A Day at Immaculata Academy 

by Dr. Andrew Seeley, President

When I was asked to give a talk at Immaculata Classical Academy in Louisville, I decided to arrive the evening before so that I could spend the day visiting the school. I always like to know my audience, but even more I love visiting schools that are devoted to educating their students in the true, the good, and the beautiful. It is always a joyful and encouraging experience, one that leaves me with hope, though also with sadness, knowing that so few students and teachers have similar experiences. More particularly, I had heard of Immaculata’s commitment to accepting whole families, including the children who suffer from disabilities of various kinds. A brief survey of their website told me that they had a clear and developed understanding of what they mean by “classical education”. I was impressed by a video interview with Jerry Salyer, one of their Humanities teachers, discussing the importance of great literature.  

My day began unofficially with early Mass in the parish church of Saint Leonard, whose campus has been given over to the use of Immaculata. This is a great sign that a healthy relationship exists between Immaculata and the Archdiocese, even though Immaculata was founded as an independent Catholic school.

After early Mass, I spoke with a teacher who was welcoming students and parents. I learned that she had been with the school for many years, and that lately she had stepped into the role of one of the three resource teachers who helps with special needs children. She told me that the school was at capacity with over 200 students, and had a waiting list. Everything I saw as the school began its day gave off an air of stability, calm, peace, joyful order. In the renewal of education, these are precious gifts, only achieved after a significant period of dedicated, thoughtful leadership that has no doubt weathered many storms. 

My day officially began with a meeting with the leadership team. They impressed me with their spirit of collaboration, their confidence in what they are achieving, their humble desire to continue pursuing excellence by learning from all sources, and their energetic efforts to share what they have with others through publishing, a content rich YouTube channel (with an impressive array of speakers), a periodical, and even a hymnal in the works. This spirit explains why they have been able to attract and retain that most essential commodity – committed and talented teachers. 

Justin Fout, the principal, began my tour of the campus with “Kolbe’s List”, a bulletin board filled with pictures of Down Syndrome children who have been adopted through the work of Angels in Disguise, founded by Michael and Penny Michalak, who also founded Immaculata. The school prays regularly for this ministry. During my visit, I noticed how well the special needs students were seamlessly integrated into the classes. The teachers were excellent with them.  

After the tour, I first visited the first graders’ music class. The school devotes half an hour a day for music training at every grade level. They use the Ward Method, an approach to choral music training based on the time-tested practices of teaching Gregorian chant. I had seen some of the fruits of the method, but this was my first opportunity to witness it in action. Only a month into school, and the first graders already knew their solfege syllables and hand signs and were able to sing scales, with some interval jumps, and were becoming facile with timing. They were able to repeat and adapt the musical sequences the teacher sang to them. They all seemed to enjoy the exercises, and obviously enjoyed the fun songs that their hard work had earned them. 

The next class was also a rare treat for me – 9th and 10th graders being taught Latin through Orberg’s Lingua Latina texts. The teacher, Jared Meyer, had the text projected onto the board: a Latin account of the Roman army building trenches for their encampment, followed by an amusing story about an innkeeper who was locked outside of his inn in the rain. The teacher talked in Latin almost the entire period, discussing the stories, elaborating on them, and asking questions of the students, many of whom answered in Latin themselves. Sometimes he would shift into English to explain more complicated grammar, but for the most part he even explained grammatical points in Latin. The students were attentive and engaged throughout. I later discovered that Jared had developed his skills through classes with Christopher Owens, one of our Boethius Fellows and an instructor with the Veterum Sapientia Institute.

Next up was another treat. The 5th grade class was about to engage in their first Socratic discussion. I was very intrigued to see how such young students handled this; I wasn’t sure what to expect. They were going to discuss The Door in the Wall. The teacher had their desks organized in circles with an inner and an outer ring. She first instructed the outer ring on their silent role. Each student was assigned a partner in the inner ring to observe. They had to mark on a sheet (developed by another Immaculata teacher), when their partners spoke, what kind of intervention it was, whether they spoke directly to another student, and whether they addressed what had been said before. 

The teacher began the discussion by writing a question on the board: “What had enabled Robin, the young hero of the story, to make the heroic decision that saved the castle?” She then gave a palm branch to the first student that raised his hand. The palm went around the room as the students took turns offering generally insightful answers to the question, bringing in much of the story as evidence. From time to time, the teacher would have the student with the palm invite one who had not yet spoken into the conversation. A little more than midway through the class time, the teacher had the inner and outer rings switch, with the new group taking up where the conversation had left off. 

Next up was a visit to Freshman Humanities. The class was led by a Marine corps veteran, who began teaching for the first time this year.  His class had been working on the story of The Iliad and, as a rhetorical exercise, they had collaborated on drafting a play about the wedding of Peleus and Thetis and the Apple of Discord. I got to enjoy their first run-through. It was so clever! The kind of clever which only comes from a real understanding of the story and that wonderful development of the sense of humor which I associate with classical education.

My last class led me outside, which made me glad – the day was beautiful and I had been tempted all morning to say (as my SoCal students used to say regularly), “Let’s have class outside.” The Senior class, consisting of six students, were acting out a few scenes from the latter part of Macbeth. They expressed disappointment that we had not seen their rendition of the witches in Act IV, but we did enjoy the scene in which Macbeth determines to kill MacDuff’s family and the zest the students put into the witty yet pitiful interchange between the young son and his mother before they are killed. The teacher helped them find inspiration, understanding, and delight in the work, and the experience confirmed me in the view that Shakespeare must be acted out in order to be understood. 

The theme of my talk that evening was hope, the theological hope that I have found incredibly strengthened by my work in the education renewal movement. I had anticipated that my visit would play into my theme, but I had not imagined how perfectly. I have now been singing the praises of Immaculata as I have traveled around the country. I hope they are inundated with visitors!