What does it mean to be a Christian Classical School?

Classical Christian Education has deep footings that are distinct from modern schools. There is no single recipe or formula for Classical Christian education. It is a way of educating children that developed in the Middle Ages as an outworking of classical Greco-Roman thought and Christianity that flourished from the time of the Reformation in the early 1500s until the early 1800s when the secular ideas of the Enlightenment began to reshape culture. Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Classical Christian Education is that it starts with a different purpose and ends with different results than modern conventional education. 

What sets us apart? We begin with the end in mind: Classical Christian Education is about formation rather than information. We seek an inner transformation of the student. Classical Christian Education cultivates the students' habits of thought and action in order that they might view the world based on certain foundational truths and thereby align their desires with God's ideal. This is referred to as “the Christian paideia”. It comes from the Biblical command in Ephesians 6 for parents "to raise their children in the Παιδεια (paideia) of the Lord.”

Classical Christian Education is defined by its aims: at its core, Classical Christian Education seeks to shape people to be fully human, in all the glorious ways that God intended. Our goal is human flourishing (eudaimonia). We seek to shape students' habits of thought and action in order to cultivate virtue and reason that aligns with God's will. In other words, to cultivate a Christian paideia.

Please join us next week for Part 2 on Classical Christian Education and how we are set apart from a Traditional Classical School.