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Thoroughness & Charm: Cultivating the Habits of a Classical Classroom
Are you trying to provide a classical education without having received one yourself? You might know the subject you’re teaching well, but so much of classical education transcends the textbook. What should the classroom, culture, and spirit of the classroom be like? And how can you know you’re doing it well? In this new book from Mandi Gerth, you will find the guidance you need to create a truly classical classroom. Thoroughness and Charm gives specific examples on how shared experiences—not activities—build culture, support the curriculum, and pass on the classical tradition while habituating the students to what is true and good for their souls.
After reading this book, teachers will be able to:
understand the role of culture in education
evaluate their classroom culture
determine what they value most about the curriculum they teach
understand how formative practices shape what students love
build classroom culture by focusing on shared experiences, common language, and embodied values
and use liturgy, prayer, music, poetry, read-alouds, and catechisms to build classroom culture.
After reading this book, teachers will be able to:
understand the role of culture in education
evaluate their classroom culture
determine what they value most about the curriculum they teach
understand how formative practices shape what students love
build classroom culture by focusing on shared experiences, common language, and embodied values
and use liturgy, prayer, music, poetry, read-alouds, and catechisms to build classroom culture.
153 pages, Paperback
Published May 20, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 29, 2026
There’s a tendency in modern education to treat children like disembodied data feeding an analytical machine. We obsess over metrics, outcomes, standardized benchmarks, and endless streams of information while quietly ignoring the far more obvious reality that children are embodied creatures! And as embodied creatures, they are shaped by habit, repetition, affection, and ritual. In other words, Gerth points out that children are liturgical creatures long before they are analytical ones. Hearing what Hannah goes through teaching in Pub Ed made “Thoroughness & Charm” by Mandi Gerth feel like a breath of fresh air.
Gerth seems to understand something the TEA may have forgotten, pedagogy is never neutral. Every classroom has a liturgy. Every teacher is forming affections. Every school day is filled with rituals that are shaping students toward some vision of the good life, whether that formation is intentional or accidental. The only real question is whether those liturgies are ordered toward truth, goodness, and beauty, or toward distraction, novelty, and efficiency.
What I appreciated most about this book was Gerth’s insistence that children naturally respond to rhythm, repetition, and embodied practice. They want songs repeated until they know them by heart. They want stories read again and again. They thrive on rituals that orient them toward meaning. In an educational age that often seems addicted to novelty and stimulation, this felt almost counterintuitive. And frankly, it feels deeply needed.
We are raising children in an age of algorithmic formation. Their attention is being discipled by iPads, social media feeds, YouTube autoplay, and increasingly by artificial intelligence systems that know exactly how to keep them engaged. The dominant liturgy of our age is endless scrolling. Our children are being catechized every day by technologies that train them to expect constant dopamine hits and immediate gratification. Gerth offers a quiet but necessary rebellion against that world.
Her vision of education feels almost monastic in the best possible sense. She emphasizes singing hymns together, memorizing poetry, and praying together. These are practices that slowly shape the moral imagination of children over time. Gerth reminds educators, parents, and students that education is about formation before it is about information.
Han and I have talked a lot about the recent push in Pub Ed to push electronic learning platforms like IReady and Edugence. And every year the instructional coaches come in with the newest “science based” strategy to get kids to learn. This years big push has been on the gamification of education and rewarding positive behavior with physical rewards like candy. The winds change and student data doesn’t reflect what the district wants it to so they bring in the next “science based” strategy and try again. And the further and further we get into this mess, the less and less our students are actually learning because they’re learning the answers to a test and not how to love learning itself. And what makes this book so compelling is that Gerth isn't trying to sell you the next educational gimmick. She’s pointing us to the theological truth that we are embodied beings and so our education should be too.
We live in an age where schools are increasingly pressured to justify themselves through measurable outputs. Parents anxiously ask whether their children are “getting ahead.” Educators are buried beneath administrative demands. Meanwhile, children are often left spiritually malnourished while being turned into crunchable numbers.
And Gerth reminds us that education has always been about something larger. It is about raising human beings who can recognize goodness when they encounter it. Human beings who can pray when suffering arrives. Human beings who know hymns when grief steals their words. Human beings who can recite truth when lies become fashionable. In many ways, “Thoroughness & Charm” feels like an invitation to recover old paths that were abandoned far too quickly. Not because old things are automatically better. But because some old things endured precisely because they understood something permanent about human nature.
Children do not merely need information. They need formation. They need liturgies worthy of their loves. And perhaps adults do too.
The Princeton theologian J.W. Alexander advocated every Presbyterian perish to open up their own parochial school because education was never meant to be about numbers and letters alone. But about the full formation of the human being. To Alexander, a strong educated population was necessary to the formation of strong Christians. And likewise Christian ethic and teaching was necessary to fully educate the complete person. May we recover this! And may Gerth help us do it.
Gerth seems to understand something the TEA may have forgotten, pedagogy is never neutral. Every classroom has a liturgy. Every teacher is forming affections. Every school day is filled with rituals that are shaping students toward some vision of the good life, whether that formation is intentional or accidental. The only real question is whether those liturgies are ordered toward truth, goodness, and beauty, or toward distraction, novelty, and efficiency.
What I appreciated most about this book was Gerth’s insistence that children naturally respond to rhythm, repetition, and embodied practice. They want songs repeated until they know them by heart. They want stories read again and again. They thrive on rituals that orient them toward meaning. In an educational age that often seems addicted to novelty and stimulation, this felt almost counterintuitive. And frankly, it feels deeply needed.
We are raising children in an age of algorithmic formation. Their attention is being discipled by iPads, social media feeds, YouTube autoplay, and increasingly by artificial intelligence systems that know exactly how to keep them engaged. The dominant liturgy of our age is endless scrolling. Our children are being catechized every day by technologies that train them to expect constant dopamine hits and immediate gratification. Gerth offers a quiet but necessary rebellion against that world.
Her vision of education feels almost monastic in the best possible sense. She emphasizes singing hymns together, memorizing poetry, and praying together. These are practices that slowly shape the moral imagination of children over time. Gerth reminds educators, parents, and students that education is about formation before it is about information.
Han and I have talked a lot about the recent push in Pub Ed to push electronic learning platforms like IReady and Edugence. And every year the instructional coaches come in with the newest “science based” strategy to get kids to learn. This years big push has been on the gamification of education and rewarding positive behavior with physical rewards like candy. The winds change and student data doesn’t reflect what the district wants it to so they bring in the next “science based” strategy and try again. And the further and further we get into this mess, the less and less our students are actually learning because they’re learning the answers to a test and not how to love learning itself. And what makes this book so compelling is that Gerth isn't trying to sell you the next educational gimmick. She’s pointing us to the theological truth that we are embodied beings and so our education should be too.
We live in an age where schools are increasingly pressured to justify themselves through measurable outputs. Parents anxiously ask whether their children are “getting ahead.” Educators are buried beneath administrative demands. Meanwhile, children are often left spiritually malnourished while being turned into crunchable numbers.
And Gerth reminds us that education has always been about something larger. It is about raising human beings who can recognize goodness when they encounter it. Human beings who can pray when suffering arrives. Human beings who know hymns when grief steals their words. Human beings who can recite truth when lies become fashionable. In many ways, “Thoroughness & Charm” feels like an invitation to recover old paths that were abandoned far too quickly. Not because old things are automatically better. But because some old things endured precisely because they understood something permanent about human nature.
Children do not merely need information. They need formation. They need liturgies worthy of their loves. And perhaps adults do too.
The Princeton theologian J.W. Alexander advocated every Presbyterian perish to open up their own parochial school because education was never meant to be about numbers and letters alone. But about the full formation of the human being. To Alexander, a strong educated population was necessary to the formation of strong Christians. And likewise Christian ethic and teaching was necessary to fully educate the complete person. May we recover this! And may Gerth help us do it.
March 13, 2026
Now that so many years have passed since the revival of classical education, it is a pleasure to hear from a classical teacher who engages with earlier works while adding her own analysis and personal experience in the classroom. Enough time has passed that many of us share much of the culture which Gerth desires to imbue in her students, and we also share the broader community of classical educators who have had a profound impact on modern classical education, such as David Hicks and Joshua Gibbs (Gerth quotes them often in her book). It was an enjoyable read for that reason alone! This book is also a treasure of wisdom and personal experience, and I felt challenged by the standard of excellence that she brings to the classroom. Her probing questions and encouragement towards intentionality were very helpful in highlighting the importance of embodying the values and culture we wish to pass on to our students. I will be using many of her suggestions and examples!
One concern about the book is the author's tendency to disparage denominations that do not share her love and appreciation for liturgy in the Anglican tradition. Gerth seems to equate classical education with church tradition, and this book could feel polarizing to those outside of that tradition. It comes with its own concerns, and yet many in this tradition (which I do truly appreciate) feel passionately that it is the right way to worship (and now it seems the right way to educate classically). I am also a bit concerned about the long shadow Plato has continued to throw over classical education. The emphasis on ideals seems to be shifting classical education to creating a subculture rather than training students to engage with and transform their own culture for Christ.
One concern about the book is the author's tendency to disparage denominations that do not share her love and appreciation for liturgy in the Anglican tradition. Gerth seems to equate classical education with church tradition, and this book could feel polarizing to those outside of that tradition. It comes with its own concerns, and yet many in this tradition (which I do truly appreciate) feel passionately that it is the right way to worship (and now it seems the right way to educate classically). I am also a bit concerned about the long shadow Plato has continued to throw over classical education. The emphasis on ideals seems to be shifting classical education to creating a subculture rather than training students to engage with and transform their own culture for Christ.
November 10, 2025
Every single one of your students will die, very few will get into their top choice college. Read this book if you want to expand your knowledge and understanding on liturgies in classical education. Thank you Mandi for the wonderful book.
September 17, 2025
This is a lovely book aimed at engaging teachers in the difficult but important question: What matters most? Reading Thoroughness and Charm will help you answer and clarify that question and will remind you of the beauty to be found in teaching.
December 10, 2025
Can I rate more than 5 stars? This book is a must-read for any classical educator or parent. It was refreshing to be encouraged in the liturgies and catechism I've already been doing in my math classroom, knowing now that I'm doing the right thing despite what others think. Our embodied culture will pay off, and already has. I can testify that the experiences Gerth describes are a result of liturgy are real, and so so very joyful. My students have made deep connections with our catechism. I know I will be using some of Gerth's specific suggestions for math next year. I'm suggesting to my headmaster that all staff be required to read this book. Thank you, Mandi Gerth!!
May 17, 2026
I hesitated to buy this book because I figured it would be much of what I've already read elsewhere or heard, but after listening to a couple of interviews I thought I would risk it hoping that the appendix would be full of great ideas to implement in my classroom. I was a fair bit disappointed. While there are examples of liturgies and the book does give some wisdom toward developing your own, it really didn't provide much in the way of what I had been hoping and expecting based on the interviews. Much of it was common sense if you've been teaching for any amount of time. Her examples in the appendix were primarily geared towards upper school and I was hoping for some advice on implementing liturgies with my lower school students. Alas, it was not to be. If you are a newer teacher, either in or out of the classical tradition, this book would be helpful for sure. But if you have been teaching for a while, I would honestly skip it or borrow it from a friend.
September 1, 2025
There is a growing movement toward liturgical practices in the classroom, and this book is all about that. Our school now sings the Salve Regina (our Alma Mater) on the way in from the flagpole to the school door, and I got the idea from this very book. It transformed the usually raucous morning walk into something sacred, and that in and of itself has been a game-changer. Thanks, Mandi!
September 9, 2025
This book is a must-read for anyone in the classical education ring. It is marketed towards a classroom teacher but is as essential for a homeschool parent. This short, yet powerful, book belongs alongside the likes of Clark/Jain, Hicks, Gibbs, and Wise Bauer - but where they offer the why and some high level hows, Mandi Gerth takes your hand and shows you how to be a teacher that inspires curiosity, persistence, and a love of learning. Through personal stories and simple yet powerful mindset shifts and practices, she encourages teachers to embody the culture, philosophy, and call of the classical tradition. Mandi's passion for preserving the things that matter, the things that are eternal and true, is evident in this book, which serves as an invitation to join her. Which you should, and soon. This was the book I needed 20 years ago to give me the confidence required on my own family's homeschooling journey.
December 28, 2025
This was a very useful meditation on liturgy in a classroom. The appendix at the end featured several excellent poems to consider memorizing together, and I hope to try out a few of these practices in the coming semester.
April 28, 2026
I enjoyed this book quite a lot and am eager to implement some of her ideas into our classical homeschool community this upcoming year. I was hoping for some wisdom on the discipline side of things but really excellent book.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews