Too often today, schools take the same approach to learning in kindergarten all the way through twelfth grade. As students grow and mature at Veritas, our methods and curriculum change to accommodate their changing learning styles and capacities…but the joy continues on, it just gets a little deeper!
As students embark in this time of young adulthood, they are prepared and eager, having built well-formed characters, strong personal values, knowledge, and skills in our grammar school. It is upon this framework that our middle grades teachers inspire students towards great achievement and deeper thinking.
Philosophy: Teach them to Think! In her essay “The Lost Tools of Learning,” Dorothy Sayers said of students in the Logic stage (Grades 7-8): “It will, doubtless, be objected that to encourage young persons at the Pert age to browbeat, correct, and argue with their elders will render them perfectly intolerable. My answer is that children of that age are intolerable anyhow; and that their natural argumentativeness may just as well be canalized to good purpose as allowed to run away into the sands.”
Some would say that middle school is a trying and difficult time. This, no doubt, is true; but, at Veritas we try to work with the natural inclination of pert and argumentative young teens. When they want to question everything, we train them how to question ideas effectively and intensely, yet with the love of Christ. You will find class times in our logic grades marked by ample discussion as students apply and hone their blossoming critical thinking skills, which are developed by our skilled teachers in logic class and every other subject. It is in this phase that students begin their Omnibus curriculum, and with it an array of thought-provoking, world-changing, challenging works of literature, philosophical queries, and Biblical digging.
Each subject endeavors to develop something crucial in these students that will carry them through life: a well-trained mind.
Click here to view our high school scope and sequence.
Click here to read more about our middle school curriculum.
Colonial Ball: After some practices, students and parents dress in their finest colonial garb and take to the dance floor.
Swordplay: Students also learn to fight with swords (wooden) as they read Prince Caspian.
Narnia Feast: They feast in Narnia and in Middle Earth as they read Lewis and Tolkien
Diplomats: They set up their own government as they consider Rousseau’s Social Contract.
House Activities: Various house activities occur throughout the year.
