October 1, 2025

Students reflect on the experience of awe at the character of Aslan in The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis.

Dear friends of Chesterton,

Earlier this month, I asked our seniors what their favorite part of the week had been. Seminar was the most popular answer. (Students have also mentioned bending glass in Chemistry, conversing in Latin, singing, and soccer as favorites.)

Each day at Chesterton, every student spends an hour in rigorous conversation together about a great work. This activity is central to a Chesterton education. In fact, several times over the course of the year, students are dismissed early so that the faculty can gather to do the same thing. Why is seminar so important?

As someone wise once said, "Nothing is more unbelievable than the answer to a question that is not asked." Practices like seminar help students to deepen their questions, to deepen the habit of wonder. Then, when the beauty of truth presents itself, it comes as the answer to a question that has been asked.

Patient attention to great works, thoughtful listening and speaking with one another, sincere questioning, and clear and logical debate and argumentation, all in the context of a community of friends seeking the truth: these are the habits that seminars form. In a world of distraction and soundbites, these habits lead to the growth in the wisdom and virtue expressed in our core community values, the Knight's Code.

I am grateful to be part of a faculty of friends and community of families that work together to foster wisdom, wonder, and virtue, so that we can raise up joyful leaders and saints who magnify Jesus Christ, the Truth in person, by their lives.

Rise up, Knights!

Gratefully yours in Christ,

Robert Duffy, PhD

Headmaster

Become a Chesterton Knight