Classical Model

To a large extent, true Catholic education has always been classical, in the sense that the Liberal Arts Tradition was born in the monasteries of the Catholic Church, and later refined by the first universites the Church established.  Despite this apparent redundancy, it is certainly true that, starting in the latter half of the 20th century, a lot of Catholic schools jettisoned this wonderful tradition and began adopting many of the educational fads of secular schools.  Hence, there has been a perceived need among many leaders to "get back to the basics" and recover this lost legacy of Catholic liberal education.   As a result, the term Classical Catholic Education has become a fixture on the cutting-edge of educational reform.  Along with the New Evangelization, that has the laity assuming a greater role in spreading the Gospel, the classical school movement has become a critical part of the overall effort to revitalize the Catholic Church in the 21st Century, and we are proud to be part of this exciting trend.



There are a lot of different facets to Classical Education, but below are some classical "buzzwords" that are helpful to anybody looking to learn more about this new (but actually really old) approach to education.

FAITH AND REASON: By integrating faith and reason into the heart of our curriculum, Saint Francis Classical Catholic Academy strives to produce students who are filled with intellectual curiosity and Christian humility.



THE TRIVIUM & QUADRIVIUM: A fundamental approach to classical learning is the Trivuum— Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric—with Grammar focused on facts; Logic encouraging students to reason about facts in a coherent fashion; and Rhetoric, which calls on students to combine facts and reasoning together to make effective and truthful arguments. Combined with the Quadrivium—Astronomy, Mathematics, Geometry, and Music—the result are the Seven Liberal Arts, which has nothing to do with a particular political ideology, but rather cultivating the art of being free.
THE GREAT BOOKS: After eight years of reading and writing the timeless works of western civilization—starting with fairy tales, fables, and mythology; children’s versions of Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, and Dante; to great authors like Shakespeare, Lewis, Tolkein, Stevenson, Dickens, Hugo, Irving, Hawthorne, Twain, and Alcott (just to name a few!)—our graduates are already familiar with perennial questions of good and evil, right and wrong, and justice and injustice.



THE SOCRATIC METHOD: A defining characteristic of any classical education is a reliance on the Socratic method. This rapid-fire give-and-take learning style emphasizes retention, discussion, memorization, and mastery, as well as the capacity to relate timeless truths to the present controversies of our age.



THE TRUE, THE GOOD, AND THE BEAUTIFUL: Contrary to the moral relativism that dominates most schools, Saint Francis Classical Catholic Academy boldly asserts that there are such things as Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. In this way, an SFCCA education is truly counter-cultural, giving students the confidence to buck the crowd when they know that something is wrong rather than right.



THE FOUR CITIES OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION: A major component of the classical approach likens learning to a journey back in time, where students are taken on a trip to the four founding cities of western culture: Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and (for we English-speakers) London.  Throw in a fifth American city - Philadelphia - where our Founders built upon the very best traditions from all of these cities, and the result is a deep appreciation for both the highs and lows of western society.



AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH: The backbone of our classical curriculum is the integration of history and literature spanning the four primary eras of study-Ancient; Medieval; Renaissance; and the Modern World, both from a European and American perspective.  Not only do students gather connections between the literature they read and the historical events that shaped the times an author lived, but they also learn about the music, art, religious movements, and scientific discoveries of that particular era.  Instead of the disjointed and almost random picture of human events that is often conveyed by conventional schools, where the curriculum is often younger than the kids who learn it, we rely upon the best that has been written, thought, and said to guide our children's understanding of the world around them.



THE MORAL IMAGINATION: Jesus, or Rabbi, the master teacher, taught by way of parables, which struck the chords of his disciples’ moral imaginations. The classical approach liberates students from the shackles of ideology and allows them to pursue the light of Truth, which is Jesus Himself. In this way, the Truth will set us free.



THE CLASSICAL AND THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES: As both Aristotle and Aquinas observe, it takes practice to become a good person. At Saint Francis Classical Catholic Academy, our children are habituated to observe the classical virtues of courage, prudence, justice, and temperance; and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. “And the greatest of these is charity.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)