The Charter School Founder Turning Children Toward Plato, Virtue, and the Eternal | Caylan Ford
American Thought Leaders
The Epoch Times
4.9 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 May 2026
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“People have lost sight of what education is supposed to be,” said Caylan Ford. In 2022, she founded Canada’s first tuition-free classical charter school, the Calgary Classical Academy, with just a dozen faculty members.
Since then, it has grown to 1,500 students across three campuses in Calgary and Edmonton, with thousands more on the waitlist, and has changed its name to Alberta Classical Academy.
For Ford, classical education is all about, as she put it, “turning around the soul so that it’s oriented toward things that are actually eternally true and good and enduring.”
Canadian parents crave the classical education Alberta Classical Academy provides. “A lot of the parents who come to us are absolutely desperate. … The existence of this school is like an answered prayer,” Ford said.
Surprisingly, Alberta is the only province in Canada that allows charter schools. Just as in America, Alberta’s charter schools are public schools that do not charge tuition. They are statutorily barred from having a religious affiliation.
Students study Latin beginning in Grade 5, with additional language options like French in high school. Much emphasis is given to the coherent study of history.
“Our students read a lot of primary source material; they’re not judging the past through current prejudices. They’re trying to understand it on its own terms,” Ford said.
The school also has a rich world literature curriculum where students memorize a lot, for example, poetry.
“We do a lot of memorization work, partly because we want to help them furnish beautiful inner worlds. We want their minds and their souls to be places into which they can retire and find themselves refreshed and renewed,” Ford said.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The primary ends of education has to focus on the idea that a person has a soul, |
| 0:05.0 | that there are certain things that our souls need perennially. |
| 0:09.0 | Kaelan Ford is the founder of Calgary Classical Academy, |
| 0:13.0 | a tuition-free public charter school where a very different vision of education is taking shape. |
| 0:19.0 | So education in this sense is about turning around the soul so that it's oriented toward things |
| 0:24.6 | that are actually eternally true and good and enduring. |
| 0:27.6 | That vision is brought to life through a classical liberal arts education, one that draws on history, philosophy, and great books. |
| 0:36.6 | They're able to think more about the connecting ideas and themes and ask interesting questions |
| 0:41.3 | about history and about the human experience. |
| 0:44.3 | Students aren't just learning facts. They're learning to think, question, and understand the world, |
| 0:50.3 | while being immersed in arts, music, and craftsmanship that shape both intellect and character. |
| 0:56.0 | What does virtue mean to you? |
| 0:59.0 | That's a good question. |
| 1:00.0 | Training in moral and intellectual discernment to allow someone to more readily and accurately judge |
| 1:08.0 | between virtue and vice, justice and injustice, beauty and baseness. |
| 1:12.6 | We grew from just under 300 students and a little more than a dozen faculty. |
| 1:19.6 | We now have 1,500 students in three campuses with close 200 teachers. |
| 1:23.6 | A sign that many are searching for something more, an education that speaks not just to the mind, |
| 1:30.3 | but also to the soul. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yanya Kellock. The |
| 1:47.0 | The What is it? |
| 2:10.6 | That's it. |
| 2:12.6 | What does virtue mean to you? |
... |
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