The Home of Whole Book Learning
Après Academy is an independent after-school enrichment academy devoted to Whole Book Learning.
Books have covers. They have beginnings and endings; they are not infinitely scrolled. There’s a beauty to beginnings and endings that we risk forgetting — having all but lost the practice of seeing them in print.
Après brings intellectually ambitious high school students together for small, live seminars devoted to complete works of literature, history, and philosophy. Through annotated reading, handwriting, and reflective conversation, students at Après enter the tradition as active participants.
Enroll in our flagship course, Heroic Journeys and Human Hearts to begin.
Questions? Email hello@thewholebookmatters.com.
What we teach
This is a “read the whole book” curriculum. We go cover-to-cover.
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This is the flagship course for Après pupils. Over the course of one year, we will journey as a team through great works of literature that will shape and reshape the lens through which we view the world.
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One-on-one lessons with a tutor who has lived in France, and has taught 9th-12th grade French in American high schools for 7+ years.
Optional French language instruction includes preparation for the internationally recognized DELF/DALF exams.
All French language and literature students will have lessons in French history, French art history, and will study works of philosophical, literary, or historical merit in French.
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Prerequisite or Corequisite: Heroic Journeys & Human Hearts
The Self-Paced Humanities coursework supplements a student’s English, History, Human Geography, Philosophy, or Christian Theology courses by connecting the dots and filling-out the grand narrative of life in detail.
Some common themes: (a) The study of history as civilizations shaped by geography and religious impulse, (b) the creative works of man across history, (c) what God says to man, and (d) what man says in reply.
Key texts: Myths, Models and Paradigms (Ian G. Barbour), Metaphors We Live By (George Lakoff and Mark Johnson), Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (George A. Kennedy), Memory and the Mediterranean (Fernand Braudel)
The Après Tutor
I’m a McAllen native. I hold a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Colorado and am completing a master’s degree in liberal arts at St. John’s College. I have spent eight years teaching French and history to students in grades 6–12 and have lived and studied in both France and Spain. Before entering education, I served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army National Guard.
My entire adult life has been an ongoing exploration of the humanities. I’m passionate about guiding students to express themselves within the great intellectual and artistic traditions that have shaped our world.
email me with any questions : hello@thewholebookmatters.com
The Après Student
“There is a peculiar illusion incidental to all knowledge acquired in the way of education: the illusion of finality. When a student is in statu pupillari with respect to any subject whatever, he has to believe that things are settled because the textbooks and his teachers regard them as settled. When he emerges from that state and goes on studying the subject for himself he finds that nothing is settled. The dogmatism which is an invariable mark of immaturity drops away from him. He looks at so-called facts with a new eye. He says to himself: ‘My teacher and textbooks told me that such and such was true; but is it true? What reasons had they for thinking it true, and were these reasons adequate?’ On the other hand, if he emerges from the status of pupil without continuing to pursue the subject he never rids himself of this dogmatic attitude.” (Collingwood, R. G. “The Idea of History”)
