Valor Education

Valor Education was honored to host Dr. Daniel Coupland of Hillsdale College for our annual Fall Symposium last Friday at our building at Valor North Austin. Dedicated to Valor faculty from our five campuses and to our friends, we spent the day delighting in conversation, seminars and a keynote on fairy tales and the moral imagination. Further, we enjoyed good food and conversation to carry on the discussions of the day. “The great fairy tales and fantasy stories communicate the meaning of morality through vivid depictions of the struggle between good and evil, where characters must make difficult choices between right and wrong, or heroes and villains contest the very fate of imaginary worlds.” (Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian). 

We believe the telos, or end, of education is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue. Every aspect of Valor’s program is designed to shape the moral character of our students.

All aspects of school life at Valor—including expectations for student speech and behavior, use of physical space, campus operations, classroom décor, parent engagement, and interactions with students—are part of a comprehensive approach that enables students to grow in virtue and achieve excellence.

Valor’s highly intentional school culture—filled with joy, respect, and deep engagement—is the foundation for our students’ academic achievements. In an age of distraction and disconnection, we cultivate an atmosphere of attentiveness and warmth that inspires students to be fully present and deeply engaged.

Our school motto, sapientia per admirationem, or wisdom through wonder, is central to our mission of educating the whole person. Cultivating a child’s natural sense of wonder is one of our highest priorities. Valor’s educational vision draws deeply from the classical tradition, which identifies wisdom and virtue as the ultimate goals of education.

At Valor, we believe a truly human education addresses our deepest longings—to pursue knowledge, to have meaningful friendships, and to grow in wisdom and virtue. We are a community of friends seeking that which is noble and inviting students into that life. A Valor education is about much more than college and career readiness. It is an invitation to live the fullest life possible, one directed by wisdom, animated by wonder, and anchored in friendship.

Valor’s distinctive K-12 tuition-free classical charter schools offer students a full human education rooted in the classical liberal arts tradition, from the Great Books to fine arts to advanced math and science. Through Socratic teaching and a school culture filled with joy, respect, and deep engagement, our classical schools are forming students in wisdom and virtue so they can become fully alive and truly free.

The Valor Institute is a creative response to the unique challenges of our time: reductive ideologies, mechanized views of the natural world, and communities fractured through impoverished public discourse. At stake is the meaning of human life in community. Responding to these trends that flatten our culture, the Institute seeks to deepen our engagement with reality by cultivating wisdom, gratitude, and friendship.

“The Purpose of elementary and higher education is not to make of the youth a truly wise man, but to equip his mind with an ordered knowledge which will enable him to advance toward wisdom in his manhood.” - Jaques Maritain, Education at the Crossroads

At the heart of every person is a desire to know and to be known. At Valor, we believe a truly human education addresses our deepest longings—to live in authentic communities, to have meaningful friendships, and to grow in wisdom and virtue. Our K-12 tuition-free classical charter schools and the Valor Institute have a singular vision: to educate the whole person in authentic communities for a full human life.