Day One is Off to a Great Start at the 2025 National Symposium for Classical Education

The opening day of the 2025 National Symposium for Classical Education had a strong start as almost 850 participants, consisting of educators, administrators, and parents gathered from across the country, with participants from as far away as Australia, to check in at the Mission Palms Hotel, this year’s site for the symposium. “Cultivating Wonder” is the theme for this annual event that serves as the flagship event for the Great Hearts Institute led by Director Carol McNamara. “Wonder is the foundational work of classical education,” noted McNamara.

Symposiasts arrived early this year for the addition of Wednesday Workshops. These “pre-conference” workshops offered a wide variety of topics, and many attendees took advantage of these offerings, with some workshops overflowing to standing room only. The new venue offered several outdoor lush garden and courtyard spaces for guests to meet new friends and reconnect with old ones.

The main event of the day was the evening session in the ballroom, where symposiasts all collectively gathered in one room for the first time at the symposium. The keynote session opened with a welcome from Great Hearts Chief Executive Officer Jay Heiler. “We want you to find fun, edification, and companionship. Three things that mark us out and join us together as human beings. And of course we want you to find them amid the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty – three more things that only humans can know and long for.” said Heiler to the crowd, who were filled with anticipation for the keynote speaker, Matthew B. Crawford.

Crawford delivered his speech, “Gratitude and the Modern Condition,” where he examined how the “technological attitude” affects our capacity for wonder, exploring how gratitude invites us to receive—rather than control—the world around us. Crawford is the author of Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road (HarperCollins, 2020); The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015); and Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work(Penguin, 2009), which has been translated into seven languages. It was the perfect way to launch our focus on this year’s theme of wonder.

The evening ended with a reception in the canopied courtyard, where attendees again had a chance to catch up with friends and colleagues, enjoy a live band, and engage great conversations around Crawford’s keynote.

The National Symposium for Classical Education will continue through the end of the week, and we will continue to bring you highlights from all three days, full of keynotes, workshops, panels, and presentations from more than 60 speakers, each experts in the field of wonder.

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