Interview with Chiron Tutor Chris Lyon
Can you tell us more about your background?
I have been in classical education for 12 years and was in the Marines for four years. My youth was spent in far northern Wisconsin near the boundary waters. My home was on 20 acres, and was kind of like Riverside’s but with a significantly smaller house. We had orchards, barns and livestock. My father connected our education with expeditions to the Boundary Waters and canoe trips. My father became a professor at Notre Dame. He helped to found the great books program there. In the summer he took the students up to the Boundary Waters and discussed Aristotle and Shakespeare.
Why did you want to come work for Riverside?
Over my 12 years in education I came to the realization that as amazing as classical education is, there is still something missing, in particular when it comes to boys. They need the ability to get out into the woods, into the outdoors and be creative. Boys need a different sort of energy and outlet than the classroom vibe. There needs to be something else. If it was designed for boys, it would all be done outside and in the trees. I went to a boarding school called Gregory the Great Academy, which was founded in 1993 by a bunch of graduates from the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas, founded by John Senior. Gregory the Great was based on the idea of going back to living off the land, raising livestock and learning how to butcher and cook. The boys learn skills that have been more and more lost as the modern world progresses. Gregs was a classic experience with a vast campus where we did hiking, canoeing, a sports that were designed to take the energy of boys and direct it in a meaningful way. At Gregs and the other boarding schools like it (like St. Martin’s Academy), they are culture builders. They form a brotherhood there and boys with deep faith, jugglers, who all were tough, played rugby, and sang tons of songs.
How did you know that the time was right to come work for Riverside?
The time was just right to make this happen. We finally got down to brass tacks in the last few months and made this work. Peter’s vision for what a fourth year would look like came together with my interests, pursuits, and expertise. This will be something that is very special for those who have done Riverside before and also for those who may be trying this for the first time. I originally wanted to be a college professor but then decided that high school is where you can have an impact. You can help youth learn to form their thoughts in a meaningful way. But now you need to go back even younger. This is the nature of the world in which we live. People used to form their final personalities in college, then it became in high school. But now I have people coming into high school with things that they have experienced that cannot be unchanged or reframed. So now you need to go back even younger to have an impact. This is why I want to come out to Riverside and work with the boys of the Fourth Year age group.
What will 2026-27 Chiron look like?
With all the amazing settings Pete has done for Tutorial, he has never done the ancient world. Rome is my forte when it comes to history….While all of Tutorial will do Rome next year, the fourth year will be a little bit more grounded in historical works than some of the other years. We will read pieces from the Aeneid or Livvy or Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar as part of the morning program. The afternoon will be more tactical…building models of Rome from Legos, for example, or making shields. We might make a Roman camp or study aqueducts. It will all come together seamlessly.
Why do you love Rugby?
One reason I love rugby is for the culture building aspect. What you are trying to do is build a band of brothers. The way men do that is through struggle, difficulty and doing something that is hard with one another. In America, we have this idea of the individual. Man has to be an individual, a lone cowboy on the range. That is a false image of what Christian men are calle to do. Men fail as individuals but together we cannot. Brotherhood holds us up. Rugby is the best for building brotherhood, short of the military. Christian men should build each other up. Modern sports is about tearing others down. There is a lot of showboating. Rugby as no space for that. There is no Michael Jordan of rugby. It is a team. There is a book: Legacy, What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life, by James Kerr. It is about building a culture of winning. Recent national championship winners in American football have pointed to this book as something that inspired them. Clemson’s recent national championship coach, credited the book with helping him to create a culture of winning. It is a culture of responsibility, a culture of brotherhood, of working through something difficult together to achieve a great end.
What is the difference between the two-day and one-day Chiron?
It is a question of the time you spend on a subject and a project. The two day boys will be able to spend more time with the text and the projects than the one day. We will use the literary text as an inspiration to teach the boys to write and get them going. It is an inspiration based approach. They will launch into a project and we will watch them take off. For the two-day program…the first day will be the inspiration and launch and the second day we will be able to do a deeper dive. There will be more of an opportunity to be flexible and make it tailored for what the boys enjoy doing.
How many days a week do boys attend Chiron?
It will be portfolio based. You will be able to document what it is your kids are doing for the purpose of records and figuring out how many credit hours. We will cover history, philosophy, literature, creative writing.
How much homework will there be?
I’m not a fan of homework. I don’t want you to think of this as a traditional classroom. There will be some reading; It will be primarily about discussions. On occasion there might be something to do at home, but it is not the template. If we are taking something home, it is a project, something tactile. Though they might get inspired and continue writing what they have started.
