Brief Biography:

‍Growing up outside of Toronto, Kate took part in every form of education in the vicinity: multiple evangelical Christian schools, Catholic high school, public high school, dual enrolment through Belhaven University, and homeschooling. Her parents and community were not satisfied with the worldview and practices of any of these, so they began the initial stages of founding one of the first classical schools and the first classical high school in Canada. Founded in 2016, Innova Academy now has over 200 students and has opened two campuses. After graduating from Liberty University with a Bachelor of Elementary Education and minors in Mathematics and Global Studies, Kate taught at the school her parents were instrumental in founding. She taught third grade for three years before coming to Hillsdale and she developed much of the school's third grade curriculum, beginning as the first single-class third grade teacher. She held Greek and Roman festivals and feasts, taking her class out to contemplate God's creation by the stream beside the school, and taught art at elementary levels while at Innova. Aware of classical education through her parents who wrote a primer on classical education, Shaping Hearts and Minds, Kate was struck by how much she did not know even after teaching at a classical school. She is now pursuing the Master’s in Classical Education to bring back all the wealth of Hillsdale to Innova Academy and elsewhere.

What has been the thing you’ve appreciated most about your time here?

‍I have been so pleasantly surprised by my start in the master’s program at Hillsdale. It is exactly what I did not know I always hoped to be a part of. It provides the challenge of reading immense selections of the best works, fosters my ability for logical discourse on any topic through seminar-style classes, and opens up a portal through which to glimpse the wealth of centuries. What did I know before coming? What possibilities are now at my fingertips? It is only the beginning, and I am just thrilled to learn alongside classmates and professors who have been steeped in this tradition much longer than I. Though I had many doubts about leaving the job I loved to live in the States and start an entirely new and unknown adventure, I could not be more pleased with all that I get to do here. To read! To write! To discuss reading and writing! What a wonderful place in which to store up treasures from the tradition!

Post-Graduation Plans:

‍I have always hoped to write and/or illustrate children's literature. I wrote my thesis for Liberty on storytelling as an instructional strategy, including a handful of poems and stories that I would love to continue at some point.

‍