|
|
OCS-NEO Curriculum Overview
According the the Church Fathers, the goal of formal education is to allow a follower of Christ to come closer to God, to spread and defend the Faith, and to act as a good steward of His creation. The methodology used to impart spiritual and worldly knowledge must be equally God-centered.
As Orthodox Christians, we understand education in Greek, paideia as the total training and nurturing of the child. Fathers, do not frustrate your children, but rear them in the paideia and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). Similarly, My son, do not neglect the paideia of the Lord (Hebrews 12:5).
Education is not an option for the children of God in the Church; it never has been. Even prior to Holy Baptism, and especially there, people are set aside for life in the Kingdom of God to be fed and nurtured in the Faith and to grow according to Gods will and purpose. The fact that, in English versions of the Bible, paideia is often translated as discipline, or chastening, demonstrates the persistently corrective nature of Christian education, guiding persons from their earliest years of blossoming self-direction back to the goal of dependent communion with God. The human person body, soul and spirit is educated in the Church according to his or her created purpose, to recognize and act with all of creation in concert with the Creator, God the Holy Trinity.
Classical education refers to the manner of educating children according to a Classical model. The Classical model, time-tested since ancient Greek, Roman, and medieval times, is known as the Trivium, meaning, triple-way. The Classical model recognizes three stages of mental/physiological development in children with corresponding stages of learning. The Grammar stage, grades 1-4, concentrates on learning the facts of language, math, history, and science without much critical thinking. The Logic stage, grades 5-8, concentrates on making truthful connections, deductions, and inferences with all the facts first learned in the Grammar stage. Finally, the Rhetoric stage, grades 9-12, concentrates on truthful expression, meaningful discourse, and skillful persuasion. Classical education prepares the student for valuable service in the world and society by teaching as much as one can about the world, tempering such knowledge with instruction in discrimination, and importantly developing the ability of the student to learn, think, and contribute in any situation in life.
The Classical education model is developmentally appropriate, superior in content, and impressive in its results yet, from an Orthodox Christian perspective, it is incomplete. Education must be accomplished for right-glory (in Greek, orthodoxa), for the love of God, and the love of all people.
The academic standards in any secular or Christian school (or home school) should be the highest possible, and the students of a Classically-modeled program will master more subject matter facts and methods of analysis than most, if not all, students from a non-Classical program. The aim of a specifically Orthodox approach, though, is to contemplate created things, then go beyond them to the Creator, and ultimately to know God, the Holy Trinity. The aim is to offer all knowledge back to God in thanksgiving for His goodness and love to us unto eternity. The end of Orthodox education is summarized with these words from the Divine Liturgy: Thine Own of Thine Own, we offer unto Thee, on behalf of all, and for all.
Orthodox classical education seeks to engender Saints, not just intelligentsia. The overriding diet of the Orthodox school is Holy Scripture (the incarnate Word of God), participation in the Liturgy and prayer hours of the Church, iconography, and the example of the lives of the Saints themselves. The things of this life become a revelation of the Kingdom of God as they are re-integrated and ordered rightly in the practice of the Church both corporately in worship and service, and personally in family and vocation.
To this end, Orthodox education possesses its own triple-way, to which the secular Classical model harmonizes quite well. The Orthodox way is: purification, illumination, and union with God. In an Orthodox context, learning the facts of life (Grammar stage) is primarily learning to practice virtues according to Gods commandments, obedience to God and Church, repentance, and quelling the passions (purification). Learning how everything fits together in an ordered way (Logic stage) is learning the doctrines of the Church, the why things are the way they are by Gods design, and the preservation and the restoration of all creation to a right use in Christ (illumination). Learning truthful expression, discourse and persuasion (Rhetoric stage) is learning the faith in unceasing prayer, passing beyond all human reason to rely assuredly on God despite empirical evidence and opposition to the contrary (union with God).
While corresponding in purpose, the triple-way of Orthodoxy is not so much sequential like the stages of the Trivium, but present in its tri-fold aspect throughout a persons life. Ultimately purification, illumination, and union with God cannot be attained by any method or model, but are gifts from God and a way of life in the Holy Spirit. Therefore the Orthodox way transcends the Trivium and is maintained through a basic attitude of humility, purity of heart and life, and prayer. Not only does an Orthodox classical education impart knowledge and the best tools of human learning, but it seeks to teach the student three most important things: how to desire God, not merely material ends; how to tenaciously cling to Gods wisdom, not our own; and how to direct all our powers toward God, without straying according to human pride.
