the big was a rugby game they
10:53were playing that's right
10:54that's right and i saw rugby tournament
10:56i got to get out for this it was
10:57freezing colds
10:58no i wasn't dressed appropriately so i
11:00came down you see all these
11:02manly young men marching through the
11:05field and they were chanting a
11:07french hymn to the blessed virgin while
11:09someone at the front was carrying the
11:11statue of the blessed virgin
11:15and they they placed the blessed virgin
11:17down the statue
11:19and then people were laying roses at her
11:21feet and offering a prayer and it was
11:22but it was so
11:23manly to see a group of dudes doing a
11:26procession and laying roses for the
11:27blessed virgin
11:28but in a very masculine way and then
11:30they went beat the crap out of each
11:32other in rugby for several hours
11:34it it was my mind was blown at how how
11:36beautiful that school
11:37is right in in the middle of winter
11:40no less rugby tournament yeah it's a
11:43beautiful it's a beautiful
11:44tradition how did you get into this uh
11:48and and and why are you so passionate
11:50about it
11:51oh boy well uh
11:54let's see i to to be to be honest i i
11:57got into it somewhat by accident
11:59okay i went to thomas aquinas college oh
12:01okay i
12:02graduated from there didn't have much of
12:05a
12:06uh a plan for my life except that i
12:08wanted to be a juggler and i wanted to
12:10go to europe
12:11and be kind of a street performer i had
12:14a good friend who got a job at this
12:16obscure boarding school and i didn't
12:19have any money
12:20to get to europe so i uh i took this job
12:24and and i i told the headmaster at the
12:28time alan hicks the founding headmaster
12:30of the school
12:31uh one of the students of john senior we
12:34could talk about that maybe
12:35later on but uh i told him you know i'll
12:38take this job but i really
12:39i just want to be here for a semester
12:41because i my my end game is
12:43is uh i want to go to europe and and do
12:47this
12:47you know live this romantic life and so
12:50um he said okay yeah sure you're great
12:52you know you teach a class you're gonna
12:55you're gonna be a dorm father
12:57and so i entered into things
13:01and i i just i
13:04pretty soon discovered that this was a
13:06remarkable place
13:08that this was a school that had a very
13:11unique vision and uh
13:14that it was that that i i couldn't leave
13:17at that point i mean i just i could not
13:20uh you know had mid point of the year
13:22came and of course i had to finish the
13:24year
13:25and then the end of the year came and i
13:27did go to europe and i went on the
13:28camino de santiago the first time i went
13:31and came back for another year another
13:34year
13:35another year i eventually did leave for
13:37a while i went to grad school then
13:38came back again and and uh here i am
13:42now but but that's that's the story i
13:44mean for me it started
13:45somewhat unintentionally i didn't i
13:47didn't choose the school
13:49quite for for maybe the the best reasons
13:52but i
13:53i definitely think god was leading me
13:56there
13:56and uh it and it kept me there because
14:00i i discovered that this school that was
14:03one of the great fruits of john senior
14:06and and the program he started started
14:08at ku
14:10was a remarkable school that that was
14:13transformative i mean clearly
14:16had an understanding of of how to put
14:19together a number of different things
14:22that was transformative of youth and and
14:26that's
14:27that's the place i wanted to be so for
14:29those who've never heard of john senior
14:31and without getting into his entire
14:32biography who was he and tell us about
14:34this program he started at ku and why it
14:36was so transformative for so many people
14:38absolutely so john senior was one of
14:42three professors at
14:43kansas university and he decided
14:46with two of his two of his colleagues to
14:49start a program within this giant
14:51behemoth of
14:52a university that was called the
14:55integrated humanities program and
14:58he he was a catholic catholic convert
15:01and it was a it was a program that was
15:04really teaching
15:05the liberal arts but due at which the
15:08the university
15:09really had abandoned by this time but
15:12doing it in a in a unique way
15:15uh unlike some of the great book schools
15:19that that and even other catholic
15:22schools that were
15:23were beginning around the same time
15:25there's been kind of a renaissance in
15:27catholic education
15:29on the university level starting i think
15:30in the early 70s with christendom thomas
15:32quinas college
15:34university of dallas later on wyoming
15:36catholic
15:38in john senior's experiment short-lived
15:42though it was
15:42was was really in a way part of that but
15:45he had a
15:46he had he had a bit of a different
15:48vision from the great books
15:50uh he was friends actually with with the
15:53the founders of thomas aquinas college
15:56but he thought that something was needed
15:59for students before they could jump into
16:01the great books
16:03he thought that there was a kind of uh a
16:05cultivation
16:06of the soil of the soul
16:10in in music in poetry kind of a
16:13cultivation of the imagination
16:15that was that was needed prior to
16:19to to engaging in any kind of a fruitful
16:23way with these books so he would
16:25this is a university program uh and
16:28and he's they're teaching the the
16:31students stargazing
16:32they're going out and they're they're
16:34learning to identify the constellations
16:37and memorizing poetry
16:40and um learning how to learning how to
16:44waltz
16:44you know so there's this kind of um
16:47really
16:48imaginative poetic approach
16:52to to education that that really was
16:56a way of of
16:59transforming the heart and kind of
17:01forming the loves
17:02of of the of the students that really is
17:06is uh prior to kind of this higher
17:10um endeavor of of kind of refining the
17:13intellect
17:14which is maybe more what um he would say
17:17the great books schools are kind of
17:19jumping to
17:21um prematurely okay yeah so if you've
17:23been raised on
17:24mtv and uh comic books to go from that
17:28to the great books
17:29might be jarring exactly incapable of
17:31appreciating it you've got to till the
17:32soil that's right
17:33that's right you have to you have to
17:35till this one and you have to
17:37you have to kind of change change the
17:39soil
17:40you know and and um and and woo the
17:42heart
17:44away from from you know i think
17:47uh senior would say bad music to
17:50to to beautiful music to better music
17:53and and that that you know that that's a
17:56whole
17:56uh somewhat of a slow slow effort
18:00for those who aren't aware what are the
18:01liberal arts and why were they and are
18:04they dying off in modern universities
18:06oh boy uh that's uh
18:10i'm not sure how well i can answer that
18:11question the liberal arts i mean the the
18:13trivium
18:14sure grammar rhetoric logic
18:17those are the three and then the
18:18quadrivium and i can't i can't
18:20tell you what all the all of those are
18:21except mathematics and astronomy
18:23yeah uh but uh those are the you know
18:26the more
18:27mathematical um uh
18:30medieval arts and and these were
18:34um all together all seven of them were
18:37seen
18:37as means to create of
18:41a free man so liberal in the true sense
18:44of the word right
18:45i mean of um free as in as in
18:48um free to engage
18:52fully his his nature in that sense that
18:55that to
18:56to kind of become a man in full
18:59that you needed to and to engage the
19:01world and all of its variety
19:03and and and all of its its is truth and
19:06depth and wonder that there need to be
19:09kind of a development
19:10of of the heart and the mind in this
19:14development was the liberal arts and i
19:16think that
19:18the the abandonment of that really is
19:20that there's just there's been an
19:22abandonment of that
19:23understanding of of man there really
19:26isn't an integrated understanding of
19:30man in the cosmos anymore we live in a
19:33world that
19:34that is a is kind of an anti-culture
19:37whether there
19:37is no um we're kind of ruled by
19:41by slogans and and um something that'll
19:43come along
19:44critical race theory or feminism or or
19:48um whatever it may be but it's
19:51it's it's there there's really no
19:54attempt to to to give a complete
19:58coherent view of reality it um
20:02and and and so i think that that's with
20:05the with the
20:06loss of that in modernity you get the
20:08loss of the liberal arts which come
20:10out of this kind of greco uh roman
20:13christian synthesis of of who man is and
20:16what his relationship with god is that's
20:18gone
20:19so of course the liberal arts are going
20:21to be neglected they exist kind of in an
20:23antiquarian way now and and people are
20:26still drawn to them even in the
20:28universes because
20:29it's still so good and people do still
20:32want to read books
20:34that are are compelling and that's
20:36that's how john senior and his friends
20:38you know got away with it um for a time
20:41i think it was
20:4210 years that their experiment lasted
20:44until this is such a great story
20:47a sad one but but a great one so
20:50the these three pro you mind if i jump
20:52back to that story a little bit
20:53so these three professors another unique
20:56thing they did
20:57was that they they all taught together
21:00so they're all up on the you know the
21:03the stage in front of a
21:04big classroom smoking cigarettes if i'm
21:07not missing probably
21:08probably in that time certainly you
21:10could do that even when i was in in in
21:11college we had a
21:13professor's uh smoke to pipe but
21:16um but they would all be up there
21:19together
21:20and instead of giving lectures and i
21:23think they're the this is the only
21:25uh universe or um college
21:29university that that's employed this
21:32particular means
21:33they would have a conversation so they
21:35would really kind of do it we're
21:36beautiful with three people
21:38so they they were they're they're just
21:40there they have a book they might be
21:41talking about a hopkins poem maybe i'll
21:43read that later on
21:44i want to talk about but um or they'd be
21:47talking about the aeneid
21:49the the the odyssey whatever it was
21:52and they were i mean these guys were
21:55masters they mean they
21:56they knew these books through and
21:57through but they were they're unscripted
21:59conversations they've just gone
22:01and they would just start talking it is
22:02like this i mean it's it is why people
22:04love
22:05intellectually stimulating uh podcasts
22:08today
22:09absolutely i think if you were to ask
22:10the mainstream media before podcast
22:12became a thing
22:12do you think there would be an appetite
22:14for a three-hour discussion
22:15on different esoteric topics that have
22:17to do with metaphysics or even economics
22:20people would have thought no that's not
22:21going to work but here we are here we
22:23are
22:23and and you know and maybe here we've
22:25always been because i
22:27uh you know plato invented this with his
22:30dialogues
22:31so he he he understood that people want
22:34that dynamic of a conversation and that
22:37that's
22:38that's how in a sense truth and maybe
22:41one of the most
22:42creative ways in which truth can be
22:44generated we'll see if that happens here
22:46yeah yeah but um but anyway back to the
22:49senior
22:49the senior maybe that the so so that his
22:52students
22:54are sitting there and listening to this
22:57this conversation by these three masters
23:01they were all catholics all three of the
23:04not not the
23:05the students so this is a typical
23:08group of university students who happen
23:10to come to this university who happen to
23:14enter this program who knows why two of
23:17our founding
23:19headmasters great friends alan hicks and
23:22howard clark
23:23were in the audience they were students
23:26there
23:27and they were you know just describe
23:29themselves as
23:30hippies of the day and they just they
23:33kind of
23:33somewhat randomly almost the way i came
23:36to to the school originally
23:39just said hey let's just do this and
23:41they ended up
23:42going to these classes and
23:46they their lives were transformed they
23:49both converted
23:50they both converted to the faith even
23:52though the teachers were not
23:55proselytizing yes but again they were
23:57teaching this whole education that kind
23:59of comes
24:00out of catholic catholic culture
24:04and and that's ultimately what led to
24:07the the shutdown of the program
24:10because what ended up happening is that
24:13students
24:13of uh students started converting to the
24:17faith
24:18amazing and doing the most radical
24:20things like going over to france
24:22yeah and becoming monks yeah tell us
24:24about that
24:25because this is something that actually
24:27happened not a couple right they founded
24:28a monastery correct
24:29well right right so so they first went
24:31to this monastery in focon bone a couple
24:34other
24:34monasteries that are in the that
24:36association
24:37these uh very traditional benedictine
24:39monasteries
24:41and were you know for formed for years
24:44in in the um as as monks
24:47at focambo in france and and eventually
24:52they they they founded their own
24:55monastery in oklahoma
24:57clear creek monastery yeah and the the
24:59abbot of
25:01of clear creek uh abbott anderson
25:04is a classmate of of my
25:07headmaster old headmaster alan hicks and
25:10and howard clark and he's and he was
25:14you can see and i was looking one of the
25:16programs
25:17and you could see him as a young man and
25:20now his
25:20you know he's his hair is shorn down to
25:22the down of the bone but
25:24uh at that time he had hair you know all
25:26the way down
25:27yeah and and and and look where he is
25:30look where he is now so that's that's
25:32been one of the great
25:34fruits of of john senior's
25:37uh you know revitalization of education
25:42which was almost too powerful to
25:44continue to exist
25:45they shut it down and it was accused of
25:47being a cult and
25:49um i mean particularly i think what was
25:51happening
25:52happening is that some um
25:57yeah some some very uh uh very
26:00highly placed society people in in town
26:04um had their sons uh go off
26:07after this program and become monks and
26:10they were big donors to the school
26:12and they said this has to stop this has
26:15to
26:16the sex drugs and rock and roll yes
26:17that's right exactly nothing that's
26:19right
26:20you tell me if this is too simplistic
26:22we've forgotten what man
26:24is and so we can't free him if you don't
