Religion is the one subject at the heart of every other subject. The cosmos is an ordered unified whole as it is created in Christ “in Whom all things hold together” (1 Cor 1:17). This reality leads us to worship which is the highest form of knowledge. Religion class is intended to lead the student into a union of faith, prayer, and adoration of God. Through daily religious instruction and Liturgy, with a consistent focus on service and growth in virtue, each student and the school is brought into communion with the risen Lord and with each other in the practice of that love Who is Jesus Christ. This reality of love is the true foundation for the entire human community and its development of culture, society, and civilization.
Students are to be introduced to the wealth of Catholic culture as the fruit of God’s revelation in the world and in the human person. This includes our vocation to love in marriage, religious and consecrated life. Upper school religion includes formation in the ‘theology of the body’ as a beautiful image of life and love. Through catechetical training, students learn what the Catholic Church teaches, and how its teachings matter to our happiness on earth and eternal life with God. All instruction, experiences, and activities should therefore ultimately seek to lead each child into a more sincere and personal faith, hope and love of God.
The entire setting of the human drama has been and remains the search for answers to the fundamental human questions and the human desire for God. In a classical Catholic curriculum, students are provided the vantage point of Christian revelation which reveals the entire historical span of human activity and its fulfillment in Christ. From the pre-Christian cultures, whose works can be understood within their own setting, all is united in Christ who reconciles all things in Himself. History is understood neither as a continual span of progress to the present, nor as a random sequence of events, but rather as a drama, a story of the relationship between man and God.
The historical development of civilizations, societies, personages, events, the works of literature, the arts and the sciences, are understood from the deeper human conflict with ourselves and the historical order brought to human history through divine providence. Students are guided to learn from the key epochs of human history, gaining an understanding of their character, motivations, works, and lessons. The student then seeks to understand their own culture and their role in being a citizen of the church, their society, and mankind—continuing to live for ourselves and our time answers to the questions Who are we? Why do we exist? What is our destiny?
The language arts are grounded in the art of reading well, speaking well and thinking well. Reading must become both efficient and insightful—the foundation of communication between one mind and another, between the mind and its cultural heritage. Students must both achieve reading fluency in the lower grammar stage (Kinder – 2nd ), as well as a mastery of the English language through grammar (upper grammar stage and logic stage students). This development is continued in the study of Latin in upper school (by logic stage students.) Close ties are made between literature, history, and religion.
Through literary works, students gain deep lessons on how to live, on the complexity of the human person and our story, and the creative work of written expression that allows us to express our humanity. Recitation of classic works brings students face-to-face with the drama, beauty, and creativity which motivate further explorations in reading and inspires them in their own writing.
The study of the amazing patterns, order, and relationships in the created world are a revelation of the intelligence of its Creator. The mathematical can be seen in science, music, language, art, and logic. In the grammar stage physical counting develops into grouping, place value, and combinations.
This foundation provides for the developing in the logic and rhetoric stages the understanding of dimensions, operations, expressions, and their applications. Through games, puzzles, codes, measurement, and history, the depth of mathematics is kept in full view. All through the extension and application of these concepts, mathematics should be the occasion for experiencing beauty—beauty in the patterns and relationships within the mystery of quantification in creation.
Science should be studied first with a sense of wonder for the intelligence and meaning we see in the world. Then with our own intelligence, we are able to cooperate with this order in the world, understand its complex change and become stewards of its well-being. This wonder is grounded in the presupposition that all reality is God’s creation. While the act of creation is not an alternative to natural explanations, the doctrine of creation does state what the world is and not how it came to be. The classical Catholic science curriculum, therefore, understands nature from the perspective of the ultimate unity of its mystery revealed by faith, and its intelligibility known through reason.
For example, life in nature is understood not as mechanical quality and the result of a mechanistic process. Rather, the nature of life precedes the living creature, guides it, and is an end in itself. Science instruction is to reveal the natural order of the created world through observation, classification, and identifying natural patterns of development and change. The development of a comprehensive view of the created world is the setting for identifying the individual disciplines of science, the life sciences of plants, animals, and biology, and the natural sciences of physics, chemistry, earth science, and astronomy.