Levi Gulliver

Biography

Born in Orlando, Florida, I am the son of a Iowan computer programmer and a Minnesotan dairy farmer. From the beginning, my six siblings and I were homeschooled, and I was first introduced to Latin in fifth or sixth grade. In high school, I had a an excellent Latin teacher who captured my interest enough to keep going with Latin.

I taught and tutored Latin to pay my way through college, attended some in-person Summer Latin workshops, and finally landed at the Tirocinium Latinum—a program that mentored me into a effective, traditional Latin teacher. Before that, I was blessed to be mentored by Andrew Kern and Matthew Bianco through the Circe Institute’s Apprenticeship program. For the past four years, I have taught Latin courses online through the Circe Online Academy.

Overall, I am a follower of Christ, a husband, and a father to one (plus one on the way!). I serve as the headmaster at King Alfred Classical School in Orlando and am richly blessed to spend so much time with Latin and all of its richness.

Teaching Philosophy

Ever since I was homeschooled myself, I have always thought about education as an integrated dimension of life, not a separate part. Education is about all of life. Learning, therefore, is about students growing as people—growing in wisdom and virtue. History, tradition, common sense, and good philosophy of education all agree that education is about students becoming better: better people, better thinkers, better sons and daughters, better images of Christ.

Latin, like every language, opens up a whole world to students—another set of cultural stories, another kind of knowledge of a people, and another way of understanding the world. Uniquely, Latin gives students insight into their grandfathers’ world, for everyone living in the Western world today has been deeply formed by the millennia of Latin-speaking cultures of our past.

With literary and cultural understanding as our goal, I help students enter into the tradition of Latin by listening to and reading Latin. I read aloud students many stories, particularly Æsop’s fables, and students learn to treat Latin as a real, meaningful language. While technical knowledge of a language is helpful, the real backbone of acquiring a language is many hours spent listening to and reading it. That’s what my students do.

Statement of Faith

I am committed Christian and believe in historic, orthodox Christianity. I grew up in a non-denominational church but am now a member of a traditional PCA church, St. Paul’s Presbyterian, in Orlando, Florida. I am committed to the traditional creeds of the Church—especially the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds—and the doctrine expressed therein.

I hold to traditional values that have been common to all Christians for two thousand years—including traditional marriage, virtue ethics, and knowable truth.