26:26know what man is you can't
26:27teach man appropriately but we can at
26:29least make use of him
26:31uh perhaps and so therefore subjects
26:35such as logic rhetoric grammar aren't
26:38necessary to make use of man this might
26:40sound a little too sinister
26:42but this is sort of what we're left with
26:43a sort of um a utilitarian kind of view
26:47of education
26:48like so the point of education i think
26:50if you were to ask say my parents or
26:51maybe their parents is so you can get a
26:53good job
26:54right um not to enlighten the individual
26:57to free him to be himself and who god
27:00wants him to be
27:01um so it sounds like what john cena and
27:05his fellows were doing was
27:06reminding them of who they were like
27:08there's nothing that will remind you who
27:09you were
27:10are by putting you in a field
27:14looking up at the stars and
27:15contemplating the grandeur of god
27:17right um so you have to kind of be
27:19reminded of who you are
27:21and what you're for and all of a sudden
27:23that that gets cultivated and then you
27:25can
27:25begin to appreciate the great books is
27:26that that sounds that's that's perfect
27:29yeah yeah i think that's
27:32but otherwise that's good yeah and i
27:34think i think that the
27:35modern education is is exactly that it's
27:38it's seen
27:39as as a means to
27:42to a utilitarian end and you
27:46you quickly get the sense as a student
27:47that you're you're kind of on this
27:48conveyor belt
27:50yes you know and you you it's it begins
27:52you don't
27:53quite realize i think you start
27:54realizing you're on it in high school
27:56yes as you become a little bit more
27:58aware even with
28:00the deadening kind of influence of the
28:03education that you're
28:04you're getting that you're on this and
28:06then and then you you continue on you
28:07realize okay i gotta get on another
28:09conveyor belt
28:10called college and then and that will
28:13lead me to my job
28:14and that's that's about it
28:18why do you call modern education
28:20deadening what is it about it that's
28:21deadening
28:23well i think you you've already said it
28:25i mean i i think it's
28:27it's a it's deadening because it doesn't
28:31remind you
28:32of who you are it does it doesn't give
28:34you a glimpse of
28:36of of the world that god made it doesn't
28:39give you a glimpse of
28:41of the the eternal verities it doesn't
28:44give you
28:45a um a sense of sort of the joy
28:50and excitement of being a man
28:53and and living the adventure of life it
28:56certainly doesn't give you a sense that
28:57there
28:58is this this divine mystery that
29:01is in that is in everything and behind
29:05everything
29:06and and that there's
29:10there's every reason to be excited about
29:13being alive
29:15and and it doesn't do any of those
29:16things i mean it's almost
29:18it's almost a i i'm reminded of a book
29:22by
29:22i never read it i confess i i want to
29:25but
29:26if i i love the title by anthony eslin
29:29called something like 10 ways to destroy
29:32the imagination of your child yes
29:35you know and it's it's funny because
29:36it's it's almost as if
29:38these schools have studied books like
29:41that
29:42and and that it's very intentional that
29:44they've really
29:45how can we how can we construct this so
29:48perfectly
29:49that that uh children will come out of
29:52here almost
29:53in in near catatonic you know despair
29:56and they do such a great job i mean
29:58they're they're utterly successful
30:00now here's the thing though if you were
30:01to speak to a public school teacher and
30:03said
30:03you know do you want to destroy the
30:05imagination of these children do you
30:06want them to come out of school almost
30:07catatonic they would say what are you
30:08talking about no i want what's best for
30:10them i love them
30:12so it's almost like they would use the
30:13same language that you would want to use
30:14i want them to be fully alive i want
30:16them to
30:17have an exciting life so where's the
30:19disconnect
30:20well i mean and of course there are good
30:24teachers i had some good teacher i went
30:26to a public school
30:27uh and and they're they're they're all
30:29you know teachers there are many
30:31teachers that are trying
30:32you know very hard and and and they do
30:34have
30:36remnants uh kind of vestiges
30:39of of a liberal arts curriculum mixed in
30:42you know you're there are some good
30:43books you read in a literature class in
30:46a public high school
30:47and there are many well-intentioned
30:50teachers that are trying to do something
30:52with that
30:53but i think the problem is that there's
30:55no coherence
30:57there's there's no kind of nothing
30:59connects to anything
31:01nothing connects to anything else so in
31:04the end
31:05it's just kind of it ends up being this
31:08sort of smorgasbord of information
31:09that's not
31:10right that well you like this this is
31:13something
31:13interesting to you and so follow that
31:17follow your passion but you're never
31:18really given some
31:20view of yourself we need to have a view
31:22of ourself that's
31:23larger than my individual wants and
31:26desires and even what i'm good at
31:29because at the end of the day we're
31:32we you come eventually you kind of
31:34realize you're kind of boring
31:37and and so we need this sense of
31:40a larger reality within which
31:43we have a place and that's what's
31:46exciting i mean
31:46that i think that's where that you you
31:49can that's the only place
31:51i think you can give somebody a true
31:54sense that life is worth living life is
31:57an adventure
31:58you know just going on um
32:01even you know you see the attempt for
32:04people to kind of have this vibrant life
32:07whether it's mountain climbing or
32:08jumping out of airplanes or
32:10all this kind of stuff but i think in
32:12the end
32:14all that's going to kind of fail because
32:16it's
32:17it's it's so grounded in
32:20my own personal sort of interests and
32:23and the the little bit i can
32:28uh the little world i can construct out
32:30of my own ego and it's ultimately not
32:33compelling interesting this reminds me
32:34of a talk that fulton sheen gave where
32:36he
32:37talked about the difference between
32:38being free from something and free for
32:40something
32:41if you were to say he said to a taxi cab
32:43driver are you free
32:46and the taxi cab driver said oh yes and
32:48you said hooray for freedom
32:50well that wouldn't make any sense we're
32:51not and so i think today the modern
32:53understanding of freedom is freedom from
32:55constraints
32:56right but we don't have an understanding
32:58perhaps of what are we for
33:00exactly exactly no i think that's right
33:03so our right and now and now we're not
33:06even really
33:07free from constraints it seems like the
33:09world is is um
33:11clamping down on what we can say and
33:13yeah it does isn't that interesting the
33:15uh what was it that benedict the 16th
33:17called a
33:17dictatorship of relativism whose only
33:20goal consists solely of one's own ego
33:22and desire
33:24i'm thinking too of augustine's quote
33:26about passing by the wonders of the
33:28world
33:29and passing by ourselves without
33:31noticing it something to that effect
33:33yeah right right and that's i mean
33:37the without noticing it i think is is a
33:39as a problem that
33:42we are we face in this
33:45age of of sort of you know
33:48technological inundation yeah
33:52even our experience of nature is
33:54contracepted with technology
33:56people walk around with apps that show
33:58you the constellation as if i don't know
33:59how to look at the stars
34:01or not terribly interested in
34:02contemplating a plant unless i can see
34:05it through an app that tells me its name
34:08right yes that's maybe a cynical look on
34:11digital apps and how they help us
34:12connect with nature but do you see my
34:14point oh absolutely
34:15i mean i think again i mean i the the
34:18the trajectory of all this
34:20is to seemingly
34:24it is to is to remove us completely
34:26where where there
34:27is eventually no connection this is what
34:30that's what scares me about virtual
34:31reality goggles
34:33right yeah
34:36yeah no i was just walking with my son
34:39peter the other day we were going on a
34:40hike and he said dad what's that
34:41and i i know nothing because i'm an
34:43idiot so it's a bloody plant i guess you
34:45know
34:45but i thought it's probably a lot more
34:46interesting if i squatted down with him
34:48let's have a look at it
34:49what do you think it is what do you like
34:51about it you know that sort of thing
34:53as opposed to here's my phone and i'll
34:55type it in this is a that
34:58yeah right right and i sometimes i think
35:01people think well
35:02sometimes i think people think there you
35:04go so this isn't some grand conspiracy
35:07it's not like there are a group of
35:08people conspiring against making us all
35:10catatonic but it does feel like maybe a
35:12demonic conspiracy
35:14religious we're being increasingly
35:16separated from nature and from ourselves
35:18right yeah no i mean i i agree with you
35:21i i don't think
35:22i don't think they're prone as i am at
35:25times to conspiratorial thinking perhaps
35:27but um but because you're right it does
35:30seem like
35:31it it all seems to fit together so well
35:34and there does seem to be a project that
35:36is kind of
35:37coalescing like how is it the big tech
35:39you know
35:40hollywood now government universities
35:43all seem to be singing to the same sheet
35:46of music
35:46so there there there doesn't be some
35:49kind of conspiracy
35:50whether it whether any any group of
35:53individuals is intentionally
35:55in charge or not some some somebody
35:58seems to be in charge
35:59so and uh one of the things i well
36:03let me just tell you this experience i
36:04had of your school and then maybe you
36:05can talk about it
36:07um just being with those boys at your
36:09school just
36:11i was watching them juggle and uh there
36:13was a bit of that in the in the video
36:15clip we just played but if
36:16when i say juggle i'm not talking like
36:18here's three tomatoes
36:19i'm talking these boys are standing on
36:21each other's shoulders
36:22throwing flaming sticks back and forth
36:25and i just sat there watching this as
36:27they were playing
36:28folk music and singing i started to cry
36:32almost in sorrow for my childhood
36:35um i don't know if that sounds too
36:37dramatic maybe it's not dramatic enough
36:39i feel like i was raised on heavy metal
36:41porn and horror
36:43a lot of my time was just spent with
36:44these things and that's not really an
36:46exaggeration
36:47and and uh video games and whatever good
36:51there may be in them that's what i was
36:52exposed to that's what i was raised with
36:54and here i am at the school where these
36:55boys are
36:56playing rugby butchering their own
36:58animals yes yes yeah
37:00butchering chickens there's no pigs and
37:03my understanding is there's no or little
37:04electronic music allowed on campus so
37:06the boys are playing folk songs and
37:09singing
37:09war songs absolutely right so again i
37:13mean
37:13this is a something that
37:17our original founders of the school were
37:19very adamant about there would be no
37:22there would be virtually no technology
37:24technological
37:25availability to to the students so no
37:27cell phones
37:28no mp3 players uh
37:32nothing of that kind and and and the
37:36the point the idea was that there there
37:38needs to be a kind of a sanctuary
37:41where uh boys can learn to do
37:45normal boyish things again and
37:48and and there needs to and and they're
37:50you know
37:51they're a lot of our guys are are they
37:54they've heard the same music
37:55you've you've heard and and um they they
37:58live
37:59they like some of that stuff too they've
38:00listened to pop culture music
38:03but what's what's been so
38:07remarkable and it's still remarkable to
38:10me in some ways
38:11is is how much they love learning
38:15folk songs so we we sing irish songs we
38:18sing
38:19scottish songs american folk songs the
38:22guys learn
38:23the uh polyphony uh gregorian
38:26chants just and glorious all that kind
38:29of stuff
38:30and they love it and they love it i just
38:32want to point out too because
38:33at your school you have both the divine
38:35liturgy celebrated as well as the
38:37latin mass yes and i was stunned
38:41by how good the boys were at singing it
38:43was
38:44probably better than most choirs i have
38:47heard at latin masses and byzantine
38:48churches it was
38:49glorious yeah and we have uh our school
38:53of director matthew williams
38:55to thank for that he's he's uh
38:57remarkable so the guys
38:59that they have this chance to sing
39:04for the byzantine and the the latin
39:06liturgy this
39:07the highest level i mean it's that that
39:09itself is
39:10is such a uh such a transformative
39:14experience for everybody who's there
39:17but for them as well and these are the
39:20same guys
39:22the guys who are in the scola who are as
39:24you mentioned earlier
39:25who are playing rugby yeah and
39:28so one of the things i love about the
39:30school is that there isn't the same kind
39:33of dichotomy that i
39:34experienced in public school you really
39:37do
39:38those cliches those cliches are real to
39:41some degree about the job
39:42yes it is right the drama people
39:46and all that kind of stuff and and
39:49really
39:50everybody should be doing drama
39:52everybody should be learning how to
39:54juggle
39:54everybody should learn art everybody
39:57should play rugby
39:58everybody should sing folk songs
40:00everybody should should sing
40:03uh je vous salud which is the the french
40:06hail mary that you heard
40:07that was so powerful and and when and
40:09when you have a school where you don't
40:11you don't ask them would you like to do
40:13this
40:14but you just say this is what we do okay
40:16now we're learning this song
40:17now we're doing this how long does it
40:19take until the boys
40:21say well i'm bad at singing or i'm bad
40:22at rugby i don't want to do that i'm not
40:24good at art
40:25how long does it take from that point to
40:28okay i'll just jump in the mix and do
40:29what i can
40:31is there a probably about probably about
40:33five minutes
40:35so no i mean you know obviously it's
40:37like anything else i mean
40:38you have you have uh you have kids who
40:41are
40:41great at sports and then and then we
40:43have we have
40:44i would say probably half of our
40:46students have really never played sports
40:49at all
40:50and if they'd gone to another school
40:52they never would have joined a team
40:55but at st gregory's we don't give them
40:58that choice
