Hospitality, that thing by which we might entertain angels unawares, is not just a thing we do. Hospitality is an art, and to do it well is to open up physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual paths that can enable real growth, learning, and union. As an art, hospitality is more than just inviting neighbors over for dinner or offering a guest room for a night to visitors. Hospitality is a way of being that extends, or should extend, to everything we do.

In this pre-conference, Dr. Matthew Bianco will look at the art of hospitality: what it is, how we do it, and what are those paths that open up and allow for growth, learning, and union? Since the art of hospitality is most easily recognized in the sharing of a meal, we will look at hospitality through that lens and then consider what lessons and principles can be drawn from the shared meal and brought into the classroom, the church, and all aspects of life.

School formation is at its core a creative and artful act. The Christian Classical Renewal is not merely a movement of our time but a timeless return to the permanent things, like goodness, beauty, and truth always necessary for the nurturing of wise and virtuous souls.  We are surrounded by assumptions within the spheres of community, governance, curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment that, when unexamined and practiced, lead inevitably to what C.S Lewis calls the “abolition of man.” Successful educational enterprises must navigate from within the humane tradition in a manner that creates a harmony between the local community, the Christian tradition, and the age.  This challenge cannot be “solved” by either a stubborn adherence to some past age or by conforming to current convention.

In this pre-conference, Jonathan Councell will present some of the fruit and learnings from the decades of teaching and research of the CiRCE Institute on school formation: what should be prioritized, what are supporting materials and organizations that can aid a start-up school, homeschool, or co-op, and what are the ways in which a community can undergird, protect, and sustain real education? Much of current thought on school formation comes from sources that are derived from neither a classically humane or Christian tradition. We will be considering the practical and normative commitments necessary to consciously work against the broad movement towards a world of post-humanity.

Join Andrew Kern for this day-long discussion of his new book, tentatively titled One Art to Rule Them All: The Foundations of  a Logos-Centered Education (and Life).

In this celebration, Andrew presents the core ideas developed in the book and welcomes discussion and feedback. He shows how the form of the temple governs the creation, how the Logos manifests itself in the cosmos and the mind of God’s image, how to build a curriculum and how to teach in light of these truths, and much more.

30 years in the making, this book promises to be definitive and seminal.

In this year’s Latin workshop, attendees will work through five sessions on the reading and teaching of Aesop’s Fables as translated by Phaedrus. Each session will introduce a new set of fables and apply a different mode for reading, understanding, and teaching the text. In the final session, participants will have an opportunity to fabulam agere, perform a skit of a selected fable Latine! While instruction will be in Latin, participants may use either Latin or English. Selected fables and instruction will be taught at a beginner/intermediate level (A2-B1 fluency), though all are welcome.