In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, Jesse Hake welcomes Classical Academic Press video producer Cody Wanner for an illuminating conversation about storytelling, wonder, and his growing encounter with classical Christian education. Cody reflects on formative experiences such as hearing The Hobbit read aloud by his sixth-grade math teacher and explains why poetic knowledge and awakening wonder have become central…

In this episode, Jesse Hake talks with Sarah Kwilinski about her new ClassicalU course, Restoring Wonder for Every Learner: Universal Design in the Classical Tradition, and how classical education can faithfully serve every learner through what she calls “durable hospitality.” Drawing on more than twenty-five years in special education and the influence of Dr. Amy Gilbert Richards, Sarah explains…

Recorded on site at True North Classical Academy, Jesse Hake speaks with Patricio Mendez, philosophy teacher and the Director of EdTech & Analytics, about recovering teaching as a vocation of love rather than a transaction of grades. Mendez describes his philosophy course as an effort not merely to teach the history of philosophy, but to help students…

In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, Jesse Hake speaks with Jessica Hooten-Wilson about her forthcoming book on Christian women whose lives and work have often been neglected because they are “too Christian for the feminists and too feminist for the Christians.” Hooten-Wilson looks to women at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as models for…

In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, Jesse Hake—joined by guests Dr. Brian Williams and Jake Tawney—explores the pressing question of AI and human formation in the classroom. Framed by the classical vision of education as the formation of the whole person, the conversation challenges the assumption that efficiency, output, or technological adoption should drive educational practice. Drawing on…

In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, Jesse Hake speaks with Dr. Patrick R. Manning about his book Be Still and Know: Contemplative Practice for Christian Schools and Educators. Drawing from the deep wells of the Christian contemplative tradition—from the Desert Fathers and Mothers to Benedictine, Ignatian, and Dominican spirituality—Manning argues that contemplation is not foreign to…

In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, host Jesse Hake—joined by Scholé Academy Director Dr.Joylynn Blake—welcomes the leaders of Scholé Academy’s three Houses of Study: Monika Minehart, Fr. Nathan Dickinson, and Presb. Maria Koulianos. As representatives of three great Christian traditions, Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican, these classical educators engage in a rich conversation on soul craft, or spiritual formation…

In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, Jesse Hake speaks with Dr. Shannon Valenzuela about her new course releasing this spring on medieval literature and the harmonics of story. Beginning with Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and culminating in Dante’s Divine Comedy, Dr. Valenzuela shows how medieval authors understood stories as reflections of cosmic order, proportion, pattern, and harmony—a “story…

In this Christmas-season episode, Jesse Hake speaks with author, retired parish priest, and former university chaplain Addison Hodges Hart about Father Christmas, St. Nicholas, and the meaning of the Nativity, drawing on stories and poetry ranging from Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas, C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and “The Turn of the Tide”,…

In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, philosopher D. C. Schindler joins Jesse Hake for a conversation on the metaphysical and theological foundations of classical education. Interview questions address epistemology, anthropology, the nature of true authority, and the dangers of mixing culture wars and Christian nationalism with classical education. Drawing from thinkers like Balthasar, Pieper, and…