Grammar Stage
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.
Dialectic Stage
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.
Rhetoric Stage
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.