Academy Life

Traditionally, schooling in the West has recognized that the truly educated person must master the various liberal arts in a succession of unique stages. Drawing on the centrality of the Trivium in the modern classical education renewal, and in order to foreground Aristoi’s counter-cultural program of intellectual formation and character development, we use the following nomenclature to designate the Aristoi Cypress Campus.

Grammar School (K-4)

Boys and girls enter into the Beauty of reality through their senses, building a capacity sustained attentiveness and moral imagination

• Fairytales and classic poems form children’s “moral imaginations” to love beauty, aspire to courage, and desire nobility of life
• Teachers initiate children into the world of math conceptually, so that children do not simply learn math facts, but come to “think mathematically”
• As the Grammar School capstone, fourth grade students research and enact–in dress, dialect, and details–an historical character for the “Living History Museum”

Logic School (5-8)

Young scholars train to discern Truth by developing sound habits of mind, distinguishing the nature of the relationships between ideas, people, times, and places

• The formal study of Latin commences, disciplining thought and communication toward precision and clarity
• Utilizing Circe Institute’s “Lost Tools of Writing” program, scholars learn to write persuasively and powerfully in response to any prompt
• As the Logic School capstone, eighth grade scholars collaborate to produce “The Eighth Grade Musical” for the delight and enjoyment of their community