The Christopher Perrin Show
Episodes
Episode 59: The Divided Soul and the Prodigal Pattern: Duty, Desire, and the Way Home
25 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
DescriptionChristopher Perrin welcomes author and speaker Heidi White to discuss her book The Divided Soul and the inner conflict so many people exper...
Episode 57: Remembering Well: Restoring History Through Sympathy, Story, and Place
25 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
DescriptionAndrew Zwerneman, writer and narrator for HISTORY250® and co-founder and president of Cana Academy, joins Christopher Perrin to argue that...
Episode 56: A Nice Definition of Classical Education: The Language, Metaphors, and Meaning Behind “Classical”
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
DescriptionChristopher Perrin explores why “classical education” is both widely used and widely misunderstood—and why the language we choose mat...
Episode 55: From Fragmentation to Fellowship: The Intellectual Renewal Behind Classical Education
14 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
DescriptionDavid Diener, Assistant Professor of Education at Hillsdale College and president of The Alcuin Fellowship, joins Christopher Perrin to ref...
Episode 54: The Festive School: Prayer, Feasts, and the Recovery of Wonder
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Father Nathan Carr, Headmaster of The Academy and often dubbed “the Jack Sparrow of classical education,” joins Christopher Perrin to recount his ...
Episode 53: Teaching Toward Truth as a Living Reality
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this reflective episode, Christopher Perrin interviewed Andrew Kern, his long-time colleague and friend, President and CEO of The CiRCE Institute, ...
Episode 52: Memory and the Music of Language: A Conversation with Grant Horner and Karen Moore
27 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this memorable episode of The Christopher Perrin Show, Christopher welcomes Dr. Grant Horner and Karen Moore—two veteran classical educators and ...
Episode 51: Common Humanity at the Crossroads: A Conversation with Dr. Angel Parham
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode of The Christopher Perrin Show, Christopher welcomes Dr. Angel Parham, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia an...
Episode 50: Sing to Learn: Recovering the Ancient Art of Musical Education
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin gives a foretaste from his forthcoming book with Carrie Eben, The Good Teacher, as he advocates for singing as a powerful ...
Episode 49: What Is Virtue? Recovering a Lost Vocabulary of Education
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Christopher Perrin draws upon his forthcoming book with Carrie Eben, The Good Teacher and invites listeners to reconsider the mea...
Episode 48: Embodied Learning: Cultivating Beauty in Classical Education
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Christopher Perrin explores the often-neglected role of beauty in classical education, emphasizing the importance of engaging all...
Episode 47: Balancing Rigor and Rest: A Classical Approach to Education
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Christopher Perrin explores the tension between rigor and rest in classical education, drawing on Aristotle’s concept of virtue...
Episode 46: The Good Teacher: Principles Over Techniques
25 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Great teaching isn’t about mastering techniques—it’s about embodying principles. In this episode, Dr. Christopher Perrin explores how classical ...
Episode 45: Going Home with Odysseus
28 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Christopher Perrin explores the profound theme of the hero's arduous journey home—as depicted in Homer's The Odyssey. He discusses ...
Episode 44: What We Can Learn from Odysseus, the Man of Many Twists and Turns: The Pros and Cons of Being Curious and Clever
10 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin who teaches the Odyssey to a college class every year, traces the life and quest of Odysseus noting the ways in which his ...
Episode 43: 20 Words You Must Know to Understand Education: What Education Really Is
12 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin notes the ways we have forgotten the meaning of words that related to education and revives the meaning of about 20 key wo...
Episode 42: Education as Hospitality and Healing
27 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin describes the way that Christian classical education must offer hospitality to students seeking an intellectual home and h...
Episode 41: Scholé over Schooling: Learning to be Mary in a Society of Martha
11 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin discusses the difficulty and the importance of keeping with classical learning throughout the entirety of a student's educ...
Episode 40: The Best Teacher is a Good Book
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Dr. Perrin considers this traditional maxim. Can authors and their books become meaningful teachers and even life-long friends? What i...
Episode 39: Education for the Next Life
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin traces that part of the Christian tradition of education that regarded education as a preparation not only for one's earth...
Episode 38: Repetition Is the Mother of Memory: The Permanent Learning of Petition
09 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin describes the pedagogical maximum of Repetitio Mater Memoriae, noting that repetition can be a delightful activity of se...
Episode 37: Multum non Multa: The Pedagogical Principle of Going Deep
26 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin describes the ways that teaching a few things deeply and well accelerates learning much better than by superficially cov...
Episode 36: Festina Lente (Make Haste Slowly): The Pedagogical Maxim of Mastering Each Step
12 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin retrieves and describes one of the most essential pedagogical principles every teacher should employ--the art of going far...
Episode 35: John Henry Newman and True Education
27 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What is an educated mind? Newman says the mature mind "discerns the end in every beginning, the origin in every end, the law in every interruption, th...