40:59you're gonna play soccer and you and
41:02you're gonna play rugby and some of
41:04these guys that have never played
41:06before love it i mean in in excel and
41:09are
41:09you know play the asa actually many if
41:11not most of them
41:13are are go all the way through so yeah
41:15there's an apprenticeship
41:17there's a and there's rugby is
41:20uh especially the way it's done at our
41:22school i mean
41:23rugby training begins begins
41:28is it basically after christmas
41:31rugby training begins so that means
41:33outside
41:35in the snow guys are are playing rugby
41:39and so there's a there's a long intense
41:42apprenticeship which is now you know
41:45they're enjoying the fruits of where
41:47we're in the middle of our sea actually
41:48we're coming up to
41:49our our championships now and uh we
41:52we've had an undefeated season so
41:54we've been congrats we've been very
41:56blessed uh our coach
41:57coach van beek and his coaching staff
42:00are
42:01uh outstanding so uh we have a quite up
42:04quite a tradition of
42:05of rugby excellence and but yeah no i i
42:08think it's
42:09i think it's something that uh the guys
42:12understand it's just
42:13it's part of the life it's part of the
42:14life here yeah and
42:17what do you say to those who say aren't
42:18you sheltering the boys not allowing
42:20them to have ipods and this sort of
42:22thing
42:22how on earth are you preparing them to
42:24go into the real world aren't they just
42:25going to go from this
42:26sanctuary as you call it to the real
42:29world
42:30right it's going to be bowled over
42:31you're not actually training them to
42:32engage with the world
42:34you're just sheltering them it's just
42:35going to make them weak and they're like
42:36sitting ducks
42:38right well i mean i would say we are
42:41sheltering them first of all and very
42:43intentionally so
42:45and and i think that that's a that's
42:47become that shelter that sanctuary
42:50has become more important now than
42:53than it's ever been because because
42:56these
42:57these guys these these boys they need to
43:00have these
43:01real experiences they need to they need
43:04to experience what it's like to to
43:06tackle
43:06a guy in in rugby to get in a boxing
43:10match
43:10to have conversations with friends to
43:13learn to learn
43:14poetry to sing songs
43:18not i mean one of the amazing things
43:20about about the school is that
43:23you know in contrast to my education
43:26with in
43:26in many others i remember going to
43:30to uh a music class we had a required
43:32music class at one point i actually
43:34kind of liked it but it never
43:38spilled over into your life it was just
43:41you went into that class and they taught
43:43you a lot
43:43a couple of of songs and then and that
43:46was it
43:47but but at st gregory's it just it
43:49spills out
43:51the guys are playing songs in the
43:53hallway they're learning songs they're
43:55you know they're they're showing
43:57everybody a new song they learned at a
43:58banquet i was woken up by them they're
44:01they uh i was sleeping in that that
44:03guest room at
44:04greg's and i actually had gone to sleep
44:06and i woke up by the
44:08thunderous roar of these bloody folk
44:10songs that were being played
44:11sometimes the banquets go exactly so in
44:14in
44:14yeah so that that's there's this this
44:17um experience of
44:21that is really again something so
44:23important for all of us to have
44:25this this experience of brotherhood in
44:28song
44:29for example that is that is this
44:32experience of something larger than
44:34yourself the song itself
44:36and sort of the meaning of the song but
44:38this experience of
44:40of when you're singing uh full-throated
44:42your whole heart
44:44this group of guys like you've seen at
44:46the banquets
44:47that there's you you have this
44:50experience
44:51of of i think even wonder and awe
44:56um of i am part of something that is
44:59is beautiful and is deep and is profound
45:04and i'm getting back to the technology
45:05thing
45:07and i think it's it's experiences like
45:10this
45:11whether it's slaughtering it
45:12slaughtering chickens
45:14whether it's being part of this
45:16brotherhood in song
45:18whether it's it's it's being out in the
45:20freezing cold in rugby
45:22and then going and having an ice bath in
45:25the stream
45:26which is it's a common feature uh
45:30and learning how to tackle a guy twice
45:33your size
45:35these are the things that
45:38the these are the things that that are
45:41are
45:41actually going to help you to become
45:44somebody who knows how to use technology
45:46and not
45:47be swamped by it has that been your
45:50experience of those who have left the
45:51school
45:52i mean have you done any kind of follow
45:54up with those who are a few years into
45:55there
45:56not enough not not not enough but but i
45:59but
46:00what typically what you do see is that
46:03that there is a period where the boys
46:05you know they they do kind of dive in
46:08headfirst you know they get their
46:09smartphone
46:11and and they they they kind of
46:14they they sort of enter very you know
46:16avidly into that
46:18into that world and kind of catch up
46:21with uh
46:22you know with all that they missed but
46:25but i think that that without us even
46:28preaching it very much i mean we
46:30we have a uh a
46:33you know an ethic if you will of what we
46:36call technological poverty which is
46:37everything i'm talking about but we
46:40don't we don't really
46:41talk about it that much we just do it
46:43and yet the students they get it
46:46they unders they understand that what we
46:49were able to do
46:50here what we were able to experience the
46:53conversations they were
46:54able to have with one another the the
46:59the many experiences adventures uh
47:03growth that they experienced
47:06was had a lot to do with not being
47:10you know tied to this thing so my my
47:14my conversations with with alumni
47:17uh certainly bears out that they they do
47:20get it
47:20they do get doesn't mean they they
47:22become luddites and give up all
47:24technology but
47:25but they they they really want to find a
47:28way
47:29not to be um sucked sucked into the
47:33to the abyss and i think you could turn
47:35that accusation around
47:36and say on the contrary it is you know
47:40most of us are sheltering our kids from
47:42learning how to slaughter animals
47:45true brotherhood good music you know
47:48what i mean like
47:48we're living the sheltered life that's
47:50right that's
47:56these are boys who have who have have
47:58get have been given a
47:59lot of you know real world
48:03experience of the real world not
48:06the not the surreal or the virtual world
48:09but the real world
48:11and and so i think that that in you know
48:14in in
48:15not giving boys an experience like this
48:18you're absolutely right
48:19you use that that's your that's the
48:20sheltering that's that's the bad
48:23sheltering
48:24from reality and i don't know if this
48:26was your experience but
48:27for me i mean i only went hunting
48:29recently and i felt terribly
48:31sheltered slightly embarrassed that i
48:33had really no idea what to do
48:35or how to shoot or how to butcher a deer
48:39these were the experiences i didn't have
48:40which i'm now having that i wish i had
48:42earlier
48:43well it's not too late and and and i'm
48:45i'm actually like you
48:46i mean i i've i've watched our guys
48:50butcher hundreds of chickens from from
48:52the window
48:54and ask myself when when are you going
48:56to go out there and do that
48:58and i haven't yet so i have i i i did
49:01you know thanks
49:02to my parents i did grow up on a you
49:04know a small
49:05farm with my my my parents were not
49:08farmers but they thought it was
49:09important for
49:10for us to have animals so i grew up
49:12milking a cow and that was
49:13and and caring for sheep and and and
49:16chickens but
49:17slaughtering was not something we've
49:18done and so i still do have
49:20i confess it you know before everyone uh
49:23you know
49:24a squeamishness about cutting it you
49:26know a chicken's head off
49:28yeah but i'll get out there good for you
49:30we'll do it together okay we should
49:32we should yes now there might be people
49:34watching this right now and they're
49:35thinking this is terrific
49:36um i'm a female though uh i have female
49:38daughters
49:39are there schools like this for women do
49:41there need to be
49:44oh that's a good one that's a good
49:45question and i i don't
49:47i don't have um don't have a definitive
49:51answer on that
49:52um i i do i know i know of somebody who
49:55is
49:56who is planning to make a school like
49:58that in dallas texas
50:01and you know in in this this
50:04woman is she she loves our school
50:07actually is is hoping to send her her
50:10son here
50:11at some point has talked about that but
50:14one of the things she said is that i
50:16want the girls school
50:18to to be like your school in
50:22in in um in a lot of ways less
50:25butchering less density yeah maybe so
50:27maybe so but but she
50:28she's uh she says that you know girls
50:31will will do the things that you do in a
50:33different way because they're girls
50:35and they need to be led into these
50:36things but but they're they also
50:38need adventure they they you know
50:42resisting a little bit maybe that
50:44victorian
50:45model of well girls should just you know
50:48be
50:48learning how to knit and which i think
50:50is a great thing to learn um
50:52and and sort of take care of a home um
50:54you know kind of
50:55social deportment and so thing things
50:57like that but that that they
50:59also need to learn to ride horses and
51:02not that we have horses yet
51:04someday and and uh learn archery
51:07and and and do these some of these
51:10active things so i thought that was
51:11interesting
51:12that she she had that um i do think that
51:15boarding school is is more
51:19appropriate to boys i mean i think i i
51:23don't
51:24i know of of of girls who've gone to
51:26boarding schools and loved it i know of
51:27girls have gone to boarding schools
51:29and and hated it but but i think there's
51:32something
51:33about boarding school for boys that
51:37fits so much into the the male nature
51:40why well because i think you know it's
51:44when you get to those teen years there
51:47is this
51:48impulsion to kind of go out
51:51you know and and and seek adventure i
51:53mean we see this in
51:54in fairy tales i mean this is this is in
51:57in in
51:58in all the literature boys want to go
52:00out and and
52:01and find adventure and and move
52:04out of the family as a kind of a
52:07preparation for coming back
52:09to the family or forming their own
52:10family and so
52:12i think that there are many ways of
52:14doing this but
52:15one way is to go to a boarding school
52:19where you are in a place where you where
52:22you you do move
52:23a little you do move out of of your
52:25family away from your family for a time
52:27but you're we you're in a you're in a
52:29sanctuary you're in you're in a place
52:32where you can do brave
52:35uh adventurous things but in a in
52:38a with with mentors with
52:42with uh male mentors who are who are
52:44guiding you and
52:46really saying a lot of the things that
52:48your dad was saying
52:50that um you know that helps you to to
52:53think well maybe my dad wasn't crazy you
52:55know these guys are all saying the same
52:56thing so there's an advantage there
52:59uh that they they get they go out from
53:01the home
53:02and then then they actually get the home
53:05gets a lot of reinforcement
53:07from the kinds of the kinds of things
53:09they're learning from these other men
53:10that they're
53:11they're admiring for different reasons
53:13because of all the extraordinary
53:15experiences they're having
53:16so is that that's the beginning of an
53:18answer i'd say yeah i mean i've i
53:20this has happened to me on multiple
53:22occasions i'll go over to a friend's
53:23house they have older children
53:25and if by chance i walk by the boy's
53:28room
53:28maybe he's 16 17 slightly younger
53:32maybe i'm in there for some reason and i
53:33just think oh bloody hell
53:35here's this young man wasting away in a
53:38sea of xbox games as an axe deodorant
53:41like he needs to be let loose and i felt
53:44like that i think from 15 i was like
53:45freaking just let me go
53:47let me go um yeah but that would have
53:49perhaps been imprudent if by letting me
53:51go it meant
53:52go rent an apartment right live randy
53:56but if it's you know come under the
53:57discipleship of these other men that's
53:59that's different
53:59that's right that's right randy man's
54:01dream i think i got that from peter
54:02craft he talked about how modern
54:04universities are around me
54:05his dream with their free that's
54:07what he said not me but we could say
54:10something
54:10equally as disparaging of the men in
54:12many universities who act like
54:14themselves
54:15mindless roots that's right
54:19yeah and and and you know i there's a
54:21there's a
54:22excellent book written by leonard sac
54:26leonard sacks called boys adrift you
54:28ever
54:29i've heard of this i haven't read it
54:30anyway one of the things he talks about
54:32in there is
54:33is video game usage and
54:37and he makes the interesting point that
54:39it's it's blaze
54:41it's men who are addicted to video games
54:45not so much that's right not so much
54:47women that's
54:48in my experience it's really yes men who
54:50who love video games and why
54:52adventure maybe i think that's it it's
54:55it's this
54:56so they they want to be questions
54:59through these war games and and and go
55:02on these adventures
55:04and and yet haven't been initiated into
55:07it haven't been invited into the biggest
55:08story
55:09exactly they're left with their smaller
55:10stories so they go
55:13so it's you you have that you have man's
55:15nature
55:16craving what it craves it's it's trying
55:19to find
55:20the real thing it's trying to find what
55:22it wants
55:23and yet it's just sort of it's it's kind
55:25of getting stuck in this fake
55:27world that's not going anywhere and it's
55:30not teaching you the things that you
55:32would learn an adventure like
55:34perseverance hard work
55:36courage things that you learn by playing
55:39rugby or going on a pilgrimage or
55:41something like that
55:43so it's it's a dead end but it's you can
55:45see
55:46you you can see the telos try you know
55:50trying to reach it they're trying to
55:52they're trying to find what
55:53what they need you know through that
55:55which is
55:57interesting so we can we can help those
55:58boys and and give them
56:01real real world adventures which are
56:04harder
