It is truly an honor to welcome you, old friends and new, to the Great Hearts Irving community. We use the word “community” because it has special meaning at a liberal arts academy. It comes from the Latin word communitas meaning “shared in common.” A community is a fellowship of people who result from the sharing of common attitudes, loves, and goals. C. S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, remarks that, “What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.” We are a special community of friends—students, parents, and faculty—bonded together by our shared love and pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Too often, school is a place where a child’s native delight in knowledge fades away with time. At Great Hearts, our primary tool of cultivating knowledge and virtue in our students is the Socratic Method. In this timeless teaching technique, the teacher uses questions and conversation to guide students from what they already know to what they do not yet know in all subjects. Under the guidance and tutelage of the teacher, it is the student who builds his/her own knowledge. The development of the academic habit of logical inquiry feeds students’ sense of wonder and creates life-long learners. In the end, our communal pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty inspires and shapes students into the best versions of themselves, setting in motion growth that will continue the rest of their lives.