The new Tallahassee Classical School opened its doors to students in August and their art teacher, Robert Yorke, wasted no time in outfitting his classroom.

He applied for and received an Arts Education Grant from the Council on Culture & Arts. The grant was made possible this year through philanthropic support from the Duke Energy Foundation’s Powerful Communities program. With the grant funds and an additional supplement by the school, Yorke purchased a printing press, a device of epic historical proportions that aligns closely with the school’s liberal arts focus. 

At Tallahassee Classical School, history is infused throughout the curriculum and studied in chronological order as the backbone structure for learning, beginning with ancients and progressing forward to the moderns in history, science, literature, art, and music. Subjects are interrelated and students are taught the connections between the disciplines. 

For Yorke, a printing press offered a tangible way to illustrate those connections.

He anticipated the press would “bring to life the history components of my course, allowing students an experiential knowledge of the printing processes which have pushed our world into the contemporary era. From the Gutenberg processes which helped extend literacy around the world, to the leaflets that provided for human rights discourse during revolutionary periods, traditional printing has left its mark prominently on our collective culture.”

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