56:05than playing video games but the the
56:07exultation
56:09of winning a rugby title
56:12um is is is nothing you could ever
56:17you could ever have by playing fifa
56:19soccer or no matter how good you are
56:23tell us about the um the european
56:26adventure that the boys go on i think in
56:28their senior year because
56:29sure this uh really captured my son's
56:31attention imagination
56:33yes so so the the traditionally
56:37the and this has changed unfortunately
56:39we'll see for how long with with the
56:41whole covid
56:42uh situation where we're in now but um
56:47there's a couple european adventures so
56:49junior year the boys go to go to france
56:52and they visit a number of beautiful
56:54places in france
56:55and eventually they they make their way
56:58to fukumbo
56:59and they have about a five-day retreat
57:00sometimes it takes place over holy week
57:03and they're you know they're there for
57:04easter at fukumbo and i
57:06i went i was there for easter week once
57:09and it was the most
57:11amazing easter of my life it was if
57:14anybody ever gets a chance to be a
57:15fukumbo
57:17during easter that that is take that
57:20chance uh take that opportunity
57:22but so that's that's one european
57:24adventure
57:25and and the boys do some juggling while
57:28they're there too
57:29they they're these these uh trips are
57:33done
57:33you know something of on a shoestring
57:36so while they're there the boys the boys
57:39raise
57:40some of the money that they need to to
57:42feed themselves
57:44um in the towns they're going through
57:46through singing and juggling through
57:48singing and juggling so
57:49when they get to their senior year the
57:52senior year
57:52culminates with an extraordinary
57:55pilgrimage
57:56um we used to go on the the community of
57:58santiago
57:59across northern spain and then since
58:02then we've moved to italy
58:04and we we went on we've been going on
58:06the way of saint francis
58:08which is from florence to assisi and
58:10then to rome
58:12and uh we've done this with in different
58:15and you're
58:16walking or well we started out biking
58:18but now we
58:19we do it walking and walking is the way
58:22to do a pilgrimage
58:23i believe you know it's it's the pace of
58:25conversation
58:26it's the pace of of prayer and
58:29it's it's the pace of
58:32being in touch with god's world
58:36so you you i mean i love viking it's
58:38it's it's wonderful
58:39and it's better than going in a car but
58:42but you're going too
58:43fast in a sense to sort of see just let
58:46let the the scenes the road the
58:50the trees the houses the people you're
58:52you're going past kind of sink in and
58:54become part of it
58:55so a pilgrimage has to be walking
59:00um and we
59:03the other we bring no money with us so
59:06the seniors
59:06this is after their graduation and
59:09there's
59:10no they bring absolutely no money
59:13for the whole adventure it's about a
59:15three-week journey
59:17and they they you know by by this time
59:20they have a whole
59:20you know uh backpack so to speak of
59:23songs
59:24and and they're they they're a juggling
59:27troop i mean they've been
59:28the freshmen right now have been have
59:30been juggling
59:31all year and and most of these guys
59:34have never juggled before but they're
59:36already amazing they're all real
59:39very good so by senior year that
59:42our guys are basically semi-pro jugglers
59:45you know and and they need to be because
59:48that
59:48their livelihood once they graduate
59:52depends upon it so they they we walk
59:56about i don't know 15 20 miles a day
59:59and arrive in town and europe is
1:00:02is is wonderful in the sense that you
1:00:04have these
1:00:05town squares with no cars and
1:00:09you know there's still a culture of of
1:00:11uh
1:00:12you know pedestrian walking and cafe
1:00:16culture and all these kinds of things so
1:00:17people
1:00:18people are out and and there's you know
1:00:20there's of course other
1:00:21other street performers um not not in a
1:00:24lot of the small towns we're going
1:00:26through
1:00:27but so we we arrive usually around
1:00:30six seven o'clock and we we start doing
1:00:34our show
1:00:34and it's a it's a very simple show just
1:00:37a combination of
1:00:38uh folk songs
1:00:42maybe some sacred songs if they're very
1:00:44compelling and kind of intense
1:00:47um a lot of irish scottish
1:00:50uh war songs whatever it is we bring
1:00:53instruments with us
1:00:54and then at the same time you have the
1:00:56jugglers out front doing all kinds of
1:00:59tricks and getting on each other's
1:01:01shoulders and of course we bring fire
1:01:03and then we pass the hat and then we go
1:01:06to the grocery store or
1:01:07if we can go to a cafe and eat and it's
1:01:10just
1:01:11there's nothing like it and uh we we
1:01:14uh we bring our chaplain with us so we
1:01:17have liturgy every day
1:01:19and we i meant to bring the prayer that
1:01:22we we
1:01:23say when we we go but it's it's from
1:01:26matthew's gospel and it's it's the
1:01:30it's the lines where he says um
1:01:33you know don't worry about the morrow
1:01:35look at the
1:01:36in the flowers of the field how god has
1:01:38clothed them and the birds of the air
1:01:40how god
1:01:41has you know cares for them and do you
1:01:44think that our lord
1:01:46is you know has more concern for these
1:01:47than for you don't
1:01:49don't be like the gentiles remember that
1:01:51god
1:01:52loves you put your put your trust in
1:01:54god's hands
1:01:55and so we that's that's how we start our
1:01:57day and and it's just
1:01:59it really is this radical
1:02:02i'm sure there are more radical forms of
1:02:04this i mean saint francis himself
1:02:06who's our our mentor and inspiration
1:02:10but uh it it really is a radical
1:02:14action of of putting yourself in god's
1:02:16hands
1:02:17and if you don't know what's going to
1:02:19happen there's no when is
1:02:21you know um the guys don't they don't
1:02:23ask after a while
1:02:24when are we going to eat i i don't know
1:02:27i don't know don't ask me that i don't
1:02:29know i don't know for
1:02:30if we're going to eat have there been
1:02:32times that it's
1:02:33been a bit dicey where you haven't made
1:02:35the money you know amazingly
1:02:37there there have never been uh bad dicey
1:02:40times yeah
1:02:41yeah that doesn't matter but there's
1:02:42been a lot of good days i mean
1:02:44there's been there's been some uh
1:02:47i mean there i remember one one time
1:02:49this was in spain
1:02:51where we
1:02:54we biked about 130 miles
1:02:59um fasting all day the guys didn't have
1:03:02no breakfast
1:03:03they but it was the last day they biked
1:03:05into santiago
1:03:06and they had they had nothing but you
1:03:08know you can do it
1:03:10you can do i'm probably scaring
1:03:11everybody who would not hear this
1:03:13no i want to come with you but it's
1:03:16um but it yeah it's it's really uh
1:03:19there's
1:03:19there's really nothing i nothing like
1:03:23that and that's a and and and it's just
1:03:25such a great and talk about freeing i
1:03:27mean that's that's a that's a liberal
1:03:29experience in so many ways but but
1:03:32but the the confidence that that young
1:03:35men
1:03:35get from an experience like that that
1:03:38you know here you are and you know
1:03:40not just confidence in yourself but
1:03:42confidence in god
1:03:44that that you know here we've you know
1:03:46i've done these difficult things and and
1:03:48god was there to support me and
1:03:51everything worked out
1:03:52and we're just going to do this crazy
1:03:54thing and
1:03:55show up in these towns and put on shows
1:03:58and i mean i say that we're when we show
1:04:01up we're a
1:04:02semi-professional troop that's not
1:04:04really true um
1:04:06i wish it were but what ends up
1:04:08happening is
1:04:09i'd say about midway through the trip we
1:04:12become we've become
1:04:13you have a vested interest in being as
1:04:15good as you can possibly be
1:04:17absolutely if people are watching you
1:04:19and you want their respect
1:04:20and their ore you also want their money
1:04:22you better be bloody good that's right
1:04:24and so so you know the guys start out
1:04:26pretty listless in a way
1:04:28they're not that they haven't done this
1:04:30before
1:04:32and then they they learn we gotta
1:04:35we gotta make this happen we have to put
1:04:37on
1:04:38the best show that any of these people
1:04:40have ever seen we have basically one
1:04:41chance to do this
1:04:43and they do it and they do it so by the
1:04:45time we get into
1:04:46into rome if we're going to rome or to
1:04:48santiago
1:04:50and we're you know in the piazza navona
1:04:52and
1:04:53and we're kind of in this mix of
1:04:56of all the other street performers and i
1:04:59got this from one of the the street
1:05:01performers i
1:05:02i befriended this this will sound a
1:05:04little bit bit
1:05:05bragging uh but but on behalf of our our
1:05:08our guys um he said when you guys come
1:05:13he's like we all just stop because
1:05:16because you're the best
1:05:17these are professional buskers it says
1:05:19when you now i mean great we're a group
1:05:22bragging you guys are incredible
1:05:2315 guys and they've got you know they
1:05:26you know
1:05:27young men we've got a big troop but but
1:05:29he said that he's been doing this for
1:05:30years and he
1:05:31he said yeah there you're just you're
1:05:33there's nothing like
1:05:35the show you guys put on um and it and
1:05:38it's
1:05:39and it's all those things and it's it's
1:05:41the joy of the pilgrimage
1:05:43that is coming through which which
1:05:45itself is
1:05:46utterly compelling not even knowing who
1:05:49we are and what we're doing
1:05:51i want to move this in a minute to those
1:05:53who are watching who are like
1:05:54gregory sounds great but i didn't go
1:05:56there and my children may not be going
1:05:58there and so
1:05:59how can i sort of apply this to my life
1:06:01as a 40 year old 30 year old 50 year old
1:06:04how do i help my children enter this
1:06:06this sort of more classical way of
1:06:08learning
1:06:08but i want to stay on this for a bit
1:06:09because it's just so fascinating um
1:06:13yeah the boys i'll say this
1:06:16when i when i have spoken to people
1:06:18about my desire that my boys go to
1:06:21gregory's
1:06:21there's a kind of uh quizzical look
1:06:25uh this idea and you've touched upon it
1:06:27but the idea that
1:06:28why would you send your kids to a
1:06:30boarding school that you're abandoning
1:06:32them
1:06:32sure um this is probably a place for bad
1:06:36boys whose
1:06:37parents can't deal with them isn't this
1:06:39rather irresponsible
1:06:41shouldn't at the very moment surely your
1:06:43boy your boys need you at that point in
1:06:45their life
1:06:46trying to give them up or ship them off
1:06:49is aren't you just kind of uh
1:06:51abdigating your responsibilities as a
1:06:53father or a mother
1:06:55what say you well
1:07:01let's say i well again i think that
1:07:04uh the place to start is is it it's
1:07:08you know we read it i read a recent
1:07:10really a good book
1:07:12recently on this i think connects to
1:07:14this which is
1:07:17it's it's a book called leaving boyhood
1:07:19behind and if you ever heard of this
1:07:20book
1:07:21recently written by i think the guy's
1:07:23name is jason
1:07:25craig and and he talks about how
1:07:28there's women
1:07:32have of a natural kind of biological
1:07:34initiation experience
1:07:36in in marriage and motherhood and giving
1:07:39birth
1:07:39menstruating that's right and and but
1:07:42boys need uh a kind of a constructed
1:07:47initiate initiation experience and it's
1:07:50something that really
1:07:51cultures have always had there's there's
1:07:54you know
1:07:55the american indian cultures with kind
1:07:57of the vision quest
1:07:58and then you come back and you join the
1:08:00tribe and
1:08:02um you know all cultures have had this
1:08:05but it's really lacking in our culture
1:08:07now
1:08:08and i'm sure there are many ways to do
1:08:11this
1:08:13and and and and we need i think we need
1:08:16to start
1:08:17thinking about what are these ways of
1:08:19doing this
1:08:20but i think that school like ours
1:08:25is is one way to do this that it really
1:08:29does function as this kind of initiation
1:08:32experience where
1:08:33boys become confident in their
1:08:35masculinity
1:08:36confident in their ability to be part of
1:08:39the pack
1:08:40it's a good pack it's it's a it's a pack
1:08:43of guys who are
1:08:44are striving for good things uh it's you
1:08:47know
1:08:48um and it's with with mentors
1:08:51to guide them and it's it's not you know
1:08:54to send them out on that
1:08:56that four year adventure
1:08:59with breaks to come home over the summer
1:09:01and in
1:09:02christmas and easter and so forth is is
1:09:04not an abdication of responsibility it's
1:09:06i think it's
1:09:07it's it's one way of fulfilling your
1:09:10responsibility
1:09:12because it's it's giving it's giving
1:09:14your boys this experience to
1:09:16to take this critical step into manhood
1:09:21and and i think that what we see over
1:09:23and over again is is boys coming
1:09:25back and integrating with their family
1:09:28in a new
1:09:28in a much more fruitful way and kind of
1:09:32understanding their family in a bigger
1:09:34way but having a deeper appreciation for
1:09:37it
1:09:38uh i mean i it seems to me that that the
1:09:42our boys come come back to their dads
1:09:46for example
1:09:48with with even a bet stronger
1:09:50relationships
1:09:52not weaker it's it's not as if i've lost
1:09:54i mean it
1:09:55i'm sure it's difficult you know to to
1:09:57to let your boy go away for that long
1:10:00but it is a sacrifice but like
1:10:03any good sacrifice i think it bears
1:10:06fruit
1:10:06it it's it's worth making does that that
1:10:10that makes sense and
1:10:11i presume that your school isn't filled
1:10:12with boys who wish they weren't there
1:10:15in other words this isn't no correct me
1:10:17if i'm wrong but i'm sure this isn't a
1:10:18matter of
1:10:18parents shipping their boys off to a
1:10:20place they'd rather not be
1:10:22no absolutely no choice in the matter
1:10:23yeah no so so
1:10:25when when we when we interview boys when
1:10:28we
1:10:28when the whole admissions process is in
1:10:31part a discernment
1:10:32of does this boy want to come and and
1:10:36for sure there are there are boys who
1:10:39come who are not
1:10:41totally gung-ho you know they're a
1:10:43little
1:10:44leery of this experience but they're
1:10:47they're they're good kids their parents
1:10:49think it's a good thing
1:10:51and they and they say okay i'm gonna try
1:10:53this out
1:10:54so it's not as if every boy that comes
1:10:56to the school is just
