Joanna Thornhill is a teacher of Ancient Greek and Latin, and a zealous pursuer of all higher knowledge. She is from Los Angeles, California, received a BA in the Liberal Arts from St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she studied philosophy, literature, history, mathematics, music. Since discovering the practice of spoken Ancient Greek and Latin, she has spent many years building and refining her ability to use these languages in a way that resembles the diction classical authors as much as possible. She started τὸ σχολαστήριον to create a home for high-quality Ancient Greek learning.

Joanna's bread and butter is the art of conversation — specifically, the rigorous, in-depth discussion of humanity's greatest written works. This is the art of piercing through each author's words to reveal the eternal truths and beauties that lie therein. She developed and honed this skill through her four years of study at St. John's, where every class is centered around the discussion of a particular great book. She seeks to bring this practice of high-level reading and interpretation to world of spoken Ancient Greek.

Outside of her academic pursuits, Joanna likes to spend time in the outdoors and going on hikes, and she is also an avid home cook. Her favorite cuisines to cook are Mexican, Indian, Greek, and Levantine.

The Greek word "σχολαστήριον" refers to a place in which one enjoys σχολή, or leisure. This word, σχολή, does not just have the negative sense of time spent away from work – it also calls to mind the higher human activities which leisure enables us to pursue. Philosophy, religion, art, music, history – these are the activities that all our toils and efforts award us. These higher spiritual pursuits are ends in themselves, and all else we do ultimately has the goal of raising ourselves and others to the level where we can properly engage in these activities.

Here, we do not seek to learn a language as an end in itself – rather, our pursuit of mastery and a high level of active proficiency is always with the goal of enabling profound, rigorous, and life-changing conversations about ancient texts.

Immersing ourselves in the profound beauty and richness of spirit that we find in Ancient Greek texts has the power to renew and radically change our souls. It was said well by Hegel that this study is "the spiritual bath, the secular baptism that first and indelibly attunes and tinctures the soul in respect of taste and knowledge. For this initiation a general, perfunctory acquaintance with ancients is not sufficient; we must take up our lodging with them so that we can breathe their air, absorb their ideas, their manners, one might even say their errors and prejudices, and become at home in this world – the fairest that ever has been."

But how are we to enter into this world, we moderns whose intuitions and biases are radically different than those of the ancients? The task rightly appears to be a daunting one.

Just as Dante needed Virgil as his guide into the underworld, so we too are greatly benefitted by the assistance of someone who has already treaded these deep waters of human thought. Merely understanding the words and grammar of what we read is not enough – often times the most obvious reading of a given phrase or sentence in an ancient text will not be the correct one, and sometimes it will even be the complete opposite.

Replace this paragraph with a description of your teaching method — how a typical lesson is structured, the balance between spoken practice, reading, and grammar, and what makes your approach distinct.

You can add a second paragraph here on pacing, materials, or the kinds of texts and conversations students can expect to work through as they progress.