Brand new "Old School" in Northern Kentucky

The Cornerstone Classical Christian Academy opened Aug. 27 at the Lakeside Christian Church in Kenton County. (FYI...I'm pretty sure some members of my family attend/have attended Lakeside.)

To prepare their students for the 21st century, the school's creators selected a curriculum straight from the middle ages...a time when the Roman Catholic Church dominated Europe. The academy then chose a school name including "Classical" - which infers classical scholarship - an idea that came some time later, during the renaissance.

In medieval universities, the curriculum sometimes called "trivium" included grammar, dialectic (logic), and rhetoric. The word is a Latin term meaning “the three roads” forming the foundation of a medieval liberal arts education. The dialectic taught logic as a more enlightened way to mediate disputes - rather than resorting to violence so prevalent during medieval times - using the ideas of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

Classical scholarship was a humanist idea that grew out of the renaissance - a time when European scholars were uncovering ancient manuscripts and art from ancient Rome, and putting that scholarship to work for the state and the church. "Classical" doesn't just mean old school. It has a particular meaning in the history of education, a fact that has apparently escaped the school's founders.

But in today's world of revisionist philosophies a private academy hopes to attract Christian students using a secular humanist ideal, a Biblical worldview and a medieval curriculum.

The only thing missing is Socratic method.

Ain't that America.

...After years of planning and paperwork, [Alabama natives John and Sara Davis] opened the new school with one teacher, four kindergartners and one second-grade student.

The non-denominational school, which is housed at Lakeside Christian Church, uses
classical education methods based on a biblical world view.

Classical education is an approach that is rooted in the ancient medieval concept of the "trivium," according to John Davis, which is comprised of three basic tools of
learning: grammar, the tool of knowledge; logic, the tool of reasoning; and rhetoric, the tool of communication and expression.

Early grades focus on grammar, middle grades on logic and high school students on rhetoric.

"The idea is that once you teach children how to think, they become life-long learners," John Davis said.

The school uses an integrated approach to subject matter, he said, that students build on throughout their lives. Students follow a set curriculum that includes Latin in the third grade...

This from the Enquirer, Photo by Patrick Reddy.