1:10:57on fire to be there but
1:11:00what happens
1:11:03for the most part is that boys
1:11:06who who stick it out and
1:11:10and and give their best to it and say
1:11:12i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna come
1:11:14and i'm going to do the best i can
1:11:17and it's it's a little difficult because
1:11:19it's you're entering into kind of a
1:11:21whole little world
1:11:23and i would say it takes almost you know
1:11:25good half a year
1:11:27uh to to become acclimated in a sense
1:11:30and to really start to feel i'm
1:11:32i am part of this now but once that
1:11:35starts to happen
1:11:37the boys love it i mean these are happy
1:11:40guys and you see that when you're there
1:11:43they're
1:11:43they're so proud of their school they're
1:11:46they're having such a good time and it's
1:11:48and it's
1:11:48and it's a um i mean i'm sure every
1:11:51moment of their time is
1:11:53is not filled with with uh the same kind
1:11:56of joy
1:11:57some of it is arduous but uh but they're
1:12:01we i mean i'm so fortunate to be at a
1:12:04school where
1:12:06i'm filled with students who love our
1:12:09school
1:12:10this is almost unheard of it at the
1:12:12school i went to
1:12:13i didn't even think that was possible i
1:12:15hated school i didn't think that
1:12:17i actually liked school i really liked
1:12:19it but i had no devotion to it i liked
1:12:21recess and lunch but okay yeah
1:12:22devotion to it you know and so but but
1:12:24here at this school there's a there's a
1:12:26there's a kind of a there's a devotion
1:12:28to it there's a
1:12:29there's a desire to kind of understand
1:12:32you know what what this school is about
1:12:36and uh i mean i had a student come up to
1:12:38me a senior
1:12:39he's graduating a couple weeks and and
1:12:42was asking a question like this you know
1:12:44what
1:12:44is what kind of you know what is this
1:12:48school trying to
1:12:49turn it you know make of us and this
1:12:51kind of
1:12:52kind of going deeper and trying to
1:12:54understand not just you know again not
1:12:56the conveyor belt
1:12:57attitude but but a awake
1:13:01alive love for for their school and for
1:13:05what's going on
1:13:06and for everything that it can lead to
1:13:09greg seems like a needle in a haystack
1:13:11if
1:13:11it were to shut down tomorrow which it
1:13:13won't thank god
1:13:14where would you tell their parents to
1:13:16send the boys is there another boarding
1:13:18school that's as good as yours there is
1:13:21there is actually i'm glad to say and i
1:13:23and i hope that that
1:13:24more start up uh there's there's a
1:13:27school called
1:13:28saint martin's academy which is in
1:13:31kansas in fort scott kansas and we are
1:13:34are it's a school that's very much like
1:13:37ours they they have
1:13:38um you know there's some differences
1:13:41there
1:13:41they're they're not quite
1:13:45as big at this point i think that
1:13:47they're about four years old
1:13:49so they're they're growing but
1:13:52coming out of the same tradition i mean
1:13:54they're they're it's a john
1:13:56senior-esque school in fact the
1:13:59headmaster
1:14:01dan kerr is an alumnus of our school
1:14:05so so there's a there's a real intimate
1:14:07connection i mean we're
1:14:09very friends we're friends with all the
1:14:10faculty there
1:14:12and just went out to one of their events
1:14:14great event called the
1:14:15prairie troubadour and um you know there
1:14:18it's it's a it's a school with the same
1:14:22vision
1:14:23um you know pursued in somewhat
1:14:25different means
1:14:26but but doing the same thing and this i
1:14:29would love to see more schools like this
1:14:32spring up
1:14:33people need to support this kind of a
1:14:35school
1:14:39all right here's what i want to do i'm
1:14:40going to take a quick break we'll do a
1:14:42little intermission
1:14:43three minutes when we come back we have
1:14:44a ton of questions from patrons
1:14:47which we're going to talk about and have
1:14:48you respond to i also want to get into
1:14:50the nitty-gritty of how we can
1:14:52develop our own interior life if we
1:14:55weren't
1:14:55raised with classical education okay all
1:14:58right sound good
1:14:59sounds good
1:15:13[Music]
1:16:32my
1:16:46[Music]
1:17:56so
1:18:02hello hello hello welcome back okay uh
1:18:05so
1:18:06uh thank you for being here do me a
1:18:08favor and you can walk past that
1:18:10poor guy he's locked outside uh you do a
1:18:13favor
1:18:13like the video and subscribe and share
1:18:17it i think this is a really fascinating
1:18:18conversation that a lot of people want
1:18:20to have
1:18:20and uh that's one way you can help it do
1:18:23us a favor i want to say thank you to
1:18:25our sponsors hello you're good you're
1:18:27fine
1:18:28yeah this is good our sponsors hello are
1:18:31fantastic
1:18:32if you are not as cool as headmaster
1:18:34kali here and you still have a
1:18:36smartphone
1:18:37one way that you could do better at
1:18:40praying at least is by downloading the
1:18:42app hello
1:18:42h-a-l-l-o-w dot com slash matt frad
1:18:45there is a link in the description below
1:18:47go check them out uh there you can pray
1:18:49lectio divinas learn how to pray the
1:18:50rosary if you don't know already or
1:18:52it'll lead you through it there's
1:18:54nightly examines litanies
1:18:56even sleep stories read to you by people
1:18:58like father mike schmitz and others
1:19:00it's a fantastic app it's the number one
1:19:02downloaded catholic app on the itunes
1:19:04store and for good reason so go check
1:19:06out hello h-a-l-l-o-w dot com slash
1:19:09mattfradd
1:19:09hello.com mattfradd how you going
1:19:13did that freak you out oh not too much
1:19:16but i was wondering what would happen
1:19:17next
1:19:20uh for those uh for those at home uh uh
1:19:23mr kelly just got locked out of the
1:19:25studio so that was uh that was
1:19:26terrifying but uh
1:19:27no you're doing good all right sweet
1:19:29okay um all right i want to take some
1:19:31questions and
1:19:32some of these we may have addressed
1:19:33already sure so feel free to
1:19:36you know maybe answer them a little more
1:19:37succinctly if that's the case and
1:19:39um and then we i really want to get into
1:19:41like what can we do as i said earlier
1:19:43as older people who didn't grow up with
1:19:44this sort of classical education
1:19:46how to educate ourselves uh dan capes
1:19:49thanks for being a patron dan says can
1:19:50you address the worry from parents like
1:19:53myself
1:19:54about not having significant emotional
1:19:56and formative time with their children
1:19:59if they were in boarding school i guess
1:20:01this gets to the topic i brought up
1:20:02earlier sending your kids away
1:20:04you're no longer forming them some of
1:20:06these we may have addressed and don't
1:20:07need to address again but if you have
1:20:08something else to say
1:20:10um well i
1:20:13i guess nothing nothing really new i i
1:20:16think that yeah we've addressed that
1:20:19yeah
1:20:19maria schroeder thanks for being a
1:20:21patron says would boarding school
1:20:22make children despise their parents in
1:20:25any sense
1:20:26or make them feel like they're being
1:20:27sent away
1:20:29for being in all boys school do you
1:20:31think that
1:20:32inhibits their okay so there's two
1:20:33questions there let's deal with that one
1:20:35first
1:20:35sure
1:20:38yeah with it would it would it what was
1:20:40the first cause them to despise their
1:20:41parents
1:20:42right right i mean that's just not
1:20:44something we see
1:20:46i mean i i think that there there might
1:20:48have been
1:20:49there have been very rare occasions
1:20:52where
1:20:52a boy feels like he is being sent away
1:20:56and then and that ends up not being a
1:20:58good
1:20:59experience even if it's only in his own
1:21:01head you know and then
1:21:03those boys don't really work out
1:21:06because they can't because there is too
1:21:08much of a sense of some kind of
1:21:10abandonment
1:21:11you know there but that's not what
1:21:14i mean our boys feel they don't they
1:21:17don't feel like they've been sent away
1:21:19and and again there there's we
1:21:22we see over and over again that their
1:21:24the the relationship with their family
1:21:27is reinforced we hear this over and over
1:21:29again from from families that
1:21:31my son has come back he's he's helps out
1:21:34more
1:21:35around the house he's learned some
1:21:37things about
1:21:38responsibility that we couldn't teach
1:21:41that him in in some ways and so
1:21:43that's that's uh that's overwhelmingly
1:21:46yeah the the experience i see in my
1:21:49conversation with our friend mutual
1:21:50friend verlander who's sending his boy
1:21:52in a couple of years please god de
1:21:53gregory
1:21:54you know he was saying that no this has
1:21:55just been part of the discussion of the
1:21:57family since the boys were young that
1:21:58this is something that they get to do
1:22:00and they can kind of bring get the the
1:22:02newsletters that are sent in from
1:22:04gregory's they read them around the
1:22:05dinner table
1:22:06so it's it's not a you're a bad kid we
1:22:09can't deal with you
1:22:10we we need you out of the house right
1:22:12right it's uh here's an adventure that
1:22:14all the boys are going on that's that's
1:22:16that's the right approach
1:22:17and and that's that's the the experience
1:22:19of our boys
1:22:21uh she also asks for being an old boys
1:22:23school do you think that
1:22:24inhibits their ability to interact with
1:22:27girls either now
1:22:28or later in life absolutely not
1:22:31uh yeah my experience with with uh
1:22:35you know seeing how our alumni do uh
1:22:39after they've graduated is it doesn't
1:22:40seem to have inhibited their
1:22:42their ability to relate to girls at all
1:22:44um marriage is uh
1:22:46is is alive and well among our our
1:22:49graduates and you know
1:22:52there's it's not also it's not as if
1:22:53there's no contact with women
1:22:56you know during this period uh the
1:22:58school
1:22:59the families who are involved with the
1:23:01school are very
1:23:03integrated um with the school so you'll
1:23:06see
1:23:07kids uh running around the property
1:23:10you know children of of faculty members
1:23:13um you know so so there's there's not
1:23:16it's it's not some kind of um you know
1:23:19blocked off almost like mount athos
1:23:22where
1:23:22you know women and and the female
1:23:25insulin
1:23:25influence is completely banished we
1:23:27can't even have female chickens or
1:23:29something i think that's what i heard
1:23:30about
1:23:30mount athos don't know if it's true but
1:23:33so it's not like that
1:23:34and there's some really wonderful
1:23:37traditions that we have that i think are
1:23:40are conducive to them having a
1:23:46fruitful and healthy relationship with
1:23:48girls when the time
1:23:50comes for them to to do that for example
1:23:52there's a there's a custom
1:23:54that we have that that goes back to the
1:23:56earliest days of the school called
1:23:57roving
1:23:59and this is this is something that the
1:24:00upper forum guys do that the juniors and
1:24:03the seniors
1:24:04and what roving is simply is is going
1:24:07out in a group
1:24:08and and singing love songs
1:24:11to women they meet of every age
1:24:15um you know one of their favorite places
1:24:17to go is
1:24:18is the university of scranton where
1:24:20there are
1:24:21ladies closer to their age but this is
1:24:25this is an amazing you know
1:24:28life you know a transformative
1:24:30experience not only for them
1:24:33but for the girls who are are sung to i
1:24:36would also just imagine that a man who
1:24:37knows how to tackle another man
1:24:38a man who knows how to sing a man who
1:24:40knows how to recite poetry a man who
1:24:42just knows how to butcher a pig
1:24:44probably has a good degree of confidence
1:24:47in his own masculinity
1:24:48exactly exactly so i think that they're
1:24:51very well equipped
1:24:52and you know in all of these ways to
1:24:55to court women to be confident and um
1:24:59and if anything i think you know absence
1:25:01makes the heart grow fonder i mean it's
1:25:02it's a
1:25:03um they they appreciate the women very
1:25:06much
1:25:06when when they are when they're in their
1:25:08presence louis
1:25:10thank you for being a patron he says
1:25:12don't boys
1:25:13need their mother's presence in their
1:25:15developmental stages
1:25:17so where's the maternal influence on
1:25:19these boys from the ages of 14 up
1:25:21so we've talked about the father maybe
1:25:25abdicating and that might be a concern
1:25:27you know how can i just initiate my
1:25:29voice if he's not around
1:25:30but yeah what that's a that's a concern
1:25:32i've heard don't these boys need their
1:25:34mother
1:25:35well they still have their mother you
1:25:37know it's it's not as if their their
1:25:39mother uh
1:25:40disappears they have their mother we do
1:25:42have telephones where they can call they
1:25:44can write letters
1:25:46which is a it's a great skill
1:25:49and practice that our guys learn and
1:25:52really love
1:25:52give writing uh sending and receiving
1:25:55letters
1:25:56my son loves that now it's so it's such
1:25:57a unique uh interesting thing
1:26:00because really do it that him and thomas
1:26:02ferlander and others are writing back
1:26:03and forth that's great so
1:26:04so that so it's not as if these
1:26:06relationships are are
1:26:08end i mean they're they're they go into
1:26:11they take a different form
1:26:13and so it's this this idea that the you
1:26:16know the boys are gonna go away for this
1:26:18time and they're gonna have this
1:26:19experience
1:26:21but there's there's still a relationship
1:26:24with the mother through tel you know
1:26:26occasional telephone calls letters
1:26:29and things like this that um
1:26:32you know of course are important they do
1:26:34need their mother but they also i think
1:26:36can can stand to to to be away
1:26:40away from their mother for a little bit
1:26:41we'll get a question here about
1:26:43homeschooling but before we do that i
1:26:44need to say something about this
1:26:45upcoming camp
1:26:47next month okay of course now for those
1:26:49of you who are watching in the live
1:26:50stream the top two links the first
1:26:52is to say oh sorry gregory's academy so
1:26:55people can check out that school
1:26:57the next link is to this excellent uh
1:27:00boys campus taking place next month
1:27:02my son will be there uh we i know
1:27:05friends from georgia and elsewhere who
1:27:07are making the trip
1:27:08up i know you still have spaces
1:27:09available i sure do do
1:27:11do a pitch for this camp if you don't
1:27:12mind okay yes no we'd love to have
1:27:15uh we've got about i don't know maybe 10
