The Battle Hymn of the Refugee Teacher
The explosive growth of classical education is luring teachers from traditional district schools—and reminding them why they became teachers in the first place
The explosive growth of classical education is luring teachers from traditional district schools—and reminding them why they became teachers in the first place
The Battle Hymn of the Refugee Teacher
Education Next • Annika Hernandez
Something hopeful is happening beneath the headlines about teacher burnout: many educators are not giving up on teaching, but searching for schools where intellectual seriousness, moral formation, and love of learning still shape the work. This piece traces why classical education is becoming that refuge—and why its growth may signal not only a new home for teachers, but a deeper renewal in American education.
Classical Christian education in Africa is not a cultural import or a luxury reserved for the materially secure. It is a humane education that equips students to think, speak, serve, and flourish within their own communities.
John Laurie, a former top salesman, quit his lucrative sales career to become a teacher after finding unexpected fulfillment substitute teaching and discovering that true purpose comes from meaningful relationships rather than money or admiration.
Coby Dollof was a ninth-grade student trying to avoid the reading when a classical school teacher assigned him Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. There was no shortcut, no SparkNotes page, no easy way around the book. So he opened it and something opened in him. What began with Chesterton became a doorway into wonder, beauty, humility, and the great questions of life. Years later, standing before Michelangelo’s Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica, Coby found himself moved by something larger than he could explain. He was being drawn into a story bigger than his own. Now a writer and teacher at Pepperdine University, Coby helps students ask the questions that once found him: What is wisdom? What is virtue? Why do truth, goodness, and beauty matter? What is vocation? And what kind of life is worth living? This is a story about classical education as awakening. The kind of awakening that forms a person and helps them become fully alive.