By Cassandra Taylor, Publications Assistant
Teaching in a classical school is a great option for a new Thomas More College alumnus—and that’s exactly what Adam Swift ’23 pursued, with a twist. The term after his graduation from the College found him teaching at the Kolegium Antona Neuwirtha’s Citadela Elementary School in Ivanka pri Dunaji, Slovakia.
Mr. Swift opened up about his experiences teaching abroad and his impressions of the culture and curriculum.
You spent the year after graduation teaching English at the Kolegium Antona Neuwirtha’s Citadela, “the first modern Classical Education elementary school of its kind in Slovakia.” Why did you decide to pursue this opportunity?
Teaching seemed like the most logical step forward for me as I looked beyond graduation, since I was trying to make up my mind whether I wanted to pursue an academic career. I looked into several of the local schools in New Hampshire; asking TMC President Dr. William Fahey to put me in contact with Dr. Martin Luterán at the Kolegium was a “what-if.” As it materialized into a formal job offer for the entire year, however, it seemed providential: being abroad was something I had missed because of COVID-19, it would be some distance away from the familiar, and it could be a time to ruminate and reflect on the past four years. This was all personal; I think the real gravity of the Kolegium being “the only classical school in Slovakia” didn’t strike home until I had spent some time there. Still, it was a chance to see how something like Thomas More College, albeit at the primary level, was being done overseas. That really intrigued me.
How did your time at the College prepare you to teach English abroad? How did your education impact you in your daily life throughout this first year of teaching?
My education at the College informed my idea of a classroom—of how to teach, run, and manage a group of students. Of course, teaching six-to-ten-year-old students is a different discipline, and you often find yourself micromanaging a thousand little absurdities every day, until you wonder when you’ll ever get around to actually teaching the grand and the beautiful. But despite all that, I tried to instill the belief that together we could learn something worth knowing, something fun even, and certainly amazing. And of course, Dr. Fred Fraser’s Latin courses accustomed me to the activity of listening to a different language and picking out grammatical patterns, although Slovak is obviously a different language family. Finally, I suppose Natural History with Dr. Fahey reinforced my belief that “non scholæ sed vitæ discimus”: that I wanted not just to teach in a classroom, but to do what I could to turn my students’ thoughts away from themselves and toward the wonder of the world.
Tell us about the Citadela’s curriculum, and your thoughts on it.
The Citadela and the Kolegium are in an uncomfortable position. Slovakia mandates something like Common Core, and each school’s curriculum must conform rather closely to a plan mandated by the government in Bratislava. So Citadela’s ability to be an accredited school is something of a miracle and a testament to Dr. Luterán and the co-founder, Slávka Kubíková, since the Classical Curriculum is unlike anything in Slovakia and a very, very far departure from the state school program.
This brings up something that rather shocked me: Ms. Kubíková told me one day that schools like Citadela—and to a large extent, the idea of liberal education—have largely died out in Europe (even excusing the fact that Slovakia never had an independent intellectual tradition). Consequently, a place like Citadela looks up to American classical schools to see how it’s done. In fact, even while I was in Slovakia teaching at this classical school, several of the directors travelled to St. Jerome Academy in Maryland on a tour of educational cross-pollination.
Overall, I would say Citadela’s curriculum would be familiar to most of us in the United States—math, science, art, music, physical education, etc. More importantly, they strive to teach religion as an integrated truth, something lacking in Catholic education there. Interestingly, their emphasis on Slovakian history is unique as well. Since Slovakia has only really existed as a sovereign nation for less than a hundred years cumulatively, there’s a palpable hesitancy to develop a real national character and sense of pride and history, especially in the climate of modern liberalism and trans-nationalism. So Citadela is, once again, a real trailblazer.
What was your experience of Slovakian culture?
This relates to what I said previously about history and patriotism. To me, the city of Bratislava felt as though it was trying to be something other than Slovakian—a kind of international urbanism, in which indigenous culture and national identity were very incidental, or perhaps just a curiosity for tourists. But in the interior, away from the towns, I found a much greater sense of place and belonging than in Bratislava or even in most of the United States. You could tell that the people had real roots, not just in their nation, but in the actual places in which they lived, and from which their forefathers had sprung. And yet, statistically, most of the people there who are my age are leaving or will leave. Certainly, there wasn’t much of a sense of outward, triumphal patriotism as in America. Yet, I appreciated the clearly deep foundations that families and people had outside of the city.
What advice would you give to TMC students who are considering going into teaching and/or working abroad?
This is just a personal piece of advice for students, from me. I think there are probably a lot of students who come out of college, have the degree, have the education, have a great weight of knowledge and formation and culture and faith on their shoulders, and feel they need to live up to it, yet don’t have the confidence in their own experience and maturity. I can recommend teaching as a great starting job for them. It gives you real practice in the profound acts of responsibility, of intellect and morality, and very simply of being the adult in the room who has the weight of authority.
What was your favorite class at TMC? Favorite memory of your time at the College?
I suppose that if I were to speak the first thing that popped into my mind, it would be Nostra Aetate with Dr. Fahey. I could however still think of half a dozen or more that I wouldn’t hesitate to call favorites also. Likewise, with all the great moments and times I had at TMC—interspersed with moments of growth, sorrow, joy, silliness, foolishness, wisdom, and camaraderie—that I don’t know if I could point to a single moment and say, “This one was so much better than all the others!”
These remarks have been edited for length and clarity.
For further reading:
“Language, Literature, Linguistics, and Culture”:An Interview with Hal Swindall ’85
