Philosophy of Education

A distinctly Christian classical approach to lifelong learning

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The sole end of education is simply this: to teach students how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.

—Dorothy Sayers, “The Lost Tools of Learning”

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The Geneva Way: a Statement on Christian Classical Education at The Geneva School

Education today often produces graduates who are underprepared for life's challenges. Families, the workplace, churches, communities, and nations need graduates from schools like ours more than ever. At Geneva, we focus not just on what students know but on forming who they will become. The Geneva Way lays the foundation for accomplishing our mission: inspiring students to love beauty, think deeply, and pursue Christ's calling.

Christian classical education at The Geneva School (TGS) is:

    • Rooted in biblical theology

    • Grounded in piety—which is the proper love and fear of God and man

    • Cultivated by a loving, dedicated, discipleship-oriented faculty and staff

    • Accomplished in partnership with parents (in loco parentis)

    • Shaped by a nurturing, Christ-centered schoolwide community

    • Centered on a historic Christian worldview

    • Guided by the liberal arts tradition

    • Engaged in the Great Conversation—interacting with the greatest ideas humans have formed over the centuries

    • Demonstrated by an integrated holistic curriculum

    • Delivered by competent, passionate faculty

    • Individuals who are freed—which is the goal of a liberal arts education

    • Equipped to be lifelong learners

    • Possessing and demonstrating rightly ordered loves

    • Virtuous, wise, and eloquent students who love beauty, think deeply, and pursue Christ’s calling in all of life’s varied endeavors

    • Empowered to step into the world as disciples of Jesus in service of God and neighbor for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom

The Trivium

Geneva’s Christian Classical Education Model

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Build the Foundation
K4–6th Grade
Grammar Stage
Build the Foundation
K4–6th Grade

  • Delight in exploring God's world

  • Master fundamentals across subjects

  • Build habits of attention and memory

This stage of curriculum is thoughtfully curated with intention. During a student's years in the grammar school, teachers cultivate his or her innate sense of wonder, inquisitiveness, and ability to absorb the foundational building blocks of a subject. It is the acquisition stage of learning where questions of who, what, and when are explored. In this first stage, students master such fundamentals as arithmetic tables, scientific formulas, biblical narratives, Latin paradigms, and cultural histories from Mesopotamia to our own time.

Build the Foundation
K4–6th Grade
Ask the Questions
7th–8th Grade
Dialectic Stage
Ask the Questions
7th–8th Grade

  • Develop tools of logic and reasoning

  • Ask better questions and test ideas

  • Pursue deeper understanding and truth

Students are taught using Socratic dialogue. As they grow in their ability to reason they are also called to grow in humility, charity, and kindness. The curriculum in the dialectic school is designed around a student’s natural inclination to question and analyze. In this investigative stage of learning, students acquire the tools of logic and critical thought to build the framework to ask meaningful questions and pursue deeper truths with humility.

Ask the Questions
7th–8th Grade
Communicate with Wisdom
9th–12th Grade
Rhetoric Stage
Communicate with Wisdom
9th–12th Grade

  • Communicate with confidence

  • Learn with coherence

  • Grow in wisdom to live faithfully

  • Communicate winsomely and confidently

In the rhetoric school, students learn how to communicate the grammar and dialectic disciplines in an effective, persuasive, and winsome manner. In short, their confidence in how to think for themselves, as well as how to live a life pleasing to God, is built up by developing a capacity to present their views through speech, through writing, and, indeed, through their very lives.

Communicate with Wisdom
9th–12th Grade
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