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Nikhil Jandhyala came to classical education as a public-school kid raised on two faiths—Hinduism American capitalism—and left it a Catholic teacher who now hands the same gift to his own students. Ryan Klopak and Alex Julian trace that transformation with him: the sixth-grade natural-philosophy class where "nature acts for an end" first cracked his world open, the ninth-grade Euclid teacher who convinced him that truth is worth pursuing for its own sake, and the long, winding road to conversion.

What's in This Episode:

• How a single truth from a sixth-grade natural-philosophy class—"nature acts for an end and it does nothing in vain"—became the first crack in a materialist worldview, and what it means to teach students to observe nature rather than memorize textbooks about it
• The ninth-grade Euclid teacher who ran geometry like "an intellectual street fight," and why Euclid may be the only real natural science a student gets in high school
• Why middle school is where American anti-intellectualism hits hardest, and what classical schools can (and can't) do about the drift toward treating learning as mere utility
• Reading Lord of the Flies and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as maps of the human soul
• The conversion at the center of it all: idolizing Hitchens and Maher, a barefoot pilgrimage in India, church bells with no church in sight, and the friend whose argument finally pointed him toward the Church

Resources:

• Euclid's Elements
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Classical Learning Test (CLT)
• Arcadia Education

Chapters:

• 00:00: Welcome and meeting Nikhil Jandhyala
• 01:47: Before classical education—India, Hinduism, and the dollar bill
• 05:02: Sixth grade and the first truth: "nature acts for an end"
• 15:42: The dividing line between faith and reason
• 21:41: Middle school, deans, and the anti-intellectual pull
• 31:15: The books that stick with you
• 33:21: Lord of the Flies as a map of the soul
• 36:55: Eustace, the dragon, and the mercy of Aslan
• 42:03: High school and the Euclid teacher who changed everything
• 55:38: Atheism, a pilgrimage, and church bells with no church

Hosted by Ryan Klopak (Arcadia Education) and Alex Julian (CLT). The Furrows podcast features leaders in classical education who have been transformed by classical education.

Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.