The CiRCE Master Teacher Apprenticeship: A Greenhouse for 10 Pedagogical Principles to Grow

Several years ago, after spending just a year in the CiRCE Master Teacher Apprenticeship, I wrote an article about my experience, which included “paideia, Pentecost, and hygge.” Fast forward a few years: I graduated from the apprenticeship (in 2022), and since then, I have been working on the upcoming book The Good Teacher: Ten Key Pedagogical Principles That Will Transform Your Teaching with Dr. Christopher Perrin. In addition, I have recently been invited to lead the Ozark Mountain Apprenticeship for CiRCE. I am humbled how God has allowed me to serve in this way. 

As I finish the final stages of editing the book and contemplate my new role as a CiRCE Head Mentor, I am excited to realize how CiRCE not only cultivates “paideia, Pentecost, and hygge,” but it also nurtures all ten universal principles of classical education. The three-year CiRCE Master Teacher Apprenticeship is a hospitable greenhouse for the timeless principles that perpetuate virtue for human flourishing. The shelter of CiRCE’s greenhouse provides a safe space for the following ten good teaching seeds (that is, teaching principles) to grow in the following ways: 

1. A Place Where Teaching is an Art, Not a Checklist: Festina Lente (Make Haste Slowly) 

It is better to master each step rather than to rush through content; the quickest way forward is to ensure that you take the time needed for mastery. 

Unlike modern teacher training programs that focus on techniques and efficiency, the CiRCE Master Teacher Apprenticeship fosters an education grounded in festina lente (making haste slowly). Apprentices do not rush to apply new methods, nor do they chase after every passing trend in education. Instead, they take time to dwell with great books, contemplate ideas, and cultivate deep habits of mind and heart. Just as teachers teach their students that mastery is achieved through patience, apprentices are also invited into what Eugene H. Peterson calls “a long obedience in the same direction.” CiRCE apprentices are given time to cultivate their craft at two in-person retreats—one in the summer and one in the winter—and through monthly conversations all school year long. 

2. Teaching Fewer Things but Teaching Them Well: Multum Non Multa (Much Not Many) 

It is better to master a few things than to cursorily cover content that will be forgotten; it is better to study fewer things but study them well. 

The apprenticeship is an immersion in multum non multa (much not many). Rather than overwhelming teachers with an exhausting checklist of “best practices,” it asks them to go deep with a few core ideas about mimetic teaching based in the tradition of the Trivium and Quadrivium and to embody these through a selection of carefully curated books and curriculum: One epic, one Socratic dialogue, one Shakespeare play, one twentieth century author and/or pedagogue who supports the tradition, and David Hick’s Norms and Nobility. The well is deep, and CiRCE apprentices drink heartily as they focus on a single text at a time, a single idea in a conversation, or a single habit in their teaching, trusting that this slow and deliberate approach will yield a deeper and more lasting transformation. 

3. The Power of Repetition in Formation: Repetitio Mater Memoriae (Repetition is the Mother of Memory) 

Revisiting and reviewing deepens love, affection, and understanding of something true, good, and beautiful and makes learning permanent. 

Repetition is not mere redundancy—it is the mother of memory and affection. Repetitio mater memoriae is honored in the apprenticeship through repeating the mimetic form and the five common topics (definition, relationship, circumstance, comparison, and testimony) with every great work. Every year, students return to Norms and Nobility by David Hicks, a rich treatise on education that is worthy of “seeking again” to discuss universal first principles of education.  

4. Recovering the Music of Learning: Songs, Chants, and Jingles 

Regular singing and chanting delights students and employs their bodies, voices, sight, and hearing, deepening learning and making it permanent. 

Classical educators have long known that children learn best when their affections are engaged, which is why songs, chants, and jingles play an essential role in the apprenticeship. While apprentices may not be memorizing jingles as their young students do, they are learning in a way that is deeply musical—not merely in the sense of sound but in the harmony of well-ordered thought, speech, and practice, not to mention the rhythmic beauty of Homer, Virgil and Shakespeare. In addition, the rhythm of repeated conversations, thoughtful imitation, and well-crafted language is itself a kind of song that shapes the soul. While melodic music may be celebrated in some apprenticeships more than others, some mentors will incorporate the ritual of singing and/or sharing poetry into their apprenticeship liturgy.  

5. A Space for Wonder and Curiosity 

Wonder is an astonishing encounter with reality that sparks love and study; curiosity is a disposition that seeks to explore, investigate, and learn. 