1:27:18or 15 more
1:27:19spots so uh come come one come all
1:27:23this is uh this is a a window into the
1:27:26school
1:27:27and and we're hoping to give uh
1:27:31boys seventh and eighth grade an
1:27:32opportunity to kind of see what
1:27:34our school is about um a little bit so
1:27:37they're gonna be
1:27:38doing some bushcrafting they're gonna be
1:27:41camping out every night
1:27:43they're gonna be learning some some
1:27:45songs and some poetry
1:27:48they're going to be listening to some
1:27:50incredible stories
1:27:51told by sean fitzpatrick and a story a
1:27:54story series called gods and monsters
1:27:58around the campfire they're going to be
1:28:01learning how to throw
1:28:02throw knives in axes and shoot arrows
1:28:06they're going to be learning some rugby
1:28:09and they're going to be
1:28:11participating in divine liturgy and it's
1:28:14so it's it's
1:28:15it's a little bit of a you know a little
1:28:17microcosm of
1:28:18of many of the things that happen at
1:28:21saint gregory's it's going to be a blast
1:28:23tell us about this naval war or this
1:28:25sort of uh
1:28:26don't the boys make their own boats and
1:28:28yeah there's gonna be they're gonna even
1:28:29make a boat
1:28:30so they're they're gonna they're gonna
1:28:31make boats out of cardboard
1:28:33and duct tape and and then they're going
1:28:37to have a battle
1:28:38on our lake which is a pond and uh
1:28:42and they're and they're going to in the
1:28:43the object is to
1:28:46make your boat seaworthy enough that's
1:28:48fantastic that you last
1:28:50to to the end and and your boat is the
1:28:53is the victorious oh my goodness it
1:28:54sounds
1:28:55so terrific i was talking to dan from
1:28:57your school and he says we're just
1:28:58having a difficult time getting insured
1:29:00i thought bloody makes sense we're doing
1:29:02knife throwing axe throwing sleeping
1:29:04under the stars
1:29:05oh that's fantastic that's our first
1:29:06year doing this so we're really excited
1:29:08yes as i say my son's going they only
1:29:10have 10 spots available so if you want
1:29:12to send your boy if he's in seventh or
1:29:13eighth grade
1:29:14uh check out that second link in the
1:29:16description below that's
1:29:17june i think around 14th 15th
1:29:20thereabouts
1:29:20june 2 i think it's june 12th
1:29:24through the 20th i should know this yeah
1:29:26that's all right
1:29:28fantastic oh i know my son's really
1:29:30pumped about that
1:29:31okay paul binner thanks for being a
1:29:33patron paul he says
1:29:34we homeschool our kids to protect them
1:29:36from the prevailing culture as well
1:29:38intentioned as a boarding school may be
1:29:40i doubt that they are able to filter out
1:29:42kids that would bring all of the
1:29:44cultural
1:29:44junk we're trying to avoid into the
1:29:46school with them
1:29:47but i guess that's my question how would
1:29:49they do this
1:29:51how would they do this well you know we
1:29:53all have
1:29:54cultural junk in us and and so you know
1:29:57we can't filter it all out there's
1:30:00we don't have our boys aren't perfect
1:30:03our culture isn't perfect
1:30:05so so we're all dealing but i mean the
1:30:06main way we filter it out is that the
1:30:09our boys do not have access to these
1:30:12things
1:30:13and and it's i i think what's what's
1:30:18what's you really unique about the
1:30:20school is that
1:30:22we we do what we do in a way that's
1:30:24compelling
1:30:26so if you you could have all the rules
1:30:28in the world you could have the most
1:30:29draconian punishments for
1:30:32getting caught with this or that but if
1:30:34you don't somehow build a culture a
1:30:36positive culture that is
1:30:38utterly compelling then you don't get
1:30:42buy-in
1:30:43and then students are just always you're
1:30:45going to be playing this game with the
1:30:47students where they're
1:30:48they're going to constantly be trying to
1:30:51to subvert the teachers which is what i
1:30:54did
1:30:55i was a student absolutely and i thought
1:30:56that's what school was and i loved it
1:30:59i didn't think there was any any greater
1:31:01joy than than that kind of getting
1:31:03around the rules
1:31:04exactly i thought that you know they set
1:31:06up this great game for us and we're
1:31:07going to play it
1:31:09one of the things i one of the things
1:31:10that struck me when i first came to the
1:31:12school
1:31:13when i was just out of college expecting
1:31:16really nothing
1:31:17was that how this was not the case at
1:31:20this school
1:31:22that that there was this there was this
1:31:25kind of
1:31:26friendship between the faculty
1:31:30and the students and i had i didn't
1:31:32think that was possible
1:31:34so so there's i mean that's in a sense
1:31:36you you you've got to win
1:31:38the boys over and you do that through
1:31:41all of these
1:31:42means where they they they become part
1:31:45of this
1:31:46very active culture of song of liturgy
1:31:50of of juggling of poetry of all these
1:31:54different things
1:31:55that are that are compelling and so
1:31:58they you know they
1:32:01they abandoned willingly sort of the
1:32:04junk
1:32:04that they might have brought with them i
1:32:07also uh
1:32:08for myself i think three years ago i
1:32:11would have been
1:32:12terribly concerned about this it just
1:32:13would have been on my right like i
1:32:14wouldn't
1:32:15but as my child's gotten older my eldest
1:32:17who's a really awesome boy
1:32:20um i trust him a lot more you know
1:32:23there's like there's actually a you know
1:32:26and i see that
1:32:26he's interacting with the culture anyway
1:32:28of course he has to the culture's almost
1:32:30like a tidal wave in a sense like
1:32:31it seeps in somehow right and i i'm
1:32:34learning
1:32:34to to to trust him and um
1:32:38to let loose the reins a little you know
1:32:41and i think that's very important um and
1:32:43so there's this kind of relationship of
1:32:44trust as you say you can have the
1:32:45draconian rules but if you don't have
1:32:47the heart
1:32:48then it's it's a it's a lost battle but
1:32:51this is something i'm far
1:32:52less concerned about not that i'm not
1:32:54concerned about it
1:32:56um but yeah i don't know i mean if this
1:32:59if this father has like a 10 year old
1:33:01makes sense if he's but once he's 14 in
1:33:03a few years
1:33:05maybe to answer answer this man
1:33:08you know if if we see a student
1:33:12who who really has some kind of a
1:33:14subversive
1:33:15quality to him in some kind of way you
1:33:17know he's too
1:33:18attached i mean he really doesn't
1:33:22want to be part of what we're doing on
1:33:24some level even if you know sometimes
1:33:25that can happen where
1:33:26he wants to stay there for some reason
1:33:28he doesn't want to leave
1:33:30but he also doesn't want to enter into
1:33:32what we're doing
1:33:33now that such a student can be can't
1:33:36um can be corrupting in some ways
1:33:39and so ultimately we we asked those
1:33:42students
1:33:42not to return yeah so and living with
1:33:45them that's very
1:33:46very small minority and living with them
1:33:4824 hours a day seven days a week
1:33:51and with so few students i'm sure you
1:33:53have your finger on the pulse
1:33:55it's not as if there's thousands of
1:33:56students no no that's i mean that's
1:33:58so we're deliberately small uh and and
1:34:02that you so there is this familial
1:34:06feeling quality to to the whole school
1:34:08everybody knows everybody
1:34:10there's this you know there each class
1:34:13has a real identity very strong identity
1:34:16but
1:34:16it's it's so wonderful to see how
1:34:18they're all
1:34:19they they're there's a brotherhood that
1:34:22just goes
1:34:23throughout all the classes you know they
1:34:26really
1:34:27they they all know each other so well
1:34:29and we know them
1:34:30so yeah absolutely right marcus james
1:34:33says hi luke i am a public high school
1:34:35band director who wants to get his
1:34:37masters in sacred music and work for a
1:34:39catholic school
1:34:40so i can be more open about my faith and
1:34:42take a more direct approach to
1:34:43evangelization through music
1:34:45however it is very difficult for me to
1:34:47make the switch
1:34:48seeing as private religious schools on
1:34:51average pay their employees
1:34:52much less than public schools do and
1:34:54offer very little if any benefits
1:34:56pension etc that publicly funded
1:35:00that publicly funded schools offer what
1:35:02do you think can be done to help private
1:35:04institutions make room in their budget
1:35:06to be more
1:35:07competitive when hiring faculty
1:35:12uh great great question great question
1:35:15uh it's
1:35:18what can be done p catholics with with
1:35:21uh
1:35:22with money can can be can be more
1:35:25generous
1:35:26with with uh with it can not they are
1:35:29generous but can recognize that
1:35:32schools like ours are worth supporting
1:35:35that we're doing a really important work
1:35:38um i don't know what to say about that i
1:35:41mean what he's saying is right
1:35:42i mean there there is we're not
1:35:44competitive
1:35:46and and we we have a staff that is
1:35:49that's really willing to
1:35:51work at our school i think because of
1:35:54they realize it's it's an extraordinary
1:35:56place and an extraordinary place to work
1:35:58but for less money than they would be
1:36:00getting at
1:36:01a public school okay
1:36:05do you have any ideas what no idea zero
1:36:08zero ideas
1:36:09yeah um so it's a good question yeah i
1:36:12wonder
1:36:12i wonder how many of us are going to
1:36:15have to begin
1:36:16the other way around uh and i don't mean
1:36:18this is an accusation and i'm not
1:36:19pretending it's as easy as this but
1:36:22rather than changing my job
1:36:25to satisfy my lifestyle do i need to
1:36:28change my lifestyle
1:36:30in order to have a job that can support
1:36:32me in that
1:36:33moving to stubenville one way to do it
1:36:35right like honestly moving to a
1:36:38from a big city to maybe even a more
1:36:39economically depressed town or
1:36:41scranton or you know country town in
1:36:44kansas
1:36:45right um i tell you what i mean just
1:36:48a plug for steubenville here like you
1:36:50sell your house you come here you can
1:36:52probably buy one and not take out a loan
1:36:54i think that's the i think that's the
1:36:55great answer i think that's the answer
1:36:58yeah you you you go to a place
1:37:01that is worth going to and you you might
1:37:04have to change your lifestyle to
1:37:06be there but in the end it's worth it
1:37:08it's worth it's completely worth it
1:37:12uh this book emmy tan says just tuned in
1:37:15i had classical education in high school
1:37:17because we all studied latin
1:37:18ha ha it was a catholic school i quite
1:37:20liked it
1:37:21all right i suppose some people might
1:37:23claim to be
1:37:24teaching a classical education and by
1:37:27that they might mean something
1:37:28like we had a latin class but we talked
1:37:31about that earlier about
1:37:33what constitutes a classical education
1:37:36right yeah so i i think uh a classical
1:37:40education there's there's been you know
1:37:41like
1:37:42as there's been a revival in
1:37:46in catholic classical education on the
1:37:49university level that's kind of spilled
1:37:51down
1:37:51into into high school so we see all of
1:37:55these
1:37:56these classical schools arising even
1:37:58charter schools with great hearts
1:38:00academy
1:38:01founders academy and in you know
1:38:04hundreds of
1:38:04of catholic schools and
1:38:08what what does this what does this mean
1:38:10i mean i think it's again a kind of an
1:38:12embrace of the liberal
1:38:13liberal arts the the trivium the
1:38:16quadrivium
1:38:18reading of good books reading of great
1:38:20books studying of
1:38:22study of things like logic grammar and
1:38:24rhetoric
1:38:26i don't know if this uh this would be a
1:38:28good i i think
1:38:29i think there's a when you talk about
1:38:31the revitalization
1:38:33of of classical education i think that a
1:38:35school like
1:38:36ours and saint martins is doing
1:38:38something
1:38:39particularly well in in in
1:38:43in focusing on on poetry
1:38:46on song on the imagination and on what
1:38:49john senior called even the gymnastic
1:38:52by which he meant not just sports in in
1:38:55making your body stronger but
1:38:57contact with with primal realities
1:39:01like the nature in in in
1:39:04walks in pilgrimages in in
1:39:07caring for animals in in
1:39:10um you know processing chickens and
1:39:13that that there needs to that we need to
1:39:16have this kind of
1:39:18contact with primal realities even
1:39:21before
1:39:21or alongside this engagement of
1:39:25of of of the imagination and this
1:39:28and um this you know with song and
1:39:31poetry
1:39:33this kind of thing but just to to
1:39:37not of course other schools are doing
1:39:39that as well
1:39:40but i think john senior really was a
1:39:42pioneer in kind of showing the
1:39:43importance
1:39:44of this development of what you could
1:39:46say
1:39:48is the heart you know and and that there
1:39:51needs to
1:39:51development of of love and so
1:39:54and i think that that's that that's a
1:39:56that's a feature of classical education
1:39:59that has
1:39:59not been developed as well as it it
1:40:01could be
1:40:04suppose there's somebody watching right
1:40:05now they homeschool their children i
1:40:06imagine you get many homeschool boys
1:40:09i'm sure you get this asked question
1:40:10asked a lot where do they need to be
1:40:12academically in order to be fit
1:40:14for your school
1:40:17well or is the answer
1:40:21just breathe and make sure your boy is
1:40:24of good will
1:40:26uh when i think you know we we
1:40:30where do they need to be be academically
1:40:34we'd like to we'd like to have guys who
1:40:36can who enjoy
1:40:37reading good books who who have a taste
1:40:41for
1:40:42for literature uh who have some
1:40:45ability with with mathematics where
1:40:47they're going to be starting their
1:40:48freshman year with with
1:40:50algebra so some pre-algebra would would
1:40:53be good
1:40:54and and things like that but but
1:40:57basically if
1:40:58if a boy can read read
1:41:02read well and enjoy his good books and
1:41:04and can
1:41:05write tolerably well i think he's he's
1:41:07in a good all right
1:41:08good position to come join us good stuff
1:41:11um
1:41:12i'd love your kind of quick take on
1:41:15how do educate myself how do i begin to
1:41:19love
1:41:20what i should love and distance myself
1:41:23from that which to which i've become
1:41:24accustomed that may not be
1:41:27beautiful we talked a little bit about
1:41:29it earlier in the show about
1:41:30phones and distancing ourselves and
