At All Saints Classical Academy, we participate in humanity's Great Conversation, where arts and sciences are gateways into discovering truth, goodness, and beauty. We take a classical approach to learning and formation. Classical education has been defined in many ways, but at its core comes down to this:

It is an education oriented towards the three transcendentals of truth, goodness, and beauty as apprehended through traditional methods of learning and living as practiced in the Great Tradition. This includes the liberal arts of the trivium (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric), the quadrivium (mathematics, geometry, music, astronomy), and other sciences, fine arts, and common arts. The goal is forming the whole human person in wisdom, virtue, and skill--intellectually, morally, physically, and spiritually. A classical approach is both content (the curriculum that is taught) and methodology (the way it is taught).

In her book Narration: The Voice of the Trivium, Adrienne Freas provides this helpful summary of the trivium:

The arts of language are cultivated through grammar by recognizing signs, imitating, exploring, gathering, playing, singing, and memorizing beautiful ideas. The arts of language are internalized and categorized through logic/dialectic by examining, questioning, and reasoning. The arts of language are refined through rhetoric by preserving virtue primarily through oral narratives and proofs in order to communicate wise and eloquently.

Humans are beings of language. And our language goes far beyond words to numbers, music, and the language of the cosmos. All of this brings together the trivium and the quadrivium. As Freas explains:

The quadrivium is studied through arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. These are the four 'arts of number' that together with the trivium (three 'arts of words') establish the 'Seven Liberal Arts.' Together all seven make up the 'arts of language through words and numbers.'

Ravi Jain and Kevin Clark describe in their vital book The Liberal Arts Tradition, a rich education should include the following aspects:
--Piety (personal and communal practices of virtue and faith, formed in home and church)
--Gymnastic (physical training and fitness, to ensure our bodies are cared for well)
--Music (both the practice and appreciation of the art, including how math and the whole universe are musical)
--Arts (the liberal arts, which includes the trivium and the quadrivium, language, math, and science)
--Philosophy (the love of wisdom and the harmonizing of one's soul with reality and truth)
--Theology (the queen of the sciences, where all subjects culminate in contemplation and worship of the Holy Trinity).

The acronym PGMAPT is an excellent way to ensure that an education is well-rounded and addresses the whole child. This approach has generations of proof, but was neglected for the past few centuries. Its rediscovery and resurgence since the 1980s has borne much fruit as schools, churches, homeschools, and co-ops across the country and world are benefiting from an educational approach that values the whole person and educates in accord with reality. And its outcomes are stellar (See this in-depth study on the outcomes of classical education, and this study on the growth and success of classical schools nationwide).

Another way to describe this approach to education, perhaps more artfully, is to say that in a classical education students come to see that reading is about more than words, math is about more than numbers, and science is about more than observation. Of course, education is not less than those things, but such things are gateways into a wider world of joy, wonder, and meaning. I like to put it this way. In a classical education students come to experience that:

--There is such a thing as truth. And we can learn it.
--There is such a thing as goodness. And we can live it.
--There is such a thing as beauty. And we can love it.

We strive to accomplish all of this at All Saints Classical Academy by:
--Integrating all subjects into a Christian vision of reality.
--Finding God's design and order in math and science.
--Reading great books and memorizing aspirational speeches and poems.
--Tapping into memory as a gateway to learning.
--Developing the arts of language (speaking, writing, logical thinking).
--Forming the whole person in mind, body, and soul for this life and eternity.
--Unifying the arts and sciences; building on the Trivium and Quadrivium.
--Participating in humanity's Great Conversation
--Faith seeking understanding through curriculum integration with Christ at the center.
--Restoring wonder, imagination, joy, and rest to education.
--Incorporating music and physical fitness, fine and common arts.

For more on classical education, see:
Articles/Resources:
--Classical Education in America: A Movement of Hope, The Heritage Foundation Report
--What is Classical Education?
--Understanding Classical Education
--The Consortium for Classical Lutheran Education
--Study of the positive outcomes of classical education
--Podcast interview about Classical Education with Dr. Ryan MacPherson

Books:
--Ravi Jain and Kevin Clark, The Liberal Arts Tradition
--Gene Edward Veith and Andrew Kern, Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America
--Thomas Korcok, Lutheran Education: From Wittenberg to the Future
--Richard Gamble, The Great Tradition
--Charles Evans and Robert Littlejohn, Wisdom and Eloquence
--Joshua Pauling, Education's End: Its Undoing Explained, Its Hope Reclaimed