Laura Berquist (’75) Discusses Catholic Homeschooling on “Anchored” Podcast

Classical Learning Test (CLT) founder Jeremy Tate recently hosted Thomas Aquinas College alumna Laura (Steichen ’75) Berquist, a member of CLT’s board and the founder of Mother of Divine Grace School, on his podcast, Anchored. Over the course of the 30-minute interview, the two discussed Catholic homeschooling, classical education, and Thomas Aquinas College.

Mr. Tate began the conversation with an inquiry into Mrs. Berquist’s early education and childhood, seeking the origin of her love of the classics. Mrs. Berquist attended Catholic schools from first grade through high school but found them only nominally faithful. The education she received was at most sufficient, but unsatisfactory. Moreover, through the indifferent instruction she received, she slowly turned away from faithful practices, such as attending Holy Mass.

“I was told that if you weren’t going to get anything out of going to Mass on Sunday, then you shouldn’t go,” she shared. “Nobody said to me, ‘You know what: God is the Creator, you are the creature, you owe Him worship. It doesn’t matter how you feel about it! This is something that you owe in justice.’” 

After this, Mrs. Berquist dutifully continued to attend Mass but recalled thinking to herself as she watched the congregation’s indifference to the Eucharistic Lord, “These people don’t think that’s God. If they thought this was God, they would act differently.” 

She was met with a surprise, however, when, in 1971, her parents took her to visit a nascent Catholic college, then in California’s Santa Monica Mountains. What she found astounded her. “There are a lot of things I’d like to say about TAC,” she said. “One of the first things was, when I got there, through God’s gracious providence, I was kneeling down at Mass. And I looked around at the consecration, and I said, ‘These people think that’s God!’”

Mrs. Berquist attended the College and became grounded in faith and truth. She discovered that using the best part of herself — the mind — to think about what was most important to her — God — was the best thing she could do. “Once I saw that, I knew that was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I just want to bring that particular good, which is a universal good, to everyone I know.” 

After graduation, she married Dr. Marcus Berquist, one of the College’s founders, and settled down to a life with her husband and six children. Seeking to avoid a repetition of the flawed education she received as a child, Mrs. Berquist homeschooled her children, creating her own curriculum to best suit their educational and spiritual growth.

Slowly but surely, she expanded that curriculum until she eventually wound up writing a book about her method of classical education. She went on to bring this approach to the world online and on paper, establishing the Mother of Divine Grace School in 1995. “Mother of Divine Grace is … a good program, and I think it’s a good beginning; but it’s only a beginning,” Mrs. Berquist explained on the podcast. “What we’re made for is to have this education about the most important things from the people who have articulated that the most clearly.”

Just as Thomas Aquinas College taught her to question and to answer, to listen and to read, Mrs. Berquist longed to bring these skills to others. “One of the things that I say to my consultants, the teachers,” she said, “is that I have a broad view of what classical education is. ... I think there are formation goals, but I’m telling you something: If a school will teach kids to read well and … also teach them to answer the question that is asked … then we’re doing an amazing job of educating those kids, because that’s not what they’re being taught elsewhere.”