Our Curriculum
Saint Mary School is a Catholic school in the classical liberal arts tradition. We educate our children in the truest and fullest sense by giving them the necessary tools of learning and by fostering wonder and love for all that is genuinely true, good, and beautiful. We emphasize classical learning because we want our students to read well, speak well, and think well and ultimately because truth and beauty are good in themselves and desirable for their own sake. We seek to incorporate our students into the wisdom of two thousand years of Catholic thought,history,culture, and arts so that they might understand themselves and their world in the light of the truth and acquire the personal character to live happy and integrated lives in the service of God and others. The rich educational tradition of the Catholic church is the oldest and most successful educational system in the world. It has produced and continues to produce some of the greatest minds that ever lived. Education in this deep and comprehensive sense extends beyond the classroom and is more than the acquisition of skills. It encompasses and forms one’s life.
Here at Saint Mary Jesus Christ is the bedrock on which everything else that we do is built. Prayer, religion class, Mass, service to others, and seasonal liturgical celebrations are as much a part of life and formation at Saint Mary as academics. We follow the call of Jesus “to go make disciples” through academic excellence and passionate and joyful adherence to the teachings of the Catholic Church using the disciplines of religion, history, and language as our foundation. Following a classical liberal arts philosophy our integrated curriculum follows the natural development of children and of history. Each of the core disciplines has its role to play in the building up of the whole and each has its own more specific set of objectives for the different stages at which it is being taught. Quite simply, at each stage there are things we want children to know, things they ought to be able to do, and habits, dispositions, or aptitudes they ought to have acquired or be acquiring. Teachers at each stage can see how one stage builds upon the previous stage and how their work contributes to the “finished product” of a well-formed and educated child.
The curriculum is divided into the following developmental and historical segments:
Lower Grammar Stage (soaking in the beginning of the foundations of knowledge)
Kindergarten: The Cradle of Civilization year
Grade 1: The Greek year
Grade 2: The Roman year
Upper Grammar Stage (soaking in Knowlege, acquiring the foundations of learning, building a mental inventory)
Grade 3: The Medieval year
Grade 4: The Modern year
Grade 5: The American year
Logic Stage (growing in understanding, making connections and distinctions between ideas, asking why and how)
Grade 6: The Ancient year
Grade 7: The Christendom year
Grade 8: The New World Year
The Rhetoric Stage. Other than the middle school Honors program, we do not use this stage, which is developmentally appropriate for high school students.
Technology is used in all classrooms by both teachers and students. It supports our rich curriculum but does not supplant it. We are proud that our students can read, write, and express themselves through the written word. Each room is equipped with Promethean boards, students up to fifth grade can access I Pads, the computer lab, and middle school students are expected to bring their own laptops to class. We provide robotic experiences for our younger students through Snapology and all our middle school students take STEM yearly as part of their enrichment cycle.
Because we want our students to read well, speak well, and especially, think well we have incorporated Latin into our curriculum for all students. In the early years, our students learn to enjoy the language through songs and games and continue to develop their skills through more complex activities, vocabulary, and grammatical development until they are reading and expressing themselves in the language. Latin is learned in classical liberal arts schools not just for its linguistic superiority or that it is one of the foundational languages of Western Civilization, but because it trains the mind to think analytically. It builds effective communication skills through the understanding of its strong grammatical structure and the reality that most English words have their basis in Latin. Students who know Latin tend to excel academically in high school and are often quite successful in life. Our students use Song School Latin (grades K-2), Latin for children (grades 3-5), and Latin Alive! (grades 6-8). All are published by Classic Academic Press.
Although we are the first school in the Diocese of Trenton to be granted permission to follow a classical liberal arts curriculum, we are not alone. Two other schools are now following this philosophy and others are discussing it. This form of education was the format in all Catholic schools at all levels well into the twentieth century. With the demise of many orders of teaching nuns (who were all educated this way) and the standardization of textbooks and teacher training to match public school requirements it fell into disuse with disastrous results. Through the grace of God, Catholic schools in America and beyond are recapturing our deep educational roots and again using the gold standard of education which is classical Catholic liberal arts education. Across the country over two hundred (as of this writing) Catholic schools have adopted the classical liberal arts philosophy including several complete diocesan systems. It is possible that by the decade's end, most Catholic schools across the country will be classical liberal arts schools.
Why? Because it works.
For more information on Classical Catholic Liberal Arts education we invite you to visit www.catholicliberaleducation.org . The wealth of information is worth the visit.