by Jean Guerreiro, Fellow
After High School in 2017, I received an invitation to apply to a six month program in Porto Alegre, Brazil, called ‘Intensive Program of Liberal Arts’ through my literature teacher in the local public school that I attended. I had never heard of liberal arts, but I saw that the Institute had multiple online courses on the Liberal Arts, and thousands of students around the nation. These students were all enrolled there not for professional training, resume building, or even for a diploma to get a job. They were studying Latin, Greek, literature, logic, among other subjects. I was surprised to realize that Instituto Hugo de São Vitor was not the only institution working towards the promotion of an educational renewal, a coming back to the classics, in Brazil. They were a part of a greater movement for the restoration of the pursuit of truth.
As I was born in a small town in Brazil and went to a public school all my life, classical education was not in the radar for me or my family. Reading wasn’t a habit of mine, nor did I see why it would be. Little did I know that I would fall in love with classical education so deeply, that helping to restore education here has been in the forefront of my mind ever since.
I did go to Porto Alegre and lived there for six months, studying Latin, Greek, logic, and literature. It was like a rebirth to me. I didn’t have an appreciation for the higher things of culture such as music, literature, and art, and also was in complete oblivion of the fact that learning could be for its own sake. I loved it thoroughly and there was no coming back after such an experience. In 2018, I went to Thomas Aquinas College in its California campus, and was a member of the first graduating class of the New England campus, which opened its doors in 2019.
My experience at Thomas Aquinas College was so rich that I could not help but try to share that with my fellow countrymen. During the summer between my sophomore and junior year, I tried to recruit students from Brazil to come to TAC, as I saw that this experience was very far from anything that anyone could achieve in Brazil. Thanks be to God, there were five students who got accepted to the College and were set to come that fall. An idea, then, came to my mind and I started co-teaching and co-organizing a program with another Brazilian student from the California campus to help these students, and others, to prepare for Thomas Aquinas College. That is when I started teaching online courses on the Great Books using the Socratic method.
After my graduation in 2022, more and more students were seeking to pursue independent studies reading the Great Books with me. What was even more surprising: the students who started coming were not only the ones who were preparing to come to TAC, they were engineers, college professors, teachers, lawyers, among others. I have been teaching online and in person programs on the great books, attempting to give a taste of what I received at TAC with Aristotelian logic, Euclid, literature, natural science, amongst other programs. The students are grateful and only want to get more and more, and that is rewarding.
But, teaching was not my primary occupation after graduation. I began working for the office of admissions on the New England campus of TAC, and was able to travel through many different states visiting many great Catholic schools, such as the Lyceum, Immaculata Classical Academy, Chesterton Academies, Gregory the Great Academy, amongst many others. These schools would allow me to speak to all of their students about liberal education, and why it was a natural follow up to the classical education they were receiving. Besides these trips, I got to know and speak to many fellow Brazilians who wanted to take their educations to the next level and make the jump to attempt to come to the U.S. and attend TAC. The experience of working in admissions only increased my love of Thomas Aquinas College, and its view of Catholic Liberal Education.
Since then I have come back to Brazil and been more immersed in the classical renewal. I have been impressed by the amount of people who have been searching for such an endeavor. As a matter of fact, there are nine Brazilians currently attending Thomas Aquinas College, along with six alumni and over a dozen of applicants. This might be seen as a small number compared to the vast population of over 212 million people that Brazil boasts. But, going to TAC is the culmination of something much greater that has been happening in the past decade in the country. It is worth noting that the Brazilians who have gone to TAC have undergone multiple sacrifices in order to make it work – all to receive a true education.
How it all began, and who are the most important figures in this educational renewal, I cannot claim to know fully. But, certainly there were important teachers who influenced beyond the classroom. Some who deserve mentioning are Olavo de Carvalho, Padre Paulo Ricardo and José Munir Nasser. Olavo was a conservative teacher and writer. He founded a program called ‘COF’, which stands for Online Philosophy Course in Portuguese. The course boasts of 585 recorded classes on the various subjects of philosophy, without any particular school of thought being followed. The focus was on forming conservative thinkers. The course has taught more than 80,000 students. Many others deserve mentioning here, such as a priest called Padre Paulo Ricardo – a priest who is similar in many ways to Venerable Fulton Sheen in his work and popularity- who has been responsible for an incredible number of conversions to the true faith in the country. José Munir Nasser also had a tremendous impact. He taught a five year humanities program very similar to John Senior’s, amongst many other great figures who contributed to this renewal.
Nowadays, there are three different fronts that the classical renewal has taken: families starting Catholic schools, homeschooling, and independent learning and study of liberal arts and philosophy, mostly online. Over a hundred Catholic schools have been starting in the previous five years in Brazil. While it is difficult to provide a true education without the previous formation of teachers and principals, the movement has been focusing on trying to do their best to educate their children in the light of the faith. This movement is very hungry for true formation, and is docile to learning from others. Homeschooling is becoming more and more of an option for families with a desire to remove their children from the woke ideologies presented in the schools. This is worth noting, because despite homeschooling being illegal in Brazil, parents are truly sacrificing their freedom to try to educate their children in the light of the classical curriculum. On the side of adults, there are thousands of students pursuing the truth. The truth that they felt was denied them while they were at school. There are many teachers around the country who are extremely influential, with thousands of students themselves. What do they teach? The classical liberal arts and philosophy.
Beyond that, we have many people making remarkable progress in spending time for a solid formation. A couple of friends deserve mentioning. There is Rodrigo Ribeiro, who is now a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College and has a strong aspiration to help in the educational renewal in Brazil, but only after receiving many years of experience at the College. Marcus Porto went to Vivarium Novum in Italy, learned Latin fluently, attended TAC and was a distinguished student, and then went on to a masters in classics in Greek and Latin at Kentucky University. Lucas Fonseca – another fellow in the Boethius Fellowship – after studying law decided to take on philosophy as his passion, learned Latin fluently at Vivarium and now teaches the liberal arts in Latin and tutors teachers around the country, as well as getting his masters online at University of Dallas. Many others around the country are united in seeking the best education they can, in order to provide for the true education of others.
From the numbers of converts to a more serious approach to the faith and to learning arising in every little town and state in the country, one can see easily that Brazil is going through a classical renewal in its education. Is it in the mainstream? Not at all. Not yet. From what I can tell, though, – and I am no prophet – there is hope for the future here. I don’t know if the movement will be able to be strong enough to overcome the strength of the other side, but we know we are on the winning side in the end, and so we keep fighting the good fight, hoping for the crown of victory at the end.