The mission of Greenville Classical Academy is to provide “a distinctly Christ-centered, biblical, and classical education.” This type of education contains several essential elements.
The basis of wisdom and knowledge is the fear of God (Proverbs 1:7). A Christian education has several distinctives.
A Christian education imparts a Christ-Centered worldview, fundamentally that God created all things good, but because of man’s sin, creation is fallen. Yet Christ has redeemed his people through his death and resurrection, and he has promised to return. His work and person is foundational to understanding the world.
Since he is behind all things, each individual created thing is related to all other created things. We seek to draw out the connections inherent in his creation.
Our education reflects this: students read and discuss works by both Christians and non-Christians. Because his grace has been at work throughout history, our students read and discuss books from many ages and eras.
Education is about what type of people students become rather than what type of skills they receive.
Classical educators value virtues more than skills. Historically, the way children became the type of people who lead was through an education that focused on the liberal arts, which were the arts or crafts (artes) one needed to learn to be free. Educators traditionally have divided the liberal arts into two broad categories: trivium and quadrivium. The trivium (or “threefold path”) comprises “the arts of the word,” whereas the quadrivium (or “fourfold path”) encompasses “the arts of numbers.”
Grammar – Grammar is the craft of words and sentences, which are vehicles to the imagination. Grammar encompasses sentence structure, word meaning, Latin, literature, poetry, and drama.
Logic – Logic is the craft of testing ideas through reasoned argument. Conversation, Socratic dialogue, and logic are important facets of a GCA education.
The quadrivium includes arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Each of these arts is a study of numbers, with arithmetic the study of numbers outside of space or time; geometry the study of numbers within space; Music a study of numbers in time; and astronomy a study of numbers within space and time. The study of math, science, and music is not simply a way to manipulate reality. These studies are ways into becoming the type of person who can think truly, clearly, and sequentially.
Education is ultimately enculturation: It is imparting a culture to another generation. The Greeks used the word paideia to describe this process. As we remain faithful to our mission, Greenville Classical Academy will, by the grace of God, produce graduates who care about speaking, thinking, reading, writing, and living well.
We teach many skills and habits as they form in students during their school years. First we teach habits as a form, then through imitation, and then through repeated practice toward mastery.
Memory work such as great oratory, poetry, and virtue sayings are trained through recitation in grammar school and beyond. These advance the student’s vocabulary and aesthetic, and embed virtuous ideas.
We train students in the art of reason and argument through dialogue (often around a table). We challenge ideas and work from the greatest literary sources. In this, we train students to submit to, internalize, harmonize, align with, and accept God’s Truth—not individual, subjective “truths.” As Francis Schaeffer pointed out regarding modern education, “we tend to study all our disciplines in unrelated parallel lines. This tends to be true in both Christian and secular education. This is one of the reasons why evangelical Christians have been taken by surprise at the tremendous shift that has come in our generation” (A Christian View of Philosophy and Culture).
Classical Christian education was not dismissed, it was pushed out. When good coursework or methods are substituted, it replaces great coursework and classical methods, and competes for the focus of the students. Classical schools focus students on learning fewer things well. What is our content? We study our physical universe and then reach beyond it into transcendent truth about the Creator through philosophy and theology. Rather than viewing subjects as an end in themselves, we approach all learning with a love of knowledge (philosophy) and the love and study of God (theology), and we live these loves before students.
We study Latin as the language of the church and theology. Knowledge of this language is necessary for students to enter the thinking of the classical and early church era. Inflected language, like Latin, opens the mind to an incomparable way of thinking, thus opening new depth in the student’s paideia.
We base our writing and speaking in the ancient Greek and Roman training in rhetoric. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, not to be confused with speech, debate, composition, or any other subcomponents of it. The defense of at least one rhetorical thesis before graduation typically completes the K-12 classical experience. (Depending on the school, sources may include the progymnasmata, the five canons of rhetoric as described in Cicero’s Rhetorica ad Herennium, and Aristotle’s On Rhetoric.)
Grammar School (K4-5th grade) students read higher, excellent literature, mainly from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. We use the complete, unabridged, and original languages (or the most poetic and accurate translations) of these texts wherever possible.
The Western canon from Homer to C.S. Lewis, read as close to the original as possible, is the core of our secondary education. Ad fontes (“to the source”) is a principle in CCE that values original sources over knowledge digested from textbooks. We encounter each work of art as an expression of some truth, goodness, and beauty. We evaluate each work in light of Christian truth.
You become what you behold. Consistent exposure to the greatness of Western culture (and some others) has a profound impact on the paideia. Regular exposure to and appreciation of great music and art in the classroom helps develop the student’s aesthetic sensibility. Classical and great church music are emphasized. Other, more recent forms, like jazz, may also be studied.
The second phase of the Trivium, logic, is also a core subject, typically taught in middle school. It is a bridge between language and subjects like math, philosophy, and science. Science is the study of God’s revelation in the natural world. Math reflects the language of God’s order in creation.
We immerse students in the whole sweep of Western history, integrated with biblical and Christian history, from a young age. We emphasize human history and culture, not just geopolitical information. Integration with literature helps achieve this goal.
Handwriting, grammar, spelling, and math skills are practiced and mastered.
We begin with the seven virtues (Justice, Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, Faith, Hope, and Love) that should mark a Christian community. To these, we add the many virtues taught in history and the Scriptures. We do this through story, habit, recitation, and community standards.
The Bible is not limited to a Bible class, but is integrated into all subjects as a tool to be memorized, studied, and applied. We view the Bible as God-breathed and inerrant. It is also literature and interpreted as such.
Note: We do not concur with every idea in these works, nor do we endorse every author. But to develop a solid base in classical, Christian thought, these works are a good place to start.
The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers
An Introduction to Classical Education: A Guide for Parents by Christopher Perrin
Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning: An Approach to Distinctively Christian Education by Douglas Wilson
The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Classical Christian Education by Kevin Clark and Ravi Scott Jain
The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis
The Seven Laws of Teaching by John Milton Gregory
Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education by David Hicks
The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What it Means to Be an Educated Human Being by Richard M. Gamble
Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America by Gene Edward Veith and Andrew Kern
Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation by James K.A. Smith
Beauty for Truth’s Sake: The Re-enchantment of Education by Stratford Caldecott
Repairing the Ruins: The Classical and Christian Challenge to Modern Education by Douglas Wilson & others
Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Learning by Robert Littlejohn and Charles T. Evans
