Passing On the Sources of Human Wisdom

To the extent we’re successful, it’s because we very consciously hold a tradition of wisdom up to ourselves as the thing we’re trying to give the students.

Institute of Philosophic Studies doctoral candidate Jenny Fast, MA ’14, switched from district-run public to private classical school in seventh grade, and thereby stumbled into a new world. She and her husband, Francis Fast, MA ’13, both received their bachelor’s degrees from Thomas Aquinas College in California, where they studied under a few people who helped lead them toward UD for graduate studies, including Professor of Humanities and Graduate Director of Classical Education Jeff Lehman, MA ’99 PhD ’02, and Associate Professor of Philosophy Matthew Walz, Ph.D., MBA ’19.

“UD prepares you for a certain kind of life as an educator,” explained Jenny Fast. “I was happy to find the university because I had wanted to give back to the kind of education I’d received, and those professors recommended UD because of the habits of the intellectual life it seeks to instill in you and the way in which it positions you to extend that life to others.”

Francis Fast, now the assistant headmaster at Founders Classical Academy of Lewisville, has worked in administrative positions at Great Hearts Academies as well, including supervising Great Hearts teachers in UD’s classical education program, working closely with Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts Associate Dean and Assistant Professor of Humanities Matt Post, PhD ’15, and with Lehman. He has also taught at Founders, as has Jenny.

“We’re grateful for the ways the University of Dallas has prepared us to serve in the world of liberal education, both in K-12 and in higher education,” said Jenny, who teaches as an adjunct at UD as she works to finish her dissertation here, striving at the same time to establish her career in the world as a whole — indeed, to get a feel for the world as a whole. When the Fasts first moved to Texas in 2010 to enter UD’s Ph.D. program, there were no public charter classical schools in North Texas and very few in the country. When Founders, the first Barney Charter School in the nation, opened in Lewisville in 2012, an email, looking for teachers, went out to all Braniff students. Jenny interviewed and was surprised by the scope of the organization, since her classical education experience had been at a small school. Founders started out with around 400 students at the Lewisville location and quickly grew to full capacity at just under 1,000 students.

“Initially, I was just looking to replace the online teaching I’d been doing to support myself,” said Jenny. “But in starting at Founders, we found ourselves caught up in a much bigger project.

“Becoming involved in classical charter school education has given me the opportunity to build a much broader community than graduate school often gives you — I’ve worked with people from elementary to the graduate level,” she added. “Even at schools across the country, there’s this recognition of common texts, connections, pursuits — I know it’s helped me to have a richer, more connected life than I would've had otherwise.”

“It’s also about passing on a vision of what it means to be human and ensuring that some of the greatest works of literature, philosophy and mathematics are actually part of the experience of people on the street,” explained Francis.

All students who go through a classical ed curriculum, for example, have read the Iliad and Paradise Lost, which typically are not at the heart of public school culture in the way they tend to be in a classical school.

“There’s something very different, very exciting and refreshing about being part of a movement where you have thousands of colleagues teaching thousands of kids the same texts,” said Francis.

In Arizona, there are now over 20 Great Hearts schools, and driving around, Francis says that you frequently see Great Hearts bumper stickers.

“Every time you see one, it means you’re driving next to someone who has read or is going to read the Iliad,” he said. “The same thing is happening now in North Texas with the Founders schools — there’s a whole network of families reading the same curriculum. There’s a sense of trying to build up a common civic life, where otherwise people might have no common interests or experiences.

“I also want to mention the vitality of the movement,” added Francis. “With a lot of grad students, there’s anxiety about their career; in higher ed, for every job, there will be many applicants, and you’re trying to find that one spot compatible with what you have to offer. Classical ed, though, is not a contracting field — it’s exploding. It’s offering something that parents are very hungry for. Being in classical ed is being part of an ever-expanding community pulling more and more people in. There’s vibrancy and growth, and teachers are in high demand.”

The Fasts also pointed out that UD prepares these teachers in exactly the way not only suited for classical charter schools, but district public schools as well.

“From a hiring standpoint, UD’s Core and the broad, cross-disciplinary curricular formation is perfect for a teacher and exactly what people need to be prepared to teach,” said Francis. “One thing all schools look for in their teachers is the ability to make links in a cross-disciplinary way. Kids need that, but teachers can’t provide it if they don’t have deep knowledge outside of one discipline."

“Ultimately, we want to see wise and fulfilled students,” added Jenny. “The goal is to create people of all walks of life who have a strong sense of what it means to be human and all the ways you CAN be human, and be able to enter into conversation with anyone they meet. The goal of classical education isn’t a goal that ends in schools.”

“To the extent we’re successful, it’s because we very consciously hold a tradition of wisdom up to ourselves as the thing we’re trying to give the students,” concluded Francis. “We want to take the wisdom of the ages and pass it on to them. This means asking: What wisdom do students need to have access to? There’s a lot of conviction behind this initiative — that educational renewal is not simply about trying to tweak teacher training or tweak curriculum, but about having wisdom to pass on. We’re trying to find the sources of human wisdom that students need and pass these on to them.”