The Examining Life

How can teachers and schools adapt to classical education? Is the method really suited to students of all ages and abilities? In this episode, Susan Wallace, veteran teacher, discusses with Dr. Seeley how she and her school have grown while transitioning to classical education, and examine a talk given by the late Pope Benedict XVI, which inspired their school’s motto, Quaerere Deum.

How do we understand and teach Shakespeare? In this episode, John Turrentine, teacher at St. Augustine Academy, joins Dr. Seeley to analyze Juliet’s speech in the famous balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet. They discuss ways to introduce Shakespeare to young children and describe their Shakespeare workshop at an elementary school.

Why do we study history? How do ancient and modern historians approach the study? In this episode, Dr. Andrew J. Zwerneman, president and founder of Cana Academy, joins Dr. Seeley to learn from the thoughts of Thucydides and Herodotus. They reveal differences between these historians and compare classical and modern ideas of history.

What happens to the hero when the story is over? How can we understand the great heroes of literature? In this episode, Lisa Van Damme and Kyle Steele of Van Damme Academy join Dr. Andrew Seeley to discuss Tennyson's Ulysses. This poem becomes the starting point for a larger conversation about reading literature today.

What does it mean to be wise? Why don't we talk about wisdom any more? In this episode, Dr. John Boyle of the University of St. Thomas joins Dr. Andrew Seeley to discuss Aquinas' The Office of the Wise Man from the beginning of the Summa Contra Gentiles. They also consider St. Thomas More as an example of the wise man.

What role should mathematics play in a liberal education? Is it merely practical, or is it more fundamental to the formation of the human person? Join Drs. Andrew Seeley and Jeffrey S. Lehman this week as they discuss mathematics--and the quadrivium more generally--through the lens of Plato's Republic. 

This week, Drs. Andrew Seeley and Jeffrey Lehman are joined by Dr. Matthew Walz, the chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Dallas and a longtime colleague and friend of the Doctors. Join them as they discuss Anselm's Proslogion, the relation of our intellectual study with our search for God, and how these play out in the classroom. 

This week, Drs. Andrew Seeley and Jeffrey Lehman consider logic through the lens of Aquinas and Aristotle. What is opinion? How does it relate to truth? How do these logical categories apply to our social lives?

How do we become happy? And how can Aristotle help us in that pursuit? This week, Drs. Andrew Seeley and Jeffrey Lehman discuss Aristotle's presentation of the emotions in his Nicomachean Ethics, as well as how that relates to Shakespeare's Macbeth, to virtue, and to Aquinas' later presentation of the emotions.

This week on the Examining Life podcast, join Drs. Jeffery Lehman and Andrew Seeley as they discuss the "Meno" of Plato. Is Socrates a disingenuous teacher, or is there more to his method?

How can we raise a generation of students capable of defending themselves from contemporary sophistry--in the media, in schools, in politics? Join Drs. Andrew Seeley and Jeffrey Lehman as they discuss Dorothy Sayers' still-timely essay, "The Lost Tools of Learning" and its impact on the revival of classical learning and liberal arts education.

How ought we think of the fine arts, especially in the context of the Liberal Education Tradition? This week on the Examining Life Podcast, Drs. Jeffrey Lehman and Andrew Seeley discuss Raphael’s famous School of Athens and its implications for education.

This week on the Examining Life podcast, join Drs. Jeffrey Lehman and Andrew Seeley as they consider the role of Wisdom in the examining life. Can one really attain Wisdom, and if so, how?

“Why?” This simple yet eminently profound word has been the starting point of some of the greatest dialogues in human history. No matter one’s age, there is something so fundamentally human in examining ourselves and the world around us that Socrates famously argues, “the unexamining life is not worth living.” Join Drs. Jeffrey Lehman and Andrew Seeley this week as they delve into this question and more.