What is a Classical Liberal Arts Education?
Seat of Wisdom Classical Academy:
A Catholic Classical Liberal Arts Education
A Catholic classical liberal arts education seeks to form students in and through the rich intellectual, cultural, and spiritual heritage of Western and Catholic civilization. By means of a Catholic classical curriculum youth are educated, equipped, and inspired to live a life ordered toward the fulfillment of their natural human tendencies to acquire and appreciate Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, and are trained to think, speak, and behave as befits children of God in service to each other, their families, and their communities.
Through this Catholic classical approach, students gain all the skills sought by colleges, universities, and employers. More importantly, through this integrated curriculum, they learn how to be happy by understanding their raison d’etre as rational creatures, made in God’s image and likeness and ordered towards union with Him in this life and for eternity.
Students are guided to
· conform their minds to the Truth taught us by Nature and Revelation
· order their souls to the Good, realizing their human potential by the practice of virtue
· recognize and delight in what is Beautiful, that their “joy might be complete”
A Catholic classical education is holistic, and also practical. It gives students the foundational knowledge and skills they need to achieve their potential and nurtures in them the habits, self-discipline, and dispositions that enable them to continue their education and their growth throughout their lives. It prepares them to take their places as productive members of their families and communities—to fulfill Christ’s command that His disciples be “the salt of the earth.”
A classical education is personally satisfying to those who experience it, because it acknowledges and cooperates with students’ natural development . A classical education satisfies their curiosity with knowledge, channels their abundant energy in productive ways, rewards their optimism by gradually imparting the habitual self-discipline required to complete the tasks they begin, and results in their confidence and joy regarding their achievements. Students graduating from a classical course of studies are fully prepared for the next steps of their lives, whether they pursue advanced academic studies or specialized career training.
By means of a Catholic classical curriculum that develops skills in grammar, logic, and rhetoric, students are trained to think and to express themselves, verbally and in writing, in an orderly, accurate, and persuasive manner.
Their study of history and of great literature presents to them examples of the finest aspects of human nature and the ways in which people and past civilizations have overcome their challenges.
Through their study of the natural sciences and mathematics they encounter our Creator through the great realities of His creation in which we participate and of which we are stewards.
Through their exposure to great music and art, they learn to appreciate and to delight in the beauty and harmony of human expression.
Through their study of classic and modern languages, they are introduced to diverse expressions of universal human experiences, thus enabling their abilities to form relationships with those from other cultures.
Most importantly, through a curriculum that is integrally infused with a Catholic perspective across all subject areas and that includes their study of the Catholic religion itself, they become happily empowered to live in service to God, their families, and their communities, in their pursuit of temporal happiness in this world and of eternal happiness in the next.