Life as a Great Hearts Teacher

We encourage you to review our booklet, A Passion for Teaching, for insight on the life of a Great Hearts teacher.

A Bold New Curriculum—3000 Years in the Making

At Great Hearts, we orient our work around essential principles which inform our efforts to educate students.

  • Teaching and learning presuppose that every student is uniquely capable of understanding the world, for it is ordered and knowable. We honor the dignity of our students by developing their abilities to explore the world with the tools of reason—namely questions, observations and conversations.
  • Teaching and learning integrate moral and rational development in a thoughtful, caring community, for human beings innately aspire to follow virtue and knowledge. Genuine education consists of cognitive, emotional and moral development—thinking deeply, loving noble things and living well together.
  • Teaching and learning build upon the understanding of the past to make sense of the present, for we are indebted to those great minds who have advanced our knowledge of the world. Our exploration of reality is informed by those remarkable men and women who have discovered physical phenomena, composed timeless works of art and discerned philosophical truth.
  • Teaching and learning demand hard work to develop students’ rational skills through a coherent program of study, so we require specific studies of the humanities, mathematics, science and the fine arts. Philosophers, mathematicians, scientists and artists all contribute to our exploration and understanding of the truth. Socrates and Euclid are joined by Faraday and Shakespeare in classrooms that encompass the best that has been thought and said.
  • Teaching and learning continue throughout a student’s lifetime, so we seek to inspire each child through the lasting influence of excellent teachers. Teachers lead students through intelligence, charisma, humor, moral integrity and example—in short, through love and friendship. Ultimately, our teachers strive to cultivate the minds and hearts of students in the wonder-filled pursuit of truth, beauty and goodness.