The genuineness of the Orthodox way in the school, an Orthodox classical education is that this way is the shared experience of the faithful throughout the centuries. Orthodox education does not rest on theoretical knowledge, speculation, or experimentation, but on the experience of God by the Saints as they were purified, illumined, and united to God. Orthodox classical education is very academic, but it transcends academia. Moses, who was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22), and the Apostle Paul, who excelled in Pharisaic training and could quote Greek philosophers with ease, both learned true wisdom, however, only as God appeared to them to Moses on Mount Sinai and to Paul on the road to Damascus. So, too, Orthodox classical education revels in the finest of human learning but relies on the wisdom coming from God alone, revealed through His Son in the Holy Spirit. The Church knows such divine learning is only received by grace as we are purified in body, soul, and spirit.
The beauty of an Orthodox classical education is in its struggle. The struggle is not merely to offer a worldly education, or a collection of information merely to meet the standards of state or national accreditation. The struggle is not to use educational efforts as an opportunity for self-congratulation or supposedly guaranteed keys of worldly success. The struggle is to hope for more, to grow in the Kingdom of God, to long for the experience of Gods grace, to love God, to cooperate with God in His eternal design, to commune with God. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Romans 12:2). This beautiful struggle of Orthodox classical education is the life of the Church, the Body of Christ, and eternal life that we may grow up in all things into Him Who is the head Christ (Ephesians 4:15).
Father Jonathan H. Cholcher
The focus of life for an Orthodox Christian is theosis the ultimate reunion with God the Father, salvation. The focus of an Orthodox Christian education at any level, must also ultimately be salvation.
For parents and Orthodox educators, the history of Gods involvement with humanity, His work in time with the goal of bringing all of humanity back to Him is the logical place to start young Orthodox Christians on the task of working out their own salvation. Through the careful study of Salvation History Gods actions on our behalf throughout human history our children a gain knowledge of what came before, and superb examples in Christ Jesus, His Prophets, and His Saints, for how they must proceed.
Integrated Curriculum
The study of Salvation History provides a natural framework for the presentation of material in other subject areas as well:
-
History & Geography (the struggle of man to survive and thrive in a fallen world, including cultures, economies, political and social movements, wars, and technical advances)
-
Natural Science, Mathematics, and Logic (the struggle of man to understand the universe that God created What is it? How was it made? From what?)
-
Stewardship (the struggle of man to take care of what God has charged him with maintaining: his own being as a creature made in the image of God and the world around him, to include hygiene, safety and first aid, nutrition and physical conditioning, Godly lifestyles, childcare and home-making, merciful service to the less fortunate and civic responsibility, awareness of current events in context of Gods commandments, environmental awareness, and conservation of natural resources)
-
Literature, Music & Music History, Art & Art History (the struggle of man to document and interpret his experiences in the world, and to emulate Gods creative work in some way)
A Six-year Cycle
The study of Salvation History from Creation and the fall of man, to the raising up of Saints in the young United States is conducted in a six-year cycle, so that a student beginning an Orthodox classical program will cover the needed material twice before entering seminary or college. The topic- and timeline are as follows:
-
Year 1 Old Testament (Creation and ancient Israel), Ancient Mesopotamia (Sumeria, Babylon, Assyria), Ancient Egypt.
-
Year 2 Ancient Greece, the Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire, New Testament (from the Incarnation to the Apostolic Age), the Church through St. Constantine the Great.
-
Year 3 The Byzantine Empire (Apologists, Patriarchs and Emperors, Ecumenical Councils), distortion of the Faith in the See of Rome, medieval West/Orthodox East, the rise of Islam.
-
Year 4 Falling away and fracturing of the See of Rome (the Holy Roman Empire and the Franks, the Western Renaissance, the Reformation and Counter-reformation), the Enlightenment of Rus, and the Church under the Ottoman occupation.
-
Year 5 Orthodoxy and the Americas: The New World and Enlightenment of the Americas. The planting of the Church in North America, impact of changes in Europe and Asia.
-
Year 6 Orthodoxy and the World: World War I to Present. The impact of war, the Russian Revolution, the nation of Israel, Islamic fundamentalism, the information age, and the ecumenical movement on the Church.
Reading, Writing, and rithmetic
The basics of education subjects which impart the tools a student will need to study, communicate, and analyze on his own as he continues are offered in parallel with the integrated curriculum.
