Classical Christian Curriculum
Q. What
does a Christian school use for curriculum? Only the Bible?
The Bible
is indeed a valued teaching tool in a Christian school, but it is far from the
only source of information. Christian schools have a vast array of curriculum
from which to choose, often selecting the same publishing houses and textbooks
their public-school counterparts are using.
Actually,
Christian schools can use an even wider array of curriculum than public schools
because they are not constrained by Political Correctness, union rules, school
board policies, or other free-speech "veils" that tend to narrow the curricular
choices in a government school.
You are
much more likely to find classic literature in a Christian school, for example,
because a lot of classic literature contains scenes about Christianity. But the
"thought police" who choose curriculum in public schools censor those books
out.
For
example, in Robert Louis Stevenson's Robinson
Crusoe the hero gets shipwrecked, and eventually turns to God for solace,
with many scenes of prayer and Bible reading. How sad that fear and prejudice
keep today's students from studying the first novel in English. But that's the
status of the public schools today, and it's a key reason more and more parents
are turning to Christian education in general, and classical Christian ed in
particular.
What is
"classical" Christian ed? It has a heavy emphasis on the roots of western
civilization, covering many things that the public schools abandoned long ago:
ancient history, cultures and languages, especially Latin; Old and New
Testament studies; the classics of literature, and the particular subskills of
what's called the "Trivium."
The
"Trivium" is Latin for the three stages of education:
Grammar -
acquiring a knowledge base; they used to call elementary school "grammar
school" because this was the stage at which pupils built up their facts and
knowledge.
Logic -
learning to question and argue, using the newly-gained knowledge base; this
stage parallels the middle-school years.
Rhetoric
- during high school, expression takes over, and preparation and presentation
complete the educational process.
The
classical Christian school movement is based on a 1947 essay by writer Dorothy
Sayers, "The Lost Tools of Learning." A key book on the movement is The Case for Classical Christian Education
by Douglas Wilson.
For more
about this unique and challenging curriculum, see the website of the
Association of Classical and Christian
Schools, www.accsedu.org
Homework: Explore
the program of an outstanding classical Christian school, the Schaefer Academy,
in Rochester, Minn.: http://schaefferacademy.org