Spring enrollment is open · See the catalog
Twice a week · Everyone speaks every meeting
A standing practice room, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Every student speaks at every meeting and is critiqued on the spot. Reps are the whole product.
New this term. Reviews from students and parents appear here once families have taken it.
Public speaking is not learned by hearing about public speaking. It is learned by standing up twice a week for six weeks and being told, kindly and specifically, what did not land.
Each meeting is a round: a prompt, three minutes to prepare, everyone speaks, everyone is critiqued. Because each meeting stands on its own, a student can take the weeks that fit their term and skip the ones that do not. Nothing is missed and nothing is owed.
Twice a week matters. The gap between a bad speech and the next attempt is three days rather than seven, which is short enough that the correction is still in the body.
This one meets twice a week, always at the same hour. That is a real claim on your week, and it is deliberate: this material is learned faster in short frequent contact than in one long meeting, and the gap between meetings is short enough that nothing has to be re-established at the start of each one.
Every meeting of this class stands on its own. Nothing in week six assumes week five, so a student can join in the middle, take the four weeks that fit around a busy month, and stop when they want to. There is no catching up to do, because there is nothing to be behind on.
That is also why there is no grade here and no such thing as an incomplete. The record keeps what actually happened: the meetings attended live and the recordings watched. A student who came to three meetings has a record of three meetings, not a failure.
Round type
A prompt, three minutes to think, three minutes to speak.
Round type
A short speech written between meetings and delivered cold.
Round type
Argue the side you do not hold, which is where most of the learning happens.
Round type
A passage of real prose, read as though it means something.
Prompt bank & critique sheet
Odysseus Lyceum
Supplied at no cost. Families need nothing else.
None. Any student in the age range can enroll.
Delivery is taught as a craft, separately from the merits of the position. A student is graded on nothing here; they are simply told the truth about how it sounded.
Read our academic philosophyMeetings are recorded and released to enrolled families for fourteen days. Recordings capture the instructor and shared materials; student video is not published.
Full refund up to seven days before the first meeting; inside seven days, everything paid is credited to your Lyceum balance. No refunds or credits once the class has begun. Cancel any section from your parent account.
These describe how this instructor has been trained, reviewed with educators and accessibility specialists. They are not a diagnosis and not a marketing claim.
Students and parents review separately, on different questions, and the two aggregates are never blended. Every review is verified and moderated.
No parent reviews for this class yet.
Reviews from students are published as “Student, age 13”, never with a full name. Photo and short video reviews are supported and moderated before they appear.
Great Books
A whole-book seminar
Douglass in his own words: the Narrative read whole, plus the Fourth of July speech, with attention to how a man argued his way into freedom.
Ms. Imani BellNew this term
Reviews appear once families have taken it.
$8/wk
$56 in total
$22.40 for add’l siblings
Character & Virtue
The first stories that teach · Ages 5–7
Two fables a week, read aloud and then talked about. The oldest way of teaching a child what a person ought to do, and still the best.
Ms. Imani BellNew this term
Reviews appear once families have taken it.
$6/wk
$42 in total
$16.80 for add’l siblings
Character & Virtue
What kind of person are you becoming?
A free five-week conversation about courage, temperance, justice and prudence, with short readings and a genuinely honest room.
Ms. Imani BellNew this term
Reviews appear once families have taken it.
Free
