Academics

The Academic Divisions at Aristoi

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 each Academy’s academic divisions:

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

Rhetoric School (9-12)

Emerging leaders take personal responsibility for the Good, encouraging and challenging their community out of mature engagement with the Great Tradition

• Each fall, the Freshman Serve Day launches ninth grade scholars into full participation in Aristoi’s tradition of virtuous leadership, both on and off campus
• In Aristoi’s Humane Letters sequence, Rhetoric School scholars wrestle with the ultimate questions of human existence through daily Socratic conversation around the classic texts of Western Civilization
• As the Rhetoric School capstone, Seniors spend the year researching and preparing to publicly present a “Senior Thesis” on a topic of their choosing before a live audience