What it Means to Cultivate Minds and Hearts

“Our purpose is to cultivate the minds and hearts of students through the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.”

In classical education and specifically Great Hearts academies, we believe that words matter. In 2002, when our co-founders penned the Great Hearts statement of purpose, they took special care in each word used, knowing it would guide our academies for decades to come.

“This is not just a random mission statement on a wall,” shared co-founder Dan Scoggin. “We are deeply convicted by every word.”

The statement is unique for an educational institution, which gives the hearts of our student equal billing with their minds. But according to Scoggin, the unity of heart and mind was the original purpose of education and can be traced back to Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Augustine. “Our core purpose statement is distinctive only to the extent modern education has moved away from the age-old wisdom of the past to focus on lesser goals,” he said. “Great Heart goes well beyond just imparting skills to forming the whole person, our students, for life-long flourishing.”

Theodore Roosevelt said that “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” Scoggin added that, “Much more important that just imparting facts and knowledge, we aspire to form young men and women who unite clear thinking with moral purpose.”

Why the verb to cultivate? It’s an organic verb. Our educators are not computer programmers who work to download or to transmit data into scholars. They cultivate the hearts and minds of students because, as classical educators, they are closer to farmers. “We’re organic laborers,” explained Scoggin. “And what I mean by that is that we come alongside the innate potential of the young man or woman, their human nature. We water the soil. We encourage. We make sure that they have the right sunlight. We fertilize the area around them through a classical education so they can become their fullest and best selves.”

Scoggin harkened back to Mortimer Adler’s term of Socratic Midwives, where Adler illustrated how the teacher helps guide the process of discovery, but is ultimately secondary to the student’s active mental engagement. “It’s like the man or woman that comes alongside the laboring mother. That baby is coming. And that baby is going to be who he or she is meant to be. It’s the mother’s journey with their child, but we come in alongside that, nurture it, and coach, and encourage. And of course, Adler uses the word Socratic,” he explained. “It’s that dialogue that we have in the classroom from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. It looks different at each grade level and in each subject, but we coach, encourage, and cultivate. So that verb is chosen for a reason.”

The inclusion of the classical transcendentals of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are equally ancient and speak the purpose of the mind (knowing Truth), the purpose of our actions (living Goodness), and the unity of our perceptions and desires (seeking and seeing Beauty). “What is innovative or original about Great Hearts, in the present time, is that we believe the unity of heart and mind in pursuit of what transcends us is just as relevant today for our teachers and students as it was 2,500 years ago. To paraphrase Agustine, our work is “ever ancient and ever new.” This was the insight at our founding,” said Scoggin.

Notice that it does not say whose pursuit it is. At the very core of the pursuit is the student-teacher relationship that happens every day in a Great Hearts classroom. It is a shared journey that our educators and our scholars take together as life-long learners.

This timeless and thoughtful statement of purpose is truly the DNA of Great Hearts. “What is unique about Great Hearts is the insight that we can and must bring classical education, the wisdom of the ages, to as many families as we can today through bold action and unrelenting commitment to our core purpose,” added Scoggin.

Do you have a story or know of one that you would like to see featured at Great Hearts? Please contact jmoore@greatheartsamerica.org.

Submit a student application to a Great Hearts Academy by visiting: https://www.greatheartsamerica.org/enroll/.