The underclassmen students at Mandan Classical began the Odyssey last week in English class. Regardless of when Hollywood releases a film about it, students in Chesterton academies across the nation read this epic poem, and others, as freshmen every year. As our students prepare for the launch of the Chesterton Academy of Mandan in the Fall of 2027, we are reading these great books too. The Odyssey tells the story of a man trying to get back home and a young man, his son, trying to get things in order for his father’s potential arrival and make a name for himself in the process. Our students in the middle school cohort at Mandan Classical Academy, after reading the ancient Greek myths, understand the origin stories of the gods that challenge Odysseus, the ones that keep him from Ithaca, and the ones that guide him and his son forward on their quests. Our upper classmen are reading the stories of a different people, those in the British Isles, with similar themes. Beowulf is another prince who journeys to achieve glory and honor.
Our young students could not be reading these epic poems and stories at a better time. A journey through middle and high school is a journey in pursuit of glory and "setting in order of the house". There may not be dragons or Cyclops threatening our students, but there are certainly monsters to battle and dangers to avoid. The glory may not be the fame of an epic poem, but being accepted to the university of your choice, starting the first job that will grow into a career, or discerning the next step in a vocation are all ways that young people enter the adult world with a mind to do it well. G.K. Chesterton wrote that “the most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children”. If we do the little things on the journey well, including that seemingly small act of not stopping - refusing to give up when the going gets tough - we may very well end up on the other side of a grand adventure when all is said and done. Ultimately, through seminars and conversation, we hope our students enjoy the epic poems they read and understand that their story is epic too.
