Devoted to the support of Christian parents
A classical education is centered in the home. Parents are a child's first and best teachers and they retain the responsibility for training throughout childhood. When parents choose a school to assist them in the process, they do not relinquish either their rights or their responsibilities in that training. What parents do with their child outside of the school is at least as important to that child's education as what happens during the school day. A truly classical school recognizes and supports the parents' superior role and seeks to keep a constant line of communication and cooperation with the home. Augustine Christian Academy encourages parental visits and conferences and seeks to keep students directly answerable to their parents.
Designed to give students a mastery of the facts
Education must involve far more than the memorization of facts. Yet, when a child is asked to analyze any phenomena, and is not given the tools of factual knowledge, such analysis is reduced to unlearned opinion. With the popular idea that "one man's opinion is as good as another's," the student is forced to assume a philosophy of relativism. Classical education helps students develop a Christian world-view in part through the application of the Trivium (or three-fold approach to learning). To enable high-school students to integrate subjects in the rhetoric stage, and junior-high students to argue the logic of each subject in the dialectic stage, students must master the facts (or "grammars") of each subject in their elementary years. We recognized that God has beautifully equipped younger children for this task, and we fit the work to that ability using a variety of drills, games, songs, and visuals to aid the process.
Dedicated to enhancing a child's sense of wonder
Despite the claims of doom and gloom so prevalent today, life for a Christian is wonderful. This is our Father's world, and He is still and ever sovereign! Such thoughts bring security and a deep appreciation for all God has done and is doing. Classical education augments a child's curiosity and satisfies it with the absolutes of God's Word. At St. Augustine Academy, elementary education is steeped in hands-on experiences as well as more traditional modes of study. The goal, however, is not entertainment, but "scientia et delectatio" (knowledge and delight). Children naturally work hard at whatever interests them. We have the joyful task of teaching them to delight in the Lord and His creation!
