Christ Classical Academy

CLASSICAL APPROACH

Christ Classical Academy embraces Classical Christian Education as a return to a time-honored approach to learning. The classical method is based on the centuries-old method of education known as the Trivium. In using the Trivium, we divide the teaching methods into three major stages according to the way children naturally develop. We like to say that we are teaching children “with the grain.”

1. Pre-Grammar Polly Stage: Transitional Kindergarten (3-4 yrs)-Kindergarten Children in this stage are obviously excited about learning. They enjoy games, stories, songs. They have a short attention span and want to touch, taste, feel, smell, & see everything.  They are imaginative & creative and like chants, clever and repetitious word sounds.
2. Grammar Stage: 1st – 6th grades Children in this stage are naturally inclined to memorize. The grammar stage capitalizes on their desire to memorize, recite, and chant. In this stage, we teach them the “grammar” of each subject, or each subject’s fundamental facts and rules.
3. Logic Stage: 7th – 8th  grades In the logic stage, we capitalize on the student’s love of challenging others, arguing, and finding holes in communication. Logic is taught in this stage to enhance a student’s reasoning platform, to examine the construction of argument, and to strengthen debate and persuasion with articulation and research. As the students develop their positions of debate they draw on the facts learned in the grammar stage.
4. Rhetoric Stage: 9th - 12th grade In the rhetoric stage, students strive to express themselves. They are taught how to communicate clearly in written and verbal forms, how to conduct research in all subject areas, and how to see relationships among subjects. In this final stage, the students learn how to communicate eloquently and persuasively, presenting the substance and applying the tools learned in the Grammar and Logic stages. 

Subject content, knowledge and skills, is at the heart of the Classical curriculum. We believe our children will be better able to serve God, understand life, and succeed in their personal futures if they are equipped with a solid base of knowledge. In all of the Trivium, we seek to teach the students how to learn for themselves and how to express and defend what they learn. We desire for them to be lifelong learners.

Some key points about our program of study:

• Classical education places an emphasis on the basics. We understand the basics to be subjects such as languages, arts, math, reading, writing, and history.
• Classical education is designed to provide students with a core knowledge – a kind of cultural literacy – that will enable them to minister and live more effectively at this important stage of our country’s history.
• Grades 3 – 7 study Latin in order to acquire a greater understanding of the English language as well as provide a base for learning foreign languages .
• Grades 7 - 8 have formal Logic classes to learn the art of argument.
• Greek is our High School foreign language