1:41:33but for those who haven't had a
1:41:35classical education but their parents
1:41:37and or adults and they want to sure
1:41:40where should they start
1:41:41where should they start for themselves
1:41:43or for their kids for themselves
1:41:45well i think i think that that it's
1:41:48there you want to cultivate a sense
1:41:52of of of the
1:41:55of of beauty and
1:41:58in yourself and i think that can be done
1:42:00through
1:42:02through taking walks i mean just you
1:42:05know
1:42:05making making sure you you go outside
1:42:08and you walk
1:42:09and you're the bar is pretty low then
1:42:11the what the bar
1:42:12is pretty low get outside get outside
1:42:15get out for a while
1:42:16um read read a good book i mean there
1:42:19there's you were talking about
1:42:21uh a short story by dostoevsky a gentle
1:42:23creature
1:42:25read read something like this um
1:42:28learn a poem learn a song
1:42:32i mean one of the you know there's the
1:42:34the
1:42:35we we have so many means there's almost
1:42:37too many things a bewildering
1:42:39uh a variety of of opportunities for us
1:42:42to
1:42:43to you know with books and and and songs
1:42:46whether it's on the internet
1:42:47or or what have you but uh learn learn
1:42:50upon
1:42:51learn a poem i was going to read let's
1:42:52let's do this i love this poem and i'd
1:42:54love you to read it for us
1:42:56so go go get yourself a
1:42:59a book of hopkins poetry and and learn
1:43:02this poem okay i'm going to read it
1:43:04right now
1:43:06it's called god's grandeur
1:43:10world is charged with the grandeur of
1:43:12god
1:43:14it will flame out like shining from
1:43:16shook foil
1:43:18it gathers to a greatness like the ooze
1:43:21of
1:43:21oil crushed
1:43:24why do men then now not wreck his rod
1:43:28generations of trod have trod have trod
1:43:31and all is seared with trade bleared
1:43:34smeared with toil
1:43:35and where's man smudge and shares man's
1:43:38smell
1:43:39the soil is bare now nor can foot
1:43:43feel being shod and for
1:43:46all this nature is never spent
1:43:51there lives the dearest freshness deep
1:43:54down things and though the last lights
1:43:57off the black west went
1:43:59oh mourning at the brown brink eastward
1:44:03springs
1:44:04because the holy ghost over the bent
1:44:06world broods
1:44:07with warm breast and with ah bright
1:44:11wings oh my goodness gracious that is
1:44:15absolutely
1:44:16good so you you learn i should have
1:44:20recited it because i
1:44:21i think i could have done it but but uh
1:44:24learn a po
1:44:24a poem like that and and
1:44:27you i i think the reason to do that is
1:44:31because
1:44:31you you because the poetry
1:44:35song gives you a participation
1:44:39in what the poet is seeing and here he's
1:44:43seeing
1:44:44that he's seeing that the world
1:44:47is charged with the grandeur of god
1:44:50that that this this this world that that
1:44:53we
1:44:54we pass by is is just there's there's a
1:44:58resonance behind this is
1:45:02god's glory god's beauty shining forth
1:45:05and he's he's seeing this and he's he's
1:45:07he's
1:45:08captured this in language and we can
1:45:11experience this
1:45:13you know we can we can so this is
1:45:15education this is a kind of a
1:45:17changing of our perception by
1:45:20learning a poem like this where we we
1:45:22can become attuned
1:45:24to the presence of god in our lives
1:45:28so this is something you can do we can
1:45:30learn a poem
1:45:32okay s silly question maybe how does one
1:45:35learn a poem
1:45:37okay well i'll tell you how we do it and
1:45:39it's
1:45:40i suppose you could you this this one
1:45:43this is a great thing to do with your
1:45:45your children or even yourself
1:45:46but we do we teach all of all poems
1:45:50and all songs in an oral method
1:45:53meaning we take a line
1:45:56and we the world is charged with the
1:45:59grandeur of god and the whole class says
1:46:00the world is charged with the grandeur
1:46:02of god
1:46:03the world is charged with the grant of
1:46:04god it will flame out
1:46:06like shining from shook foil and then
1:46:08they repeat that
1:46:10and then just you and then you'll do
1:46:12that for a couple minutes and then next
1:46:14class you do a couple more lines
1:46:17and in the same with me same with
1:46:19learning songs
1:46:20do it in the same exact way and it's
1:46:22amazing how
1:46:24how quickly the the memory
1:46:27which is a muscle of a kind develops
1:46:31so we live in a time where the they
1:46:32don't need to remember that
1:46:35of of memory so the so
1:46:38you can develop the memory
1:46:42and which is such an important thing to
1:46:43do but
1:46:45um because yeah even as a child i would
1:46:48know the numbers of my friends okay
1:46:52my best friend's number three three one
1:46:54seven two six right
1:46:55right my mom's number uh at work three
1:46:57three one two seven two you know i'd
1:46:59remember him right i don't know
1:47:01i know my wife's number i don't know
1:47:03anybody else's number
1:47:04i don't need to so you know so something
1:47:06similar has happened right
1:47:08and and what does that mean for us i
1:47:10mean i don't know if anybody's thought
1:47:12enough about
1:47:13what what that means that we were
1:47:15gradually becoming
1:47:17a people with almost no memory depending
1:47:21on an
1:47:21external memory i mean how much of of of
1:47:24uh you know having a personality
1:47:27let's say a vibrant you know even
1:47:30identity
1:47:31a real sort of uh
1:47:35you know your own personal identity is
1:47:37tied to
1:47:38having it having a memory i i don't
1:47:41that's a very interesting something
1:47:42something to think about and what does
1:47:43that mean that we don't have memories
1:47:46we don't have you know not that we don't
1:47:47have any memory but but we don't have
1:47:49the memory
1:47:50we used we used to have in in oral
1:47:52cultures and
1:47:53and then beyond but but we're but our
1:47:56but our hearts and minds are just awash
1:47:58with yes stuff what is that a million
1:48:02does that do
1:48:02and you know i said earlier and i think
1:48:04you're getting to the same point now
1:48:06and um hopkins said it much better i
1:48:08talked about
1:48:09we can't even encounter nature without
1:48:11it being contracepted through some
1:48:13artificial app that tells us about what
1:48:16this constellation is or what this plant
1:48:18is
1:48:18right right and and uh you we talked
1:48:21about having external memory
1:48:23but but here is this what he means when
1:48:24he says you know he talks about all of
1:48:26nature
1:48:27uh but he says and where's me and smudge
1:48:29let's see
1:48:31uh the soil is bare now nor can foot
1:48:34feel being shod i had that kind of view
1:48:37of
1:48:38i'm now separated from this thing right
1:48:39right right i think so
1:48:41i think so right and and it's it's a
1:48:44funny i don't know quite what to make of
1:48:47that because it almost sounds like he's
1:48:49he's sort of saying
1:48:50you know what you know what who invented
1:48:52this terrible technology of shoes
1:48:54yeah separate us from from nature but
1:48:58but i think you're
1:48:59you're right that there he is getting at
1:49:01this idea of of this kind of
1:49:04the the soil is is is there but we can't
1:49:08feel it
1:49:09and and you know he's talking at a time
1:49:12of kind of the beginning of
1:49:13industrialization
1:49:14and the world is seared you know
1:49:17with with um with toil and
1:49:20and this kind of obscuring
1:49:24of the face of nature and as you're
1:49:26pointing out i mean
1:49:27this this poem and this obscuring
1:49:32uh is is so much more serious and
1:49:35devastating now
1:49:37with with um as you say i mean just the
1:49:40separation that that takes place
1:49:43because of screens even your map you
1:49:46know
1:49:46even unfolding a map and the frustration
1:49:48that sometimes entails is no longer
1:49:50necessary i don't even know where i am
1:49:52i don't care to know where i am
1:49:56and to your point about being sort of
1:49:58overwhelmed with
1:50:00a sort of multiplicity of things and
1:50:02distractions and
1:50:03pieces of information uh it can feel
1:50:07overwhelming even
1:50:08in this discussion of classical
1:50:09education the person
1:50:11hearing this might be like well i don't
1:50:13have time it's like read all of these
1:50:15you see again
1:50:16all of these books but it sounds like
1:50:18what you're saying is memorize
1:50:19this poem right and you'll do more for
1:50:22your interior life
1:50:24just doing that over the course of a
1:50:25week or two than if you were to try and
1:50:27read a hundred different books
1:50:29in the course of a year i don't know
1:50:30right yeah absolutely i would agree
1:50:32and i think people i think i think well
1:50:35can't speak for everybody but
1:50:37i know i have time to do a
1:50:41many more good things than i do
1:50:44and and um and you know cut out that
1:50:48that um uh news feed that you're
1:50:52you have to watch every day or or
1:50:54whatever it is
1:50:55and and and learn a poem we do we do
1:50:59we can't we can't find pockets it
1:51:00doesn't take long to learn
1:51:02we're very good at making excuses for
1:51:04ourselves that's right
1:51:07um adam says i'm a classical grade
1:51:10school educator who got hired two days
1:51:12before school started over the summer i
1:51:13want to improve my teaching
1:51:15where are good resources for that
1:51:17looking to raise future saints science
1:51:20good resources for teaching
1:51:24well i i i would recommend two
1:51:28books that that give give a really nice
1:51:31overview of
1:51:32of catholic education as it is it could
1:51:35be
1:51:36by stratford caldecott one is called
1:51:40beauty in the word and the other one i
1:51:43don't remember
1:51:44but stratfor caldecott he's uh
1:51:48he talked about revitalizing classical
1:51:51education i think in some ways he's kind
1:51:54of written a blueprint
1:51:55for for a new um
1:51:59you know vision of of classical
1:52:01education so i think
1:52:02those would be good those would no what
1:52:05is he teaching
1:52:05this um
1:52:10i miss oh i am a classical grade school
1:52:12educator who got high doesn't say
1:52:14okay we got some questions here about
1:52:17what do you do with autistic
1:52:19children and then somebody else said i'd
1:52:21like an answer to that as well
1:52:23uh i have two children on the spectrum
1:52:26is this something you've encountered at
1:52:28greg's
1:52:30or how if not that's directly how do you
1:52:32deal with children with different
1:52:34learning disabilities or well i
1:52:38what we i suppose we we might have had
1:52:40some students that are i mean
1:52:42on the spectrum now i mean what does
1:52:44that even mean you know
1:52:45um is you know does uh somebody have a
1:52:48little asperger's or
1:52:50um i suppose we there we've had some
1:52:54some students that could be described in
1:52:56that way and
1:52:58we don't really do anything different i
1:53:01mean we just
1:53:02we don't have a special ed department
1:53:04and
1:53:05we take boys that we think are going to
1:53:07fit
1:53:08fit in well with with everybody else and
1:53:10do what everybody else is doing
1:53:12so if if we think we think a candidate
1:53:15is
1:53:16is that kind of a candidate then however
1:53:18you might
1:53:19a psychologist might happen to describe
1:53:21him we'd take him and he'll do
1:53:23everything that everybody else is doing
1:53:25and seems to work fine
1:53:27it sounds like maybe this has been
1:53:29something of a progression for you
1:53:31i mean um you know you were at thomas
1:53:34aquinas college
1:53:35you had a desire to go to europe you
1:53:37went and stayed right so this has been
1:53:39maybe less violent than maybe some of us
1:53:41would would like to be in order to
1:53:43reclaim this beautiful life or not to
1:53:46even reclaim it just to claim it
1:53:48to begin with would you say that's
1:53:50that's right or have you put in a lot of
1:53:51effort to fend off these distractions in
1:53:54order to
1:53:55immerse yourself in beautiful things so
1:53:58you're saying for me it's been kind of a
1:54:00gradual gradual yeah it sounds like
1:54:03that's from the little i know
1:54:04i might be wrong no i think that's right
1:54:06i think that's right i've
1:54:08yeah it's i suppose effortless in in
1:54:12some ways
1:54:12so how can we be that cool that's what i
1:54:15want to know
1:54:16okay because i want to make like i think
1:54:18we all kind of want to make radical
1:54:19decisions
1:54:20when we see somebody living a beautiful
1:54:22life
1:54:23and it's we see our own and it scares us
1:54:26and we see how immersed we are like just
1:54:28a moment ago you said no we have time
1:54:30like if you watch netflix if you watch
1:54:33amazon prime
1:54:34if you listen to ben shapiro on a daily
1:54:36basis like you have bloody time you're
1:54:37just filling it with things that maybe
1:54:39you shouldn't be filling it with
1:54:41um or maybe there are better things that
1:54:43you could be filling your life with
1:54:45and so there's this desire to like
1:54:47change or at least there is for me i
1:54:48just have that kind of temperament i
1:54:49suppose
1:54:50well you know that's i have to think
1:54:52about that i love to think about that i
1:54:53mean
1:54:54i i'm fortunate to have a job
1:54:57you know that sort of requires me to
1:55:00live this way and that helps because we
1:55:02all need help
1:55:04so for me i'm just i'm very fortunate to
1:55:07to be in a place that is my job is to
1:55:10foster this kind of culture so i have to
1:55:13do it
1:55:14you know so in its and i love to do it
1:55:17but
1:55:18but it's but but
1:55:21but you're right it's it's it's these
1:55:23these other
1:55:25these other things are are seductive and
1:55:28draw us away
1:55:29and and i think that i think i think the
1:55:32the answer is to
1:55:33try to
1:55:36found your life in some way on a kind of
1:55:39a
1:55:40contemplative awareness of
1:55:43of what you're about you know in in
1:55:46and to you know to find time each day
1:55:50in prayer to recollect and this might be
1:55:54you know for for me i like to to go on a
1:55:57walk
1:55:57and and say the rosary which ends up
1:56:01not saying the rosary and thinking about
1:56:02a lot lots of things but kind of a mini
1:56:04pilgrimage
1:56:06and with something like that
1:56:09whatever form that might take you can
1:56:14remember you used that that word before
1:56:17kind of like we need to remember who we
1:56:19are we need to remember
1:56:20what it is we actually want to do yes
1:56:23yes because we we
1:56:25we really want to do these better things
1:56:28and yet these other things more deeply
1:56:30we want to do these better things
1:56:33but but but if you don't kind of re
