Gabriel Listro, originally from Connecticut, grew up all over the United States and Peru. He stumbled upon classical education in high school and later graduated from Hillsdale with a BA in History in 2019. In 2020, during the COVID pandemic, Gabriel helped open Valor North Austin, a classical charter school in Austin Texas. While at Valor he spent two years as a second-grade teacher and a year teaching high school humanities while working as an upper school dean of student life. Gabriel lives in Hillsdale with his wife, Natalie, who is also a teacher, and their two children.
Research interests:
The transmediation and reception history of ancient Greek and Roman texts in late antiquity and the Middle Ages with an eye towards current uses of classical sources in the modern classical education movement.
Recent professional developments:
Valor Institute Faculty Fellow ’21 - ‘23
Post-graduation plans:
Doctoral studies in History.
Extracurricular academic activities:
Theology, Film Analysis, History of Philosophy
What brought you to Hillsdale?
Hillsdale’s Graduate School of Classical Education is a unique program, and it allows me to grow in my vocation as a teacher, at a low cost, near family.
What has been the thing you’ve appreciated most about your time here?
I appreciate the relationships I have been able to build with professors and my fellow cohort members. Those conversations give form and purpose to the work I do in the program.
What has been your greatest academic challenge thus far?
Learning Latin in six weeks.
What is distinctive about Hillsdale’s Graduate School of Classical Education?
The residential cohort structure leads to deep connections and conversations with your fellow students while allowing access to other professors on campus. Professors in other departments are willing to meet and discuss concepts which originated in, but extend beyond, our education classes. Courses are both academically rigorous yet practical. Professors expect graduate level work while asking students to consider the material in a schoolroom context. The program creates graduates who are both practical leaders and academic thinkers. However, the Wednesday meetings with leaders from the greater classical education movement is the program’s most valuable distinctive. No other program offers the opportunities for their students to learn from and network with the broader world of classical education. Encountering a myriad of voices in the Classical education sphere produces a deeply informed and knowledgeable graduate who not only studied the history, letters, and philosophy of classical education but possesses a broad understanding of the modern classical education landscape.
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