Episode 34: Cutting School: Why Classical Schools Fragment Education and Turn Learning into Subjects
22 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin laments the ways that classical schools, like progressives schools, regularly "cut up" the curriculum into too many discon...
Episode 33: Piling It On: Why Classical Schools Have Too Many Periods and Teach Too Many Subjects
12 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin explains the why classical schools still retain elements of their progressive counterparts and simply try to teach too muc...
Episode 32: Friendship and Community in Education (Featuring Davies Owens)
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Davies Owens (from Basecamp Live) and I co-host the podcast and talk about the ways friendship and fellowship should be at the heart ...
Episode 31: Powerful Education in the Great Tradition
31 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Christopher Perrin discusses how formative and powerful a great education can be. Tradition is formative but a great tradition is tran...
Episode 30: The Two Canons: The Biblical Books and the Great Books
17 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It took a long while to fix the canon of Scripture; it also takes a while to determine that a book is truly a Great Book. Dr. Perrin argues that the p...
Episode 29: The Virtue of Faith
03 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin continues to explore faith as a theological virtue.
Episode 28: The Theological Virtues
20 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin explores how theological virtues such as faith, hope, and love complement the four cardinal virtues.
Episode 27: The Cardinal Virtue of Justice
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Dr. Perrin describes justice as the virtue that enable us to act properly and fairly after having accurately perceived what is real, o...
Episode 26: The Classical Canon
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 25: The Virtue of Prudence (Part Two): False Prudence
08 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Dr. Perrin describes how prudence can become falsified so that we are not able to perceive what is truly real.
Episode 24: The Virtue of Prudence (Part One): True Prudence
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Dr. Perrin describes how prudence was the chief, governing virtues among the all of the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, tempe...
Episode 23: The Virtue of Fortitude in Teaching
11 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin continues exploring the virtue of fortitude and he discusses the fortitude that is necessary to be a teacher.
Episode 22: The Virtue of Fortitude in Classical Education
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin discusses the virtue of fortitude in classical education and how it relates to teaching.
Episode 21: The Importance of Shakespeare in Classical Education, Part II
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin continues his discussion with Tim McIntosh, a former professor at Gutenberg College and a current creative director, act...
Episode 20: The Importance of Shakespeare in Classical Education
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin talks with Tim McIntosh, a former professor at Gutenberg College and a current creative director, actor, and playwright. T...
Episode 19: The Importance of Temperance in Life and Education
23 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin describes the importance of temperance in everyday life and in education.
Episode 18: The Importance of Friendship in Life and Education
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin describes the importance of friendship in everyday life and in education.
Episode 17: Metaphors in Classical Education
19 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin describes how metaphors can be used to understand classical education.
Episode 16: Classical Education and Christian Nationalism
05 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin explores the meaning of Christian nationalism and how it relates to classical education.
Episode 15: Remembering Augustine as Historian, Philosopher, & Teacher
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin explores the many contributions Augustine made to the modern understanding of history, education, philosophy, and theology...
Episode 14: The Significance of Augustine and Kuyper in CCE
24 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin describes the ongoing importance and relevance of both Augustine and Kuyper in classical Christian education.
Episode 13: Recovering the Word "College" to Renew Classical Education
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin explores the meaning of the word, "college" and its role in classical education. What does a college curriculum look like ...
Episode 12: Recovering the Word "Education" to Renew Classical Education
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin explores the true meaning of the word, "education". What do we mean when we use it and how has this meaning changed over t...
Episode 11: Recovering the Word "Student" to Renew Classical Education
08 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin builds upon Episode 10 by exploring the etymologies and histories behind words that are commonly used in education today.
Episode 10: Recovering a Vocabulary for Classical Education
05 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin discusses words and their importance in education. What words do we use in traditional liberal education? How have we lost...
Episode 09: Starting a Classical College
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Perrin and Greg Wilbur of New College Franklin discuss the importance of the intersection between theology and classical educatio...
Episode 08: The Practice of Lamentation
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How have we, as a modern society, forgotten how to lament? What could lamentation do for us, on an individual level and as a whole?
Episode 07: The Resurgence of Classical Education Among African Americans
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What was the earliest classical school for African Americans and what effect did it have on the resurgence of the classical movement today?
Episode 06: What Does Jerusalem Have to Do With Athens?
30 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do we encounter the classical tradition? How do we engage with the sacred inheritance of great writings?
Episode 05: The Sacred Synthesis
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens? Can the Greek and Roman tradition of classical thought be harmonized with what is taught in the Old and Ne...
Episode 04: The Great Idea of the Liberal Arts
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What are the liberal arts? Why are they liberal? And why are they arts?
Episode 03: The Great Idea of the Great Conversation
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Conversation is a dance of ideas with at least one partner. Find out why.
Episode 02: The Great Idea of Virtue
30 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is it for which education should aim and seek? Virtue. Find out why.
Episode 01: The Great Idea of Wisdom
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this inaugural episode, Dr. Perrin make a case for wisdom being the chief aim of education. Sadly, few us can even define wisdom much less know how...