“ON Classical Education” Celebrates First Year of Publications

On September 16^th, 2025, Great Hearts Institute launched ON Classical Education on the Substack platform with the simple goal of creating a place for serious conversation about classical education, its purposes, its practices, its inheritance, and its future. And now, 12 months later, that conversation is still growing.

Great Hearts Institute is the think tank of Great Hearts Academies. According to Director Carol McNamara, the Institute advances the pursuit of knowledge and excellence in K-12 education through research, collaboration, publications, and professional formation. Through this important work, they equip educators to foster in young people the capacity to seek wisdom, discern what is good, and delight in and create what is beautiful.

“Our goal at ON Classical Education is to publish essays that draw the classical community into the important conversation about how to reorient K-12 education towards the serious exchange of ideas across a curriculum of literature, math, history, philosophy, the arts and sciences that always aims to form thoughtful students who contribute to the best future for human beings,” shared McNamara. “We invite classical educators from every corner of the community to subscribe and join the conversation.”

And across its first year, ON Classical Education has done just that by bringing together teachers, school leaders, scholars, writers, scholars, and practitioners to examine the questions and ideas that animate classical education from the deeply practical to the philosophical.

A new section has been added to the recent anniversary issue called the Empeiria File. According to the Great Hearts Chief of Staff and inaugural contributor to the new section, Helen Baxendale, the objective of the Empeiria File is to collect, curate, and promote empirical research relevant to classical education. “The file will provide a venue for consideration of how empirical research can elevate our capacity to evaluate the effectiveness of the means we use to pursue the ends of classical education.”

The Great Hearts institute invites readers from every corner of the classical education community to join them for year two at ON Classical Education, to subscribe, submit articles for consideration, and join the conversation.

This work of the Institute is done through their annual flagship event, The Great Hearts National Symposium for Classical Education on February 24-26, 2027, at the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel in Tempe, Ariz., and now through this collection of thoughtful essays and informative articles written by premier experts and specialists in the field.

REGISTER FOR 2027 SYMPOSIUM

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