Meet Our Chesterton Headmaster
A Chesterton Academy
I am excited and honored to join the Sioux Falls Catholic community as the new headmaster of St. Joseph Classical, a Chesterton Academy. Classical education played a substantial role in my own Catholic conversion almost a decade ago. I was a principal and teacher at an Evangelical classical school, and I was reading St. John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University to learn more about the liberal arts tradition. But as an angsty Anglican, I was also reading Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua because I was longing for something more. These trajectories converged when I was received into the Church in 2017, and now my life as a teacher cannot be understood apart from my Catholic faith. The classical tradition is our tradition, and we Catholics are waking up to seeing it as part of our Catholic birthright—which is what makes this new endeavor so exciting.
Education is not a subject, nor does it deal in subjects. It is instead a transfer of a way of life.
— G.K. ChestertonI would paraphrase Chesterton's dictum this way: Education is less a thing one receives and more a way of living. Disciple, in Greek, means learner, and the best things in life, like learning, are shared. I cannot wait to share this way of life with our students and families. It will be challenging but joyful, risky but ennobling—it will cost something, but we will receive more than we gave.
Like the poet Syme in Chesterton's novel, The Man Who Was Thursday, we will someday look back at the dangerous adventure called Christianity and thank God for calling us out of darkness to follow the light who is Christ. But he leads us not around but through the cross. All the "subjects" we learn serve to prepare our students for their calling in this great story. Our goal is always Heaven, but we get to Heaven through earth—and it turns out, as C.S. Lewis says, that Heaven comes to earth when we seek first his Kingdom.
Joining me in this endeavor is my wife, Tamara, of 21 years and our four kids: Della (8th grade), Macrina (7th), Benedict (4th), and Ambrose (2nd). We love to read, play games, camp, and hike. I am an amateur coffee roaster, and my idea of a good time when not with my family is reading a good book while drinking a pour over. I can't wait to meet you!
St. Joseph, pray for us!
In Christ,
