Academia

The purpose of our curriculum and Classical teaching style is to provide a setting that offers “tools for learning”, enabling each child to succeed at their highest individual level. Our goal is to impart information in an organized framework, equip each child to process and evaluate the information they have compiled, and advance each child to the upper grades with the knowledge and skills for students to think on their own and express themselves persuasively. To accomplish this, we will be teaching children according to three stages of learning and development: the Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric stages. These stages make up what is known as the Trivium, which refers to the three ways of learning that coincide with a child’s cognitive development as he or she matures.

The Trivium

The word Trivium comes from the Latin prefix Tri meaning “three”, and the Latin root “via” meaning the way. The word Trivium literally means three-way, referring to the three ways of learning that coincide with a child’s cognitive development as he or she matures.

Grammar Stage (primary grades)

During this stage, children compile information in an organized framework (or “grammar”) for each subject area. Children love to chant, recite, and memorize. Emphasis on repetition and rote techniques corresponds to a child’s ability to easily memorize and learn by rote during this phase of development. During these elementary years, we are focused on the fundamental facts and rules of each subject, the building blocks, the “a, b, c’s” of each core subject including phonics, English grammar, spelling, reading of the classics, Bible study, math facts, and penmanship. This is the time to fill them full of facts, such as the multiplication table, geography, dates, events, plant and animal classifications-anything that lends itself to easy repetition and assimilation by the mind. The material is presented to the students in an assortment of techniques to reach all types of learning styles. Through the use of varied repetition, a strong foundation is laid as the building blocks for future learning.

Dialectic Stage (middle grades)

During the second stage, the Dialectic stage, the child begins to understand that which he has learned and begins to use his reason to ask questions based on the information that he has gathered in the grammar stage. It is during this stage that the child no longer sees the facts that he learned as separate pieces of information, but he starts to put them together into logical relationships by asking questions. No longer can the American Revolution merely be a historical fact, but it must be understood in the light of the rest of what the child has learned. For example, how can one reconcile the fact that some of the founding fathers can be held up as great men even though they were also slaveholders? Through more in-depth and careful discussion and examination of evidence, the students learn how to question, how to dialogue, and how to discern. This leads to the development of stronger critical-thinking skills. Formal logic is taught as a class. It is also integrated into each subject matter enabling students to learn the rules that guide sound thinking.

Rhetoric Stage (upper grades)

With the grammar and dialectic stages serving as building blocks, children in this stage progress toward articulating their views. Children are learning how to think out loud: they become concerned with expressing themselves and how their ideas are coming across to others.

Although our students will enter the Rhetoric stage after graduating from Grace Academy, our educational goal is to prepare our students to enter these upper grades ready to learn how to 1) communicate clearly in written and verbal form, 2) thoroughly research all subject areas, 3) see interrelationships between subjects, 4) and apply a biblical worldview to daily living and future learning.

By recognizing and utilizing these stages throughout the child’s development, we are cognizantly working with how God designed children, and their ability to learn.