The Critical Compass Podcast - What is the Great Books Program？ w⧸ John Serafini

00:00:00.000 I started, I think in 2007, when I was 14, I started the Great Books program online with

00:00:09.760 Steve and I guess Dr. James Taylor, who's now passed away. They were the moderators

00:00:16.320 for my cohort for almost, I guess it was four years with the program. Being in the program

00:00:23.320 for that time was of tremendous benefit to me. I often tell people that it was the best

00:00:28.500 part of the entirety of my education from elementary through post-secondary. Then I

00:00:35.260 went off to college, studied great books there as well. And like a Socratic dialogue method

00:00:40.540 in the honest program at Franciscan University of Steubenville. And just really had fallen

00:00:45.260 in love with these books and this method of education, discussing books with people. And

00:00:50.540 then came back up to Calgary, was doing different business things, and then found my way into

00:00:54.800 teaching again and then steve and i we reconnected uh kind of at that point and have kept up i've

00:01:01.920 been teaching with the program almost a decade now i think i knew that there was something really

00:01:06.800 valuable about the program from my long experience with it i wanted to be able to make it more human

00:01:12.560 in some ways although i had a great experience online i think that there's something really

00:01:16.240 unique about forming a community uh we're like embodied embedded persons being able to meet other

00:01:22.480 people uh in person to see facial expressions to be able to have these deep conversations

00:01:27.840 in person seemed to me just really valuable so i talked to steve and another gentleman pat carmack

00:01:33.440 with angelicum and they gave me the approval to go ahead with it and offer it here in calgary so

00:01:37.600 we're doing that for high schoolers and adults of different ages uh for interest in lifelong learning

00:01:43.040 so that's kind of the thing we got going up in september and john is this reading um in obviously

00:01:49.840 it's it will be different in the online versus the in in classroom programs but is this is there

00:01:55.040 like a group component to this or is this like personal reading time and then you're reflecting

00:01:59.040 maybe at the end of a week on yeah a great question yeah so uh the the reading is individual

00:02:05.680 and then like so for instance if we were going through the odyssey that they would read this

00:02:12.080 in our program over two weeks so we'd have two classes devoted so the first 12 and then the

00:02:17.200 the second 12 books. If my memory serves, it's 24, I think overall. They would do that

00:02:25.060 reading individually. We have a poem that they would read typically before the class,

00:02:32.160 but we read at the beginning of class as well. And then that's a two hour discussion. So

00:02:37.360 we're talking and basically our job as moderators is to help fuel the conversation with good

00:02:43.020 questions. And then over time, enable the students to carry on the conversation, especially over the

00:02:48.620 four years, more and more and more independently. So we're enabling them to really be the Socratic 0.59

00:02:56.060 questioners themselves. And that we're guiding, we're not doing a lecture, we're not teaching 0.87

00:03:01.660 the text. Our job is to ask questions of the students and of their thoughts and to challenge

00:03:10.060 their thoughts from a variety of angles and to help them think through these different things.

00:03:15.580 And then also to just encounter this in a community together. So in person, it's basically

00:03:21.020 the online version, but we're meeting up, which I think a lot of people are just very hungry for.

00:03:26.940 There's a deep thirst for real community. And this is one way on an intellectual level,

00:03:33.020 like you can have meals together and all these other things are all different ways to have

00:03:37.100 community but this kind of meeting of minds and talking through these books on such an extended

00:03:42.780 basis you get to know each other quite well and then you're able to have this shared reference

00:03:49.500 right this you're able to read these books syntopically you're able to read and discuss

00:03:53.900 not just a single text but it in reference to all the other texts that you've read in the program

00:03:58.300 and then talk about these large trends in history and then just you know what do different people

00:04:03.100 say about again whatever uh topic is being brought up that week uh with the question

00:04:08.860 that's engaged in and the discussion so that's kind of the way that it's structured

00:04:15.340 well i'll tell you the best thing about it the best part of this whole experience has been

00:04:21.340 seeing uh this appetite these the students when they get a taste

00:04:27.180 of what's true when they when they see it you know and it can happen well at any time during

00:04:37.180 a classroom but when they get a taste of it and they develop they develop an appetite a greater

00:04:42.980 curiosity a greater desire to know and to see that uh spark get lit or to see that spark ignite in

00:04:54.980 them, this, this desire.

00:04:58.080 And as they go through the program and they spend hours and hours and hours in

00:05:02.920 conversation about what they encounter in these works, the appetite grows.

00:05:09.720 It doesn't get, it doesn't get, uh, satisfied, so to speak.

00:05:16.040 Uh, the, the more they, uh, pursue this path of inquiry, um,

00:05:25.140 the greater is the satisfaction the greater is the love and so for me anyway personally that's

00:05:31.060 that's been the greatest thing to see that in these students and to come to know the students there

The Critical Compass Podcast - August 09, 2026

What is the Great Books Program？ w⧸ John Serafini

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