Anchored by the Classic Learning Test

On this episode of Anchored, Jeremy and Arooba are joined by Hamza Yusuf, president of the first accredited Muslim undergraduate college in the United States. Growing up with parents who loved truth and knowledge, Hamza Yusuf describes his childhood as multifaceted. He explains that much of his education occurred outside of school with his father, who studied the humanities and worked as a college professor. When Hamza was 17 years old, a head-on collision prompted him to investigate life after death, ultimately leading to his conversion from Irish Catholicism to Islam. Hamza discusses the relationship between the liberal arts and Islam, the troubles of modern ideologies influencing Islamic education, and the decline of western civilization caused by forgetting its secret sauce...classical education.

Note: This is Part 2 of an episode co-release detailing responses to the #DisruptTexts movement which caught national attention. Meghan Cox Gurdon is an author and weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal, where she writes on children's books. Her recent op-ed in the WSJ, entitled "Even Homer Gets Mobbed," outlined efforts by the group #DisruptTexts to have works of the Western Canon removed from school curricula (the movement's official statement: #DisruptTexts is a crowdsourced, grass roots effort by teachers for teachers to challenge the traditional canon in order to create a more inclusive, representative, and equitable language arts curriculum that our students deserve. It is part of our mission to aid and develop teachers committed to anti-racist/anti-bias teaching pedagogy and practices). In this episode, Meghan joins Jeremy to discuss not only the impetus for writing this article, but also the overwhelming response that she received in response, as well as the larger movement of critical theory within our institutions. While discussing the laudable efforts toward more representative literature for children, she describes the results of misguided efforts to declare texts not reflective of modern sensibilities as "dangerous" and "harmful." She also discusses her book The Enchanted Hour, which examines the social, mental, and physiological benefits of reading aloud. Send questions or comments to [email protected].
Host Jeremy Tate @JeremyTate41
Guest Meghan Cox Gurdon
Even Homer Gets Mobbed
#DisruptTexts
The Enchanted Hour

On this episode of Anchored, Jeremy is joined by his daughter, Grace Tate, and Tamara Long, Vice President for Enrollment Management at Abilene Christian University. Tamara and Grace discuss Abilene's summer program in England, sharing their perspectives on the trip and what they learned about English history and culture. Tamara emphasizes that Abilene Christian University's goal is to maintain a strong Christian identity that pervades and fuels its rigorous academics.

On this episode of Anchored, Soren is joined by Jamie Burns and Hin-Tai Ting, co-founders of the Fellowship for Classical Learning and educators setting up classical schools across the UK. They discuss the current state of education in the UK and the troublesome separation of value-conversations from classroom-conversations. They dive into their own journeys to believing in the importance of a classical Christian education from both an intellectual and personal perspective. They conclude by talking about some of the roadblocks to classical education in the UK and why they are motivated to overcome them.

St. Anselm’s, School co-founded by Jamie Burns: https://www.stanselmscardiff.co.uk/

The Fountain Christian School, of which Hin Tai Ting is the founding headmaster: https://www.thefountainschool.london/

On this episode of Anchored, Jeremy is joined by Dr. Derek Halvorson, President of Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, GA. President Halvorson shares about his educational journey, including his motivations for attending Covenant College as an undergraduate despite receiving lucrative scholarship offers to study elsewhere. He discusses the Reformed Christian identity that is central to Covenant College, detailing the ways this identity influences the College’s view of the liberal arts and its core curriculum. He also discusses the Summer Institute at Covenant College, a one-week, residential program for motivated high school students.