High School Students Sing Praise of TAC Alumni Teachers

Anchored, the official podcast of the Classical Learning Test, recently featured an episode in which CEO Jeremy Tate interviewed six of the test’s highest-scoring takers. During the discussion, Mr. Tate asked the students to name the teachers who have had the most profound influence on their lives, and two of the young scholars named Thomas Aquinas College alumni.

“One of my teachers was actually a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College, Giorgio Navarini (’17), and he taught me civics and Latin my sophomore year,” says Cordelia, who recently graduated from St. Therese Classical Academy in Santa Barbara and will be a freshman on the California campus this fall. “And I really loved his classes because he implemented the whole Socratic seminar style that he learned at TAC into our classroom. And so we had discussions, we talked to each other. It wasn’t the lecture-style. And that was one of the first in-class methods of the Socratic seminar method style that I had experienced.”

Next, Ava — who will be participating in this summer’s High School Great Books Program — named Dr. Kathleen Sullivan (’06), who taught her at Chelsea Academy in Front Royal, Virginia. “I think that one of my favorite teachers all time was Dr. Sullivan; she teaches at Christendom now,” said Ava. “She taught my ninth grade English class. The way she taught, it was a lot of discussion, which I loved, and a ton of reading. And the way that she taught made all the themes and stuff that we were talking about super-accessible. I think that that’s when I really started engaging in class and discussions more, because before then I didn’t really like to talk in class. But it made my entire high school experience more fruitful because I was able to participate more. And she was always super-enthusiastic about everything, and that made me just love reading and the whole entire experience so much better.”

Thanks be to God for TAC alumni teachers!