The Oaks Academy - Classical Education

Philosophy of Classical Education

The Oaks Academy seeks integration of content across the disciplines. An integrated curriculum, where learning happens in context, is essential for comprehension and critical thinking. An integrated curriculum tacitly recognizes that all knowledge proceeds from one source, the God of the universe, and that all knowledge is coherently related.

The first three stages of the seven medieval liberal arts were known consecutively as grammar, logic and rhetoric. This three-part process for training the mind, the trivium, is the organizing principle behind a classical education method adapted by The Oaks.

Grammar, the First Stage (K - 6) - At this stage, elementary school children are adept at memorizing and learning facts. Thus, teaching methods at The Oaks Academy focus on the “grammar” or fundamental facts and rules of each subject.
Logic, the Second Stage (6 - 8) - At this stage, curious middle school students are naturally argumentative. Thus, teaching methods focus on instructing students in the art of formal logic and on teaching them how to question, analyze, and reason well through the teaching of subjects.
Rhetoric, the Third Stage (9 - 12) - At this stage, high school students begin to develop their own sense of identity. Thus, teaching methods focus on instructing students how to express what they know and what they are learning with grace and clarity through essay writing, speech, and debate. At this stage students begin to relate one subject to another.

The trivium is not so much the study of “subjects” as it is a strategy for approaching and mastering any subject. As students learn a few subjects well, through the three stages of learning, they also learn how to approach other subjects they will encounter in college, in graduate school, and in their vocations.

As part of the trivium, The Oaks Academy strives to be “content rich” by sharing the best of western heritage with students. We consider our western way of life, our laws, our social customs, our intellectual and theological history to be a vast inheritance handed down to us by guardian generations of the past. At the Oaks we desire to bring alive the classics, in the broad sense, so that they can be passed along to coming generations.