Daily lessons and drills in phonics and spelling, grammar, handwriting, mathematics, logic, and classical and foreign languages are effectively scripted by many non-Orthodox sources. In an Orthodox educational environment, though, this grade-level-oriented material must be chosen carefully to reinforce the integrated curriculum. Basic skills subjects must support rather than hinder, or trivialize, the goal of salvation and study of Salvation History (for example, the Psalter and lives of the Saints may be presented to reinforce phonics-based readers, and will ultimately replace them). In an integrated curriculum, all subjects are exercises and practice to support the goal.
Basic skills should develop in concert with a disciplined intention to learn only the best and the true. In this way, the maturity of the student develops in an integrated fashion, physically, mentally, and spiritually, and no aspect of the person is free to pursue its own end.
There are many students who possess mastery of basic skills, spelling, grammar, reading, mathematics, and languages, who at the same time are taught simply by lack of focus that these skills have no fixed or meaningful purpose. Utilizing basic skills at the lowest educational levels to learn the best and the true provides not only a stable foundation of academic tools, but it minimizes the tendency at higher levels to stray from, experiment with, or invent the truth for oneself.
Enrichment and Creativity
The integrated Orthodox classical curriculum is by appearances very regimented, leaving little room for personal creativity on the part of the student. In fact, the integrated curriculum rejoices in personal creativity. Students are not robots; they are persons. Education is not a stamping or extrusion process resulting in one uniform product; education is a process by which persons, created in Gods image, are challenged to become like God ad infinitum. The focused integrated curriculum, like a competitive athletic program (or, like iconographic canons), allows the students creativity to blossom always in the proper direction.
Creativity is particularly evident in the exercises of writing, speaking, and the manual arts (instrumental music, painting, sculpting, weaving, sewing, casting metal, etc.). Organized, grammatically-correct writing and oral presentation exercises are a staple of the integrated curriculum, in which the student learns to express each individual subject in relation to and in terms of the other subjects. With such writing and speaking, the student learns to make the subject matter part of his own God-given experience for the glory of God.
Further enrichment in the integrated curriculum involves the manual arts, using the whole person to manipulate earthly things for godly ends, whether the object produced is utilitarian, like a rug or a basket, or the object is intended to please the eye or convey divine meaning to life, as with a painting or sculpture. In the integrated curriculum, there is first development of the inner person in purity of heart and mind. Then the educational process provides avenues for expression beyond the person, always directed toward God in the service of others. The integrated curriculum guards against a cacophony of individuals and strives to foster a communion of persons writing, speaking, working in harmony according to Gods will and pleasure.
A Grand Design
Integrated means complete, and no course of study is complete unless it achieves salvation the deliverance of men, women, and all of creation from futility, evil, and death in the restoration to life. This salvation has been accomplished in the resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead. This salvation was always the plan of God, to which God directed and persuaded all people from the beginning. To perceive salvation as the goal of history is the aim of education, for in this perception, if truly taken to heart, is the transformation of life toward union with God. Apart from God there is literally no-thing.
There are no guarantees in education, only opportunities. The most well-constructed integrated curriculum does not assure success for anyone, either student or teacher. Yet the integrated curriculum centered in salvation history begins and ends in the Garden of God, in paradise, in the bosom of the Church. In this fertile ground, fruit is inevitable if we the tillers of the ground are not slack, and humbly seek guidance and help from God Almighty.
We should thank God that He has given opportunity to grow in salvation and for ourselves to become part of that history of the Saints, unto ages of ages.
The goal of OSC-NEO's schools is to assist parents in starting their children on the path toward Salvation by reinforcing in their academic environment what is being taught, modeled, and lived in their homes every day: the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Faith.
Is OCS-NEO meeting its ultimate goal? Are the students coming closer to God? Are they developing and using their God-given abilities to the fullest in His service ― to worship Him, spread the Gospel, and serve their fellow man? Only God can judge
But our students academic skills ― core subjects of vocabulary, reading comprehension, language, and math; science; social studies; and sources of information ― are measured objectively, using the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) at each grade level every year. The 2002 tests at St. Nicholas Orthodox School, Akron, were administered in just before the Holy Week/Pascha break, and the results were again fantastic.
The graph below shows the average percentile rank for each class/grade in the ITBS for all subjects, as compared to all students taking the test at the same level nationwide. By definition, the national average is 50%, with exactly half of the students above and half below. A percentile ranking of 99% ― as achieved by our second grade class ― means that our students scored in the top 1% of students in the same grade nationwide. All of our students tested well above the national average (92nd percentile school average), and are significantly above grade level.
Archpriest T. Stephen Kopestonsky
Principal, St. Nicholas Orthodox School of Akron
*St. Nicholas Orthodox School of Akron ended the 2001-2002 academic year with 24 students; test results for two late-spring transfers are not included here.
|