The apprenticeship does not teach teachers how to deliver information but how to cultivate wonder and curiosity—first in themselves and then in their students. Apprentices are asked to slow down, to ask deep questions with the help of the five common topics, and to sit in the presence of mystery before rushing to explanations. Apprentices repeatedly practice creating gaps of wonder in their mimetic teaching in order to stimulate a necessary desire to know more truth. The same wonder that drives students to explore the stars, the depths of a poem, or the beauty of a mathematical proof is first cultivated within CiRCE Master Teachers so that they, in turn, may awaken wonder in others. 

6. Scholé and Contemplation as the Heart of Education 

Scholé provides a restful, undistracted atmosphere for the deep, sustained contemplation of reality that wonder initiates and enables it to continue and spread. 

If wonder is the beginning of learning, scholé—restful learning—is the way it is sustained. The apprenticeship is designed to be a place where contemplation is not merely a luxury but a necessity. Apprentices read slowly, write reflectively, and discuss deeply not as add-ons but as the very means by which learning takes root. Rather than hurrying through material, they are invited into the leisurely study of wisdom, mirroring the classical ideal of education as paideia—the full formation of the soul. In addition, every retreat week concludes with a celebration dinner—scholé within a meal. 

 7. The Rituals of Liturgy and Poetry for Learning: Embodied Learning 

Students are embodied souls; therefore, formative rhythms, practices, liturgies, and routines cultivate their desire and longing to be in harmony with the beauty in the world and to participate in it bodily with their senses. 

Teaching is not just about content; it is about the way knowledge is embodied. Liturgical learning is fostered in the apprenticeship through meaningful habits—beginning sessions with prayer, reciting wisdom together, and practicing teaching in a structured, ritualized way. Every in-person gathering includes time for contemplation, teaching, coaching, assessment, and celebration. Poetic learning is also honored, as apprentices come to see that teaching is not just about delivering facts but also about inviting students into a living tradition of beauty, story, and meaningful engagement. 

8. By Teaching, We Learn (Docendo Discimus) 

Knowledge taught is twice learned; when students teach what they know, they become filled with a greater desire to learn and become better students. 

No principle is more evident in the apprenticeship than docendo discimus (by teaching, we learn). Apprentices do not sit passively and receive knowledge; they are required to teach, to narrate, to imitate, and to reflect on their teaching with a mentor (and as they mentor themselves). Through discussion or in prepared lessons, they articulate ideas to others and come to own them more deeply themselves. This principle is the apprenticeship’s foundation: Teachers are not made through theory alone but through the act of teaching itself. 

9. Books as Our First and Best Teachers: Optimus Magister Bonus Liber Est (The Best Teacher Is a Good Book) 

The voices of great teachers in the great books continually beckon, inspire, and teach; a three-way conversion among the text, teacher, and student remarkably educates. 

Optimus magister bonus liber est (the best teacher is a good book) is not merely a motto in the apprenticeship—it is a lived reality. Apprentices are given great books as their teachers: Homer, Plato, Virgil, William Shakespeare, David Hicks, C. S. Lewis, Scott Crider, Wendell Berry. They do not read textbooks about classical education; they read the very texts that have shaped the tradition. They learn, as all classical educators must, that to be formed by great books is the only way to form others. Apprentices will find that these great books form them not only as teachers but also as Christians, parents, friends, and leaders. 

 10. Friendship and Conversation as the Soul of Learning 

Through ongoing conversation over years, the student is formed and matures while the teacher is renewed and refreshed by the learning of the student. 

Education is not merely an individual pursuit—it is a communal one. In the apprenticeship, friendship and conversation are not secondary to learning but central to it. Apprentices form lasting relationships with mentors and fellow teachers, discussing ideas late into the night, sharing meals, and learning from one another. Just as Socrates sought wisdom through dialogue, so apprentices come to see that teaching is not about delivering information but about engaging in a lifelong conversation.  

The CiRCE Institute’s Master Teacher Apprenticeship program is not only a training ground—it is a place of transformation and the full expression of classical teaching. It is where teachers are not just given tools but are shaped in body, soul, and mind to love virtue. Here, all ten principles of The Good Teacher take root within the haven of students and mentors as a fully integrated way of living and learning. To be an apprentice is to step into the very heart of classical education—not as a mere practitioner but as a lifelong student of wisdom and virtue. 

Carrie Eben is leading a new CiRCE Apprenticeship in the Ozarks. Learn more here.