On January 27th, our faculty will participate in an in-service day focused on Catholic Classical Education Curriculum. Therefore they will focus on the practices, activities, pedagogy, and curriculum that promote piety, music, and gymnastic in the classroom.

Additionally, here are the ways these three areas will be discussed:

Piety

The duty, love, and respect owed to God, parents, and communal authorities past and present. (The Liberal Arts Tradition, pgs. 15 and 20).

Teachers will reflect and note:

  • How piety is reflected in a student’s attitude toward the teacher and student interactions with others and visitors
  • What curriculum decisions incorporate piety
  • Their own attitude toward administration and other authorities
  • Practical ways piety can be implemented and enhanced equally in the classroom setting

Classical Education Curriculum and Music

Music (education by the muses) is a classical curriculum education practice that serves to fill the heart with good things, encourage a sense of wonder, and trains the affections. Likewise, it happens naturally without the need to tell, explain or analyze and is best done through experiences shaping intuition and affection, in much the same way liturgy does. (The Liberal Arts Tradition, p. 35)

Teachers will reflect and note:

  • Ways in which students have the opportunity to meditate and wonder
  • How students experience delight for its own sake
  • Identify curriculum decisions significantly exposing students to what is good, true, and beautiful
  • Practical ways musical education can be implemented into the enhance education.

Gymnastic and Classical Education Curriculum

Training undertaken for the health and well-being of the body; formation of the virtue of physical discipline – control of the body – and perseverance. “Physical training, singing, memorizing poetry, acting and imitating, drawing, sculpting, learning of the deeds of great men and women of the past, reading great literary works, and experiencing and experiencing and observing the natural world” (The Liberal Arts Tradition, 26).

Teachers will reflect and note:

  • How students experience the five senses in the classroom
  • Student practice of physical skills like holding a pencil, writing in cursive, performing a recitation with hand gestures, sitting quietly, etc.
  • What curriculum decisions include the participation of the whole body like singing, memorizing, etc.
  • Practical ways to generally implement and enhance gymnastic education

Moreover, to learn about Classical Education at RAA, visit any of the links below: