What if the books we read aloud, the walks we take, and the names we learn for the world around us are not small extras, but central ways of forming a life? In this episode of Composed, Christine Perrin speaks with Jesse Hake, Director of ClassicalU at Classical Academic Press, about reading as a family practice, literature as a companion in moral formation, and the quiet power of naming the places we inhabit. Their conversation moves from The Lord of the Rings and Dickens to creek stomping, wildflowers, classroom liturgies, and the simple discipline of calling one’s father. For parents and teachers seeking humane, practical ways to cultivate wisdom, attention, and delight, this episode offers a hopeful vision of education as shared life.

Jesse reminds us that classical education is not merely a curriculum or a set of ideas. It is a way of receiving the world with love and giving that love to others through conversation, memory, making, and place. Reading aloud, walking attentively, and creating beautiful things together become patterns that nourish families, classrooms, and communities.

About the Guest
Jesse Hake is director for the ClassicalU parent and teacher training platform at Classical Academic Press, where he has served since 2019. Before that, he was Principal for seven years at Logos Academy, a classical Christian school in downtown York, PA. Jesse holds a BA in history from Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and a Master of Letters in history from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He has taught history, literature and theology at middle school, high school and college levels and currently teaches as an adjunct professor in the Messiah University honors program. He enjoys writing as well, with articles in The Christian Century, Front Porch Republic and his own essay newsletter at Copious Flowers. He lives with his wife and three children in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Guest Links
ClassicalU | https://classicalu.com/
Copious Flowers | https://copiousflowers.substack.com/
ClassicalU on Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/classicalupage
ClassicalU on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/classicalu/

Connect with the Humanitas Institute
Humanitas Institute | https://humanitasinstitute.org
X | https://x.com/HIClassicalEd
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/
TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070
YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute

What if learning to see another person clearly is one of the first steps toward wisdom? In this episode of Composed, Christine Perrin speaks with portrait painter Catherine Prescott about attention, beauty, vocation, and the dignity of the human person. Catherine’s life and work invite us into one of the central hopes of classical Christian education, to recover a way of seeing the world that is truthful, humane, and alive to goodness. Through stories of childhood, artistic formation, resistance to abstraction, conversion, motherhood, and the long labor of portrait painting, this conversation reminds parents, teachers, and students that education is not merely the transfer of information. It is the formation of vision, desire, patience, and love.

Catherine reflects on the mystery of interior life, the discipline of looking without reducing or invading, and the way darkness, honestly faced, can make us reach for the light. Her story offers a deeply human picture of what it means to compose a life around beauty, truth, family, work, and faith.

About the Guest
Catherine Prescott is a painter known for her expressive portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. Her work has been exhibited nationally, including twice in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, which also holds one of her paintings in its permanent collection. In 2018, she completed the official portrait of Governor Tom Corbett for the Pennsylvania State Capitol. Catherine has exhibited widely in museums and galleries and has received numerous honors from organizations such as the Portrait Society of America and the Salmagundi Club. She taught painting and drawing at Messiah College for twenty years and continues to teach in Gordon College’s Orvieto, Italy program. She lives and works in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

Guest Links:
Catherine Prescott Paintings | https://www.prescottpaintings.com/
Catherine Prescott Bio | https://www.prescottpaintings.com/bio

Connect with the Humanitas Institute:
Humanitas Institute | https://humanitasinstitute.org
X | https://x.com/HIClassicalEd
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/
TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070
YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute

What does the body reveal about vocation and our search for communion? In this episode of Composed, Christine Perrin speaks with Alicia Coyle about Theology of the Body, motherhood, feminine formation, chastity, education, and the slow work of composing a life around gift rather than competition. Their conversation moves from John Paul II and Edith Stein to Little Women, Aristotle, Mary at Cana, and the daily patterns of homeschooling, prayer, reading, and family life. For parents seeking a wiser way through cultural confusion, Alicia offers a thoughtful vision of embodiment as something neither limiting nor abstract, but deeply human, practical, and full of invitation.

Together, Christine and Alicia consider how ideas become incarnate through teachers, friendships, families, and habits. They ask what it means to see the body as meaningful, how women and men can offer distinct gifts without rivalry, and why formation begins not with rules alone, but with anthropology, wonder, and the truth of the person made in the image of God.

About the Guest
Alicia Coyle is a wife and a mother of four young girls. She currently homeschools. She did her undergraduate in philosophy and theology at the Templeton Honors College, and especially enjoyed thinking about Theology of the Body and the many related topics. She has taught in the classical education world and received her Masters in Theology from the Augustine Institute.

Connect with the Humanitas Institute
Humanitas Institute | https://humanitasinstitute.org
X | https://x.com/HIClassicalEd
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/
TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070
YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute