To know God and to make Him known

ABOUT US

Classical Conversations is the homeschool program known for connecting lives through learning.

We’re the homeschool program that helps you cultivate an inquisitive, thoughtful child through an intentional, community-based approach. Learning together with families like yours, you’re equipped with the tools and support to teach a Christ-centered worldview that’s rooted in the classical model.

More than 25 years ago, our story began as most good ones do: with a mother, a necessity, and an invention. Leigh Bortins created Classical Conversations with a desire to give her sons an education that’s proven, timeless, and rooted in a Christian worldview. Though today we’re a little bigger than when we began, our collective drive and commitment remain the same. We’re focused on homeschooling that serves the whole family, empowering parents to equip their children. As a result, our students continually exceed the standards and outperform the national average of peers. Because they love to learn, our students go on to pursue their passions, whether by furthering their education, serving their country, or enjoying successful careers.

We want to partner with you. With communities in 49 countries, curriculum in multiple languages, and a robust global network 45,000 families strong, we’re the largest classical education provider in the world. But being the world’s biggest doesn’t put us out of reach. Instead, it means we appreciate your unique cultural needs and can connect you with the right resources to educate your family.

We provide a platform that parents can use to envision the future and holistically develop their children, allowing them to truly thrive.

OUR VISION

Classical Conversations fulfills its mission and purpose by establishing and supporting Classical Conversations communities across the United States and in several countries, and by empowering parents in the classical, Christian teaching of their children through Parent Practicums. We enable parents everywhere to equip their children with a Christ-centered worldview and the classical “tools of learning” in order to impact the world for God’s glory.

OUR PURPOSE

The purpose of Classical Conversations® is to lead the home-centered education movement by teaching parents and students the classical tools of learning so that they can discover God’s created order and beauty— and as a result— enable others to do the same.

Our mission is to know God and to make Him known therefore we aspire to develop minds and souls.

WHAT WE STAND FOR

Classical Conversations is an organization built on family.

From its origins in 1997 with 11 teenage boys in the basement of Leigh Bortins’ Winston-Salem home, to the 117,000 students now enrolled in its programs, Classical Conversations always was and always will be about family—the Bortins family following God’s guidance in teaching other families how to “train up [their children] in the way that [they] should go…”

  • Provide compelling, influential Christian leadership in the home-centered, classical education movement.
  • Provide weekly classical, Christian communities that hone students’ academic and classical skills of recitation, logical thinking, and persuasive rhetoric.
  • Provide Parent Practicums across the United Kingdom that empower parents to teach any academic subject classically.
  • Provide a curriculum framework with a Christ-centered worldview while engaging the current culture in which we live.
  • Partner with like-minded businesses to provide quality products and services for families.
  • Bible: A Christ-centered worldview is the foundation through which all subjects must be viewed and eventually integrated.
  • Parents: Parents are a child’s first and most influential teacher.
  • Method: To recover the knowledge of how to teach and learn effectively and efficiently, using the “tools of learning” (i.e., the classical model).
  • Community: A healthy academic community provides accountability, structure, fellowship, and the ability to impact culture.
  • Mentors: An experienced, inspirational homeschooling mentor, who facilitates a weekly community gathering and models learning, offers exponential rewards in the “learning-life” of the parent and student.
  • Students: All students can learn to “train their brains to retain,” use information logically, and communicate well.
  • Skills: There aren’t any difficult subjects, just poor learning skills.
  • Curriculum: Classical Conversations provides visionary, skeletal curriculum guides and syllabi, allowing parents to continue to direct and own the details that best suit their personal priorities and student dynamics.
  • Model: By nature, a homeschool family of younger children closely resembles a one-room schoolhouse model—multiple ages under one primary teacher, the parent.
  • Resources: If one-room schoolhouse teachers could produce some of the greatest leaders with very limited resources, then so can today’s homeschool families!

All Scripture is self‐attesting and being Truth, requires our unreserved submission in all areas of life. The infallible Word of God, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, is a complete and unified witness to God’s redemptive acts, culminating in the incarnation of the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible, uniquely and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the supreme and final authority on all matters on which it speaks. On this sure foundation, we affirm these additional essentials of our faith:

  • We believe in one God, the sovereign Creator and Sustainer of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To Him be all honour, glory, and praise forever!
  • Jesus Christ, the living Word, became flesh through His miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit and His virgin birth. He who is true God became true man united in one person forever. He died on the cross a sacrifice for our sins, according to the Scriptures. On the third day, He arose bodily from the dead and ascended into heaven, where, at the right hand of the Majesty on High, He now is our High Priest and Mediator.
  • The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, has come to glorify Christ and to apply the saving work of Christ to our hearts. He convicts us of sin and draws us to the Savior. Indwelling our hearts, He gives us new life, empowers us, and imparts gifts to us for service. He instructs and guides us into all truth and seals us for the day of redemption.
  • Being estranged from God and condemned by our sinfulness, our salvation is wholly dependent upon the work of God’s grace. God credits His righteousness to those who put their faith in Christ alone for their salvation, and thereby justifies them in His sight.
  • We believe that (a) salvation is by grace, a free gift of God apart from works, (b) salvation involves repentance, a change of mind in respect to God and thus turning from one’s own way to God’s way, (c) salvation is through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in Christ alone, (d) all who receive Jesus Christ are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and become the children of God, and (e) true salvation will be manifested by a changed life.
  • The true Church is composed of all persons who through saving faith in Jesus Christ and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit are united together in the body of Christ. The Church finds her visible, yet imperfect, expression in local congregations where the Word of God is preached in its purity and the sacraments are administered in their integrity; where scriptural discipline is practised, and where loving fellowship is maintained. For her perfecting, she awaits the return of her Lord.
  • Jesus Christ will come again to the earth— personally, visibly, and bodily—to judge the living and the dead and to consummate history and the eternal plan of God. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).
  • The Lord Jesus Christ commands all believers to proclaim the Gospel throughout the world and to make disciples of all nations. Obedience to the Great Commission requires total commitment to “Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.” He calls us to a life of self‐denying love and service. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

We Offer Education That Nourishes Mind, Body and Soul.

MEET OUR LEADERS

Classical Conversations is an organization built on family.

From its origins in 1997 with 11 teenage boys in the basement of Leigh Bortins’ Winston-Salem home, to the 117,000 students now enrolled in its programs, Classical Conversations always was and always will be about family—the Bortins family following God’s guidance in teaching other families how to “train up [their children] in the way that [they] should go…”

LEIGH BORTINS
FOUNDER

ROBERT BORTINS, JR
CEO