OUR EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
Learning Cohorts
At Chicago Christian Academy, we believe that different children have different natural gifting. Rather than relegating a student to their age, we individualize education by placing children in classes based on their mastery of a subject. We assess students in their reading, writing, and arithmetic in order to individualize education within the structure of our program. Students will be placed in the appropriate Humanities cohort and Quadrivium cohort so that they can progress through our nine level program and truly be prepared for secondary education.
The Trivium
Grammar, logic, and rhetoric encompass the "art of words" which is a foundational concept to the Liberal Arts and provides training in lifelong learning. A student that has skill in words can continue in any learning endeavor they encounter. As students study various concepts, themes and ideas they will progress from the grammar (concrete knowledge), to logic (puzzling towards truth) and then to the rhetoric (philosophical understanding). It is through words that we learn, express, and convey important truth. The Humanities cohort will be the training ground for the Trivium."
The Quadrivium
Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy (better understood as the *Cosmos) are where the "art of numbers" is honed. To have skill in the art of words and the art of numbers is to have the foundational learning skills for all of life. We will build a deep understanding of numbers (arithmetic), then continue into numbers in space (geometry), music provides context for numbers in time, and the Cosmos is where we see numbers in time and space. This language of numbers helps us see the way God has ordered the world and understand the world in which we live.
*The study of the cosmos is a study of the "unchanging fundamentals underlying nature and society" (Pythagorus) therefore all of modern scientific studies from biology to chemistry are studies of the "cosmos."