What Is Old Is New

Returning Catholic Schools to a Classical Model

By Matt Post, PhD ’15

he University of Dallas is presently piloting a K-12 curriculum and professional development for Catholic schools transitioning to a classical model of education. UD’s faculty have long served teachers and schools of all kinds, educating current and aspiring teachers as well as contributing to curricular projects and professional development. That said, the development of a full-blown K-12 curriculum is new territory for the university. What has inspired us to serve our community in this way?

Across the country, more and more K-12 schools and home-schoolers are turning to what has come to be called “classical education,” but which has traditionally been called “liberal education.” Many are attracted to its unabashed stance that human beings, however fallible, may grasp some degree of truth not just in scientific disciplines, but also when it comes to aesthetic and especially moral questions. Others are attracted to its cultivation of humility and critical thinking through informed, thoughtful and open-ended discussion, inspired especially by Plato’s Socratic dialogues. And still others are attracted to its emphasis on the human being as a whole, as fundamentally rational and free, with a view to the flourishing of individuals and communities. Liberal education seeks to foster excellence in all its forms.

If this sounds like a lot, that’s because it is, but the Western tradition offers an inexhaustible storehouse of wisdom in negotiating the important but difficult dilemmas that confront us as human beings — drawing from Hebrew Scripture, the Greek and Roman authors, and the Jewish and Muslim thinkers who engaged with them, as well as from a profound desire to engage with other traditions wherever they may be found. This tradition also draws great strength from the Gospels, from St. Augustine and St. thomas Aquinas, and from the monastic schools, cathedral schools and universities that have flourished under the Catholic Church.

This tradition is catholic in every sense: It is for all, pursues what is universal and has been fostered by the Catholic Church.

Leaders in K-12 Catholic education have approached UD for help in transitioning schools to a classical model. Thanks to its outstanding Core Curriculum and graduate programs in K-12 classical teacher formation, UD is well-positioned to serve the community in this way, complementing the work of others, such as the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, home-schooling author Laura Berquist and St. Jerome Academy.

Our K-12 classical Catholic curriculum is logo-centric. Its animating center is Christ, the Word (logos), as well as Aristotle’s understanding of humans as the living beings possessed of reason (logos). It is ordered according to the liberal arts of the Trivium (grammar, logic and rhetoric) and the Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy). The Trivium teaches us how words can reveal the innermost depths of human nature and inspire us to virtue, and the Quadrivium teaches us how numbers can reveal the order of nature and the beauty of harmony.

At the heart of the curriculum rests the ancient pedagogical strategy of narration, the ability to re-articulate, explain, question and debate what we learn from Great Works. As Gregory roper, Ph.D., BA ’84, notes, “This could be a transformative thing for K-8. Narration is the way we can weave together all of the different parts of the Trivium and the mode through which we come to understand it … It’s so new and revolutionary that it will be hard at first for people to even grasp it.”

Most importantly, the curriculum draws its strength from the deep Catholic tradition of education, cultivating the habits that sustain intellectual and moral virtue, inspiring wonder and rigor of inquiry, and remaining attentive to our dignity as created in the image of God. At all times, it seeks to show how we may serve our friends, our community and God, respecting our sacred responsibility to minister to God’s created order.

Our curriculum and professional development team is led by Adrienne Freas, who has 20 years of experience in classical education as a home-schooler, classroom teacher, teacher coach and curriculum writer. She is joined by robin Johnston, lead teacher trainer at Mount St. Michael Catholic School, and Alexis Mausolf, who has served as a teacher at The Highlands School and as a writer and editor on curriculum for the Theology of the Body Evangelization Team.

The team is supported by several UD faculty, all of whom have taught K-12 classical teachers in our graduate programs, including Laura eidt, Ph.D., a classical home-schooler; Gregory Roper, whose book The Writer’s Workshop is a mainstay in classical schools across the country; John Peterson, MA ’19 PhD ’19, a former classical high school teacher; robert Hochberg, Ph.D., whose insight guides our integration of STEM and humanities; Bill Frank, Ph.D., whose many years serving UD informs our vision; and Jeffrey Lehman, MA ’99 PhD ’02, a leading authority in developing classical teacher formation programs and resources, whose guidance ensures that our work is aligned with the Church’s teachings and the University of Dallas mission.

Our pilot project currently includes the Austin and Fort Worth dioceses, with five schools piloting the K-6 Humanities curriculum (including UD’s lab school Bishop Louis Reicher) and 10 schools piloting the K-2 Latin curriculum. In the coming years, we will add subjects and grades, until every subject and grade is covered. Moreover, the team is working on a pedagogy handbook, Dancing Through the Trivium, which is being piloted by several schools, including Nyansa Classical Community, which serves underprivileged students in Louisiana.

What especially distinguishes this curriculum is its focus on schools in transition, early childhood education and the liberal arts. As Yoshiaki nakazawa, Ph.D., our newest colleague in Education, explains, “Dancing Through the Trivium provides an invaluable framework and metaphor for understanding the complexity and beauty of education … While there is a plethora of books that discuss traditional and progressive forms of education, there is too little written on the practical deliverance of classical education for the young child.”

At a time when many schools, including Catholic schools, are seeing dropping enrollments, our partner schools are seeing enrollment increases in response to their transition to a classical model (e.g., St. Joseph Classical Academy in Killeen, Texas, has grown 60% since adopting UD’s curriculum).

Matt Post is associate dean of the Braniff Graduate School and assistant professor of humanities. Post received a Bachelor of Humanities and Master of Arts from Carleton University before earning a doctorate in politics at UD.

As for the benefits, they’re articulated well by Kristina Holleman, BA ’93, founder of St. Isidore Academy in Greenville, Texas: “What the UD team has put together is tremendous. The scope and sequence is a rich and multilayered combination of living texts … that presents an abundant feast of goodness, truth and beauty … Every [professional development] session has been immensely fruitful, and we have all learned practical methods for implementing a classical pedagogy. Our entire team is unified, excited and now equipped to embrace a genuinely classical approach to educating the youth entrusted to us. We truly believe that this curriculum will help us in our mission to form young people who love wisdom and seek truth, and who will go forward to impact our culture with the love of Christ.”

We truly believe that this curriculum will help us in our mission to form young people who love wisdom and seek truth, and who will go forward to impact our culture with the love of Christ.