1:56:35recollect that
1:56:37and give space for those deeper things
1:56:39to kind of come back
1:56:40up yes to the surface then then you lose
1:56:44them
1:56:44so i think you just have to you have to
1:56:46find a time to kind of keep remembering
1:56:48very very beautiful man you are you're
1:56:50preaching to me right now i i heard a
1:56:52analogy from a priest in a homily once
1:56:53and i think it was a good
1:56:55good one this analogy he said if you
1:56:57think of um
1:56:58sand pebbles and rocks
1:57:02okay the sand represents those
1:57:04insignificant things that we engage in
1:57:06those distractions that we willingly
1:57:08allow us to tear us away from ourselves
1:57:10and others
1:57:11right the rocks might be the somewhat
1:57:13important things oh sorry the pebbles
1:57:15then the rocks the very important things
1:57:16you know
1:57:17family prayer god he said all right now
1:57:19imagine a imagine a glass and this kind
1:57:21of glass represents your life
1:57:23well if you were to fill it up with sand
1:57:25there would be no room
1:57:26for the pebbles and the rocks but if you
1:57:28would begin
1:57:29with the important things the rocks and
1:57:32the pebbles
1:57:33well then there's still room for the
1:57:34sand but it doesn't take up everything
1:57:37and i wonder if we're at risk of just
1:57:38losing our lives in a myriad of
1:57:40distractions
1:57:42the the the what was it called the um
1:57:45when you sink into the sand that's like
1:57:47a quicksand quicksand yeah yeah
1:57:50yeah exactly all can be sunk in
1:57:53in this the quicksand there's no rock
1:57:55under there it'll hold us up that's
1:57:57great
1:57:57yeah it's a great image i think i think
1:57:59i need to come up with a
1:58:01plan people in the comments section let
1:58:03me know if you want me to do this
1:58:04it would be cool to come up with like a
1:58:06seven week plan to
1:58:08to get rid of your cell phone to get rid
1:58:09of your smartphone
1:58:12so you didn't want to do it you know
1:58:13it's interesting because that
1:58:16i i did a sort of a version of exodus 90
1:58:19with a couple of friends
1:58:20we didn't quite something happened we
1:58:22didn't we didn't quite
1:58:24persevere okay but i think that movement
1:58:28is really interesting
1:58:29and that it seems to be
1:58:32and maybe you know more about it uh than
1:58:35i do but
1:58:36that it seems to be in giving up
1:58:39social media and in technology it seems
1:58:41to kind of be moving you in the
1:58:42direction of
1:58:44you know this is this would be a good
1:58:46permanent
1:58:48yes giving up yes that that again
1:58:51i think in in a different form that our
1:58:54our school is doing that kind of thing
1:58:55look you're gonna you're gonna be giving
1:58:57this up while you're here
1:58:59and and you're gonna remember what it
1:59:01was like to be free
1:59:03and that's a great experience don't
1:59:05forget that
1:59:06so it and i think the exodus 90 is kind
1:59:09of doing a similar thing
1:59:10they're saying let's give this up for 90
1:59:13days
1:59:14but then they're also kind of saying hey
1:59:16you want to keep going with this
1:59:18that was nice wasn't it yeah yeah yeah
1:59:20that makes sense
1:59:21i mean and and you know we have jobs and
1:59:23we have to make decisions about him you
1:59:25know we can't
1:59:26we can't all live in a medieval village
1:59:29we could try
1:59:30we could try so
1:59:33yeah i i said to you in the coffee shop
1:59:35pride uh coming here that
1:59:36after this interview i'm leaving my
1:59:39phone and my computer here and i'm gonna
1:59:40go home and
1:59:41for because i was in florida last week
1:59:43traveling a lot and speaking and working
1:59:45so i need to take some time off for the
1:59:46family you know
1:59:47so i'm really looking forward to just
1:59:48spending two days without it but i'll
1:59:50tell you what it's
1:59:52and i say this not just kind of i hope
1:59:54this doesn't sound like i'm boasting
1:59:55it's
1:59:57but but i think many of us can kind of
1:59:58relate to that you will
2:00:00i'll walk out of this office with you
2:00:02and we'll go to the elevator
2:00:03and we'll go down to the bottom and
2:00:04we'll walk out and within that time i
2:00:07probably
2:00:07will have had three um
2:00:11temptation interaction to grab my cell
2:00:13phone as well sure sure
2:00:14you know oh i gotta i get it absolutely
2:00:18and some of it's trivial and some sure
2:00:19it's less so some of it's like i need to
2:00:21get back to that guy
2:00:23or sometimes you just feel awkward
2:00:24you're standing in an elevator with
2:00:26somebody and i don't like talking to
2:00:27people in elevators it doesn't seem to
2:00:28be any reason except to cut through the
2:00:29awkwardness and so
2:00:30if you look at your cell phone that kind
2:00:32of gets you out of that conversation and
2:00:34i keep saying i wonder what you think
2:00:35that the cell phone the computer
2:00:37is both the cause and
2:00:41relief of our anxiety so it appears to
2:00:44relieve it
2:00:45but it agitates us still further that's
2:00:47been my experience
2:00:49that sounds that sounds accurate and how
2:00:52on earth am i going to learn to
2:00:54memorize poetry right exactly no it
2:00:56really i mean
2:00:57it's it's a it's a cause of anxiety i
2:01:00think it's it's it's an
2:01:02enemy to to contemplation
2:01:06you know in in and by contemplation i
2:01:08don't i don't mean
2:01:09um you know anything particularly high
2:01:13and
2:01:13and and supernatural even although i
2:01:16think it's it's connected but just
2:01:18simply
2:01:19having a a
2:01:26of of yourself
2:01:30and of the world and being kind of being
2:01:33at peace
2:01:34i like how you put that and it's quiet
2:01:35yeah and it's so and i think that this
2:01:37this all of these things it's almost
2:01:40like we talked about the design or the
2:01:42the conspiracy
2:01:43it's like a com a conspiracy against
2:01:45that
2:01:46any kind of interior silence
2:01:49out of which really i think our true
2:01:52personality and and in our awareness of
2:01:55these deep down
2:01:56things out of which our vocation grows
2:02:00you know the gifts of the holy spirit
2:02:02grow
2:02:04this is all being kind of attacked
2:02:07i think by these things so it's very
2:02:10very important that we we think
2:02:12seriously about
2:02:13how to navigate this realm
2:02:17lots at stake what would be some good
2:02:20book suggestions for those
2:02:22watching okay well uh
2:02:26for themselves not for children sure
2:02:28sure a great
2:02:29book suggestion would be the restoration
2:02:32of christian culture
2:02:34and did that makes me think of this just
2:02:36to give a little this is a little
2:02:38excerpt from that book
2:02:40to uh wet people's appetite this is by
2:02:42john senior
2:02:43who's he's really the the godfather of
2:02:46our school
2:02:48and here's what he says
2:02:51our lord explains in the parable of the
2:02:54sower
2:02:55that the seed of his love will only grow
2:02:58in a certain soil
2:03:00and that is the soil of christian
2:03:02culture which is the work of music
2:03:05in the wide sense including as well as
2:03:07tunes that are sung
2:03:09art literature games architecture all
2:03:14so many instruments in the orchestra
2:03:16which plays day and night the music of
2:03:18lovers
2:03:19and if it is disordered the love of
2:03:22christ will not grow
2:03:25so this you know talking about this need
2:03:27for
2:03:28developing this christian culture so
2:03:32the soil of christ can the seed of
2:03:35christ can grow
2:03:37in us and anyway this book is is really
2:03:40a wonderful book and it's
2:03:41it it's a kind of a sequel to a book
2:03:44with a much more
2:03:46scary title called the death of
2:03:48christian culture
2:03:50where he he really diagnoses kind of how
2:03:52we got here
2:03:53and and goes through the stages of
2:03:56of the death and that's that's in a way
2:03:58more of a philosophical analysis of
2:04:00of of you know kind of the um
2:04:03encroachments of modernity
2:04:05maybe starting i don't know where his
2:04:07story starts if it's
2:04:09the middle ages or if it's the
2:04:10renaissance i can't remember but
2:04:13but the restoration was was was is in a
2:04:16certain sense
2:04:17it's a it's something of a practical
2:04:20book
2:04:20it's kind of how what do we do now
2:04:24how can we how can we
2:04:27revive the culture what what can we do
2:04:30what what can we
2:04:31one of the first things he says and this
2:04:33is uh he wasn't living in the time
2:04:35of the internet but he said the first
2:04:39he said smash the television get it get
2:04:42a bat
2:04:43and literally smash your television and
2:04:46then get a piano
2:04:48and and um or a guitar and start
2:04:51learning some songs
2:04:54imagine what he would have had to say
2:04:55about the phone yeah
2:04:57so how do we radical i love it how do we
2:05:00implement this
2:05:01implement this without falling into a
2:05:04perfectionism that that leads us to
2:05:07fall into utter despair yeah and
2:05:10may even lead us to sort of crush our
2:05:14children as it were
2:05:15you know right you begin to see
2:05:16everything as poison right
2:05:18you mustn't talk to the children across
2:05:20the street and you mustn't have the
2:05:21video game and you mustn't ever watch
2:05:23television
2:05:24right i could see that being an
2:05:26unhealthy thing for both parent and
2:05:28child
2:05:29yes good good question i mean i
2:05:32i you know short of saying don't become
2:05:35like that
2:05:36um and pray for prudence
2:05:40and and and and be aware that that
2:05:44that would be a a pitfall to fall into
2:05:47um
2:05:48and yeah i mean i think i think being a
2:05:51purist
2:05:56yeah i i don't know i mean i think i
2:05:58think if you're there there's
2:05:59a as long as you're continuing to kind
2:06:02of
2:06:03to do these things to do these important
2:06:06things and
2:06:06and you're doing your part to to to
2:06:09raise your children
2:06:11in a way that is more more real and put
2:06:14them in contact with with
2:06:16things that are more real and whether
2:06:17it's animals or nature or
2:06:20good poetry good songs
2:06:23that trust that that this is going
2:06:27this is going to bear fruit and that
2:06:29that you don't
2:06:30have to construct some kind of an
2:06:34isolated insulated universe that god
2:06:37will that that good and beauty and truth
2:06:41are more powerful
2:06:43than than their their their fake
2:06:46you know substitutes and that those will
2:06:49win out
2:06:50so you know and i mean doesn't jesus
2:06:52have a parable answering this like the
2:06:54the the thistles and the the
2:06:58the flowers grow together you're not
2:07:00gonna we're never gonna be
2:07:01in in the pure world there's always
2:07:04gonna be both together so but you
2:07:06nurture
2:07:06the good you just continually focus on
2:07:09nurturing those good things
2:07:11and then don't be freaked out about the
2:07:14the the things
2:07:15the imperfections that are still there
2:07:16too i don't know if you've read this
2:07:18book by
2:07:18jacques philippe uh what's it called
2:07:20it's a gorgeous book i've got it
2:07:22somewhere over there um it's right by
2:07:26that blue book is there a little pink
2:07:27book by that blue book there
2:07:30over here yeah is that it no no that's
2:07:32not it
2:07:34it's cool yeah let's see here
2:07:37there we go it's glorious yes so this
2:07:39book's called searching for and
2:07:40maintaining peace
2:07:42and i would highly recommend that
2:07:43everybody get a copy of this and
2:07:45you know one of the things he talks
2:07:46about and drawing from the fathers is
2:07:49this idea that if we're not in a place
2:07:51of peace and you've already referenced
2:07:52that of being in a state of peace
2:07:54we won't see things properly the fathers
2:07:57use this analogy of a
2:07:59pond and if it's disturbed
2:08:02by throwing pebbles in it or something
2:08:04it doesn't reflect
2:08:07the sun right properly uh so i think
2:08:10being
2:08:11you know if we're constantly anxious uh
2:08:15and restless and and upset and falling
2:08:19into a sort of perfectionism
2:08:21it's difficult to then lead our children
2:08:25into something true good and beautiful
2:08:26i also think and i wonder what your
2:08:28point on this um your thoughts on this
2:08:30sometimes you'll encounter a family
2:08:32whose children seem to be
2:08:34in a defensive posture against the
2:08:38culture
2:08:38a continuous sort of i'm not sure what i
2:08:42mean by that
2:08:43do you know what i mean by that that's
2:08:45sort of um
2:08:46defensiveness with some parents maybe
2:08:50more
2:08:52um i'm trying to think of an example of
2:08:53something like we're always sort of kind
2:08:55of doing what i'm doing always kind of
2:08:56complaining and
2:08:57whining about the culture and uh
2:09:01right as opposed to embracing uh what's
2:09:04true good and beautiful it's more
2:09:05right right always ready to sort of
2:09:07smack away sure
2:09:08yeah and i i think that's yeah that that
2:09:11that's a danger
2:09:12that i mean i think that's that's
2:09:15something
2:09:16to be avoided you don't want you want
2:09:17you don't want to right you want your
2:09:19you want your children and you want
2:09:21yourself to be somebody who's in love
2:09:23with
2:09:23the good rather than consumed with
2:09:26avoiding
2:09:26that's exactly that's not the good yes
2:09:28and yeah and that's
2:09:30yeah absolutely yeah that's beautiful
2:09:33well as i already mentioned the first
2:09:35link in the description below dear
2:09:37friends
2:09:37is gregory the great academy go check
2:09:40out their website
2:09:41also the second link is to all boys
2:09:44camp's gonna be taking place
2:09:45next next month daily latin mass
2:09:48is that right i think that's what i've
2:09:50been told that it's either
2:09:52latin or byzantine one of them one way
2:09:54pretty awesome
2:09:55uh our priest is uh our chaplain's by
2:09:58rituals he does
2:09:59knife throwing axe throwing sleeping
2:10:01under the stars poetry memorizing
2:10:03and as i said i've got a friend who's
2:10:05driving out from georgia so don't think
2:10:06that the fact it's in pennsylvania that
2:10:08uh
2:10:09you know so go check it out they have 10
2:10:11spots left
2:10:12this has been really fantastic i've
2:10:13really enjoyed chatting with you uh
2:10:15anything else you want to touch upon
2:10:17before we wrap up or
2:10:19i i think that's good all right we'll
2:10:21leave it to the next time
2:10:22cool all right well thank you so much
2:10:23for your time this has been awesome
2:10:26lovely
2:10:29[Music]
2:11:37[Laughter]
2:11:39[Music]
2:12:39you

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