What does it mean when we say we are a Christian Classical school? The following will give you insight into what this term means. Of particular interest under "Christian Classical Education" below, you will see a link to an article by Dorothy Sayers which we highly recommend you read.

History

Learning in the Western world has historically come from two places. From Athens we learn scientific principle, universal law, and the process of reason. We could say we learn the knowledge of the mind. From Jerusalem we learn the values of the Kingdom of God. We could say we learn the knowledge of the heart. We have found that when these two sources of learning are properly integrated we build students character, teaching them to reason critically and morally while presenting a faithful witness to the world. In essence, we strive to create a community of faith in learning.

Introduction

Ramah Christian Classical School seeks to be an instrument that God may use to raise students to be incredibly well prepared for engaging the ever changing world. With an emphasis on the Truth of God's revelation and the tradition of Great Thoughts of civilization, we have set it as our goal to cultivate wisdom and virtue in the souls of our students in order that they may love that which is worth loving.

Christian Classical Education

In the middle of the Twentieth Century, Dorothy Sayers (a contemporary and friend of C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and J.R.R. Tolkien) wrote an essay entitled "The Lost Tools of Learning." In her writing, she identified what she saw was missing in education over the last century. (http://www.wamemphis.com)

Sayers decried the descent of education from the high norm of teaching a child how to think to the low norm of teaching a child what to think. You may be familiar with the current concern of education described as: teach to the test. Ms. Sayers saw this coming, and spoke out for the better development of learning. Because children were lacking in the necessary "tools of learning," they could not go into the world as "lifetime learners." They were unable to discern valid logic from propaganda, and unable to think through and communicate ideas. These children were taught a specific set of skills that were intended to be useful in the economy, but when those skills were no longer needed, the student was similarly obsolete.

As an institution, Ramah [is a part of RSC] and seeks to recover, amplify and expand these ideas by researching and implementing the traditional model of education that had been used for over 1500 years.

In loco parentis

You will find that this movement in education respects the family as having the primary responsibility for their child's education. In this regard we facilitate family engagement within the life of the school and the process of learning. While our educators are professional, professional educators do not isolate the family from constructive engagement.

Christian Worldview

At Ramah we are committed to the belief that God is a Personal God who is present and interacts through all aspects of creation. Because of this relationship, we can see the Person of God in every area of life. The teacher is called to recognize each student as a child of God, and provide the respect and grace expected in such a community of learning. It is distinctive that in a school like this we find that teaching moments that can be supported by a faithful witness. Such witness connects the chapel and the classroom in a wonderfully grace filled way. These moments beneficially shape the character of the school and the student. As a result, all subjects are part of the integrated learning process. Because our teachers and students work to gain these truths, our community seeks purpose and meaning in all aspects of reality, academic and nonacademic and, in turn, seek to reflect God's character in their lives.

Wisdom & Virtue

Our goal is to be a community of Christian faith in learning. In such a community the formation of the student as an ambassador of God's grace is a constant thread connecting all aspects of our common life. Mindful of the great imperative of Philippians 4:8&9, we want our students to focus on "whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable, and then do those things." As a result we not only inform students, we open them to the transformation of God's grace. In this way our students are cultivated in the hunger for wisdom and the habit of virtue. We remind you that C.S. Lewis (The Abolition of Man) kept enforcing the thought that ethics is wasted on those that have not been well raised. So the goal of education is the "wise and virtuous" student who conforms to the image of Christ.

Meaning & Purpose

The immediate product of wisdom and virtue is the recovery of meaning and purpose in all of life. Remembering that Teddy Roosevelt warned that to "educate the mind and not the morals is to educate a menace to society", we endeavor to correct the meaningless outcome attending so much school work today. Much education today is simply about information acquisition, but the great English authority Charlotte Mason reminds us that information is not education. Education utilizes information, but only in that it is synthesized into a higher purpose. Education is only complete if it ends in a purposeful existence that finds satisfaction and enjoyment culminating in the Truth, Goodness, and Beauty defined by the Person of Christ.

Emphasis on the Classical Liberal Arts

The Seven Liberal Arts are precisely what the name indicates; arts. These seven "arts," which were used in Western Civilization for 1500 years from the Ancients on, have two broad categories: (1) the Verbal Arts (the Trivium, or "three ways") and (2) the Mathematical Arts (the Quadrivium, or "four ways"). Let us speak about the first of these categories that will dominate the education of our students in these early years of their development. And to do so, let us quote Dorothy Sayers: "The whole of the Trivium was in fact intended to teach the pupil the proper use of the tools of learning before he began to apply them to subjects at all. First, he learned a language: not just how to order a meal in a foreign language, but the structure of language – any language – and hence of language itself – what it was, how it was put together an dhow it worked. Secondly, he learned how to use language: how to define his terms and make accurate statements, how to construct an argument and how to detect fallacies in argument (his own arguments and other people's). Dialectic, this is to say, embraced logic and disputation. Thirdly, he learned to express himself in language: how to say what he had to say elegantly and persuasively. In essence the Trivium is both a structure to the process of learning that is age appropriate through the development of a child, and the Trivium is also content within each course of study that finds culmination in evidence of great literacy in the latter years of a child's early education.

The literacy of the student is developed progressively in stages that are: Grammar (linking concepts to symbols), Dialectic (reasoning correctly), and Rhetoric (communicating truth appropriately and persuasively). After training in these skills, the student is applying the arts to all subjects, such as science, math, and history in the pursuit of true understanding and purposeful knowledge. With these "tools of learning", a student is trained to pursue wisdom and virtue, meaning and purpose, in all subjects with the ability to communicate these ideas to the community at large.

Conclusion

This philosophy and methodology of learning results in a Christian faith community that cultivates the student, supported by a curriculum that is rigorous and demanding. Teachers require that students work toward answers rather than providing answers for them. This develops in students the ability to both ask good questions and to know how to find the answers on their own. Such methods avoid busy work and peak during required formal rhetorical presentations in the sophomore, junior and senior years. These presentations are given in front of peers, faculty and parents and must be defended. There is a strenuous effort expected from our students in working through the ideas that have historically made Western Civilization great.

This purposeful rigor provides the skills necessary for students not only to respond to culture in a persuasive and winsome manner, but also to actively influence it. It is our hope and prayer that this education will further God's kingdom by transforming our children one student at a time.