Thank you for visiting the Classical Liberal Arts Academy! If you’re a Catholic homeschooling parent or private school administrator, you are likely looking for a Catholic homeschool curriculum that offers your students the education that was enjoyed by the saints throughout history–a true Catholic homeschool curriculum. You want your students to learn what St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Ignatius of Loyola studied when they were in school. If that’s the case, then the Classical Liberal Arts Academy is your only option–and we have incredible resources to offer you.
What’s Different about the CLAA?
If you look at what any other Catholic homeschool curriculum offers, you’ll find that it’s not solving the problems of modern education. It’s just offering the same K-12 program with Catholic pictures added–maybe some fancy phrases. The Classical Liberal Arts Academy provides Catholic homeschooling families and private schools with seven benefits they cannot find anywhere else:
1. We focus on the true end of Catholic education.
2. We restore the classical liberal arts.
3. We teach traditional Catholic values.
4. We focus on subjects, not grade-levels.
5. We allow families to study year-round.
6. We make Catholic homeschooling simple.
7. We make Catholic homeschooling affordable.
Thus, the Classical Liberal Arts Academy is the only true classical homeschool curriculum for Catholic homeschool families–and private schools.
1. We Focus on the True End of Catholic Homeschooling
The goal of a Catholic homeschool curriculum is to provide all that children need to know, love and serve God in this life, for we cannot predict how God will use them in the world. In our program, therefore, we avoid worldly anxieties and focus on our chief end.
2. We Provide a Real Classical Homeschool Curriculum
Modern study programs have abandoned the studies of the wise men and saints of the past, but in our program, students have access to a true classical homeschool curriculum. Thus, our children can enjoy the same education the saints did.
3. We Teach Traditional Catholic Values
In the Bible, St. Paul in warned: “Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” We do not promote modern liberal moral values, or shallow “conservative” political ideas, but draw our moral teaching from Sacred Scripture and true Catholic Philosophy.
4. We Focus on Subjects, not Grade Levels
The modern grade level system distracts from the subjects our children should be focused on. In our Catholic homeschool curriculum, however, students focus on real subjects, not artificial grade levels. Therefore, all students can start at the beginning of the true classical curriculum and work steadily through the core subject areas. This allows for great progress over time.
5. We Allow Families to Study Year-Round
Other study programs provide students with just enough material to cover minimum yearly requirements. That makes sense for a school open only on “school days”, but not for Catholic homeschool curriculum! At home, the school year never ends–and the Catholic homeschool curriculum must allow for that. In the Classical Liberal Arts Academy, students can study year-round and they’ll never run out of new study material.
6. We Make Catholic Homeschooling Simple
School publishers produce constantly changing study materials for complex, modern school programs, and expect that state money will be available to pay for it. In our Catholic homeschool curriculum, subjects are reduced in number and simple enrollment options include all necessary study materials, assessments, grading, records, and support.
7. We Make Catholic Homeschooling Affordable
The errors of modern schools make education very expensive. We, on the other hand, offer self-paced online courses for as little as $25, and this includes everything needed for studies. Subscription plans make all courses available for a simple, monthly fee. Every Catholic homeschool family and private school can afford to offer students a true, classical Catholic education.
Free Book on Classical Catholic Education
If you are to choose the best classical homeschool curriculum, you need to learn the history of Catholic education. Once you do, everythinig becomes very clear. To help with this, we offer all parents a free access to Mr. Michael’s book , “Understanding Classical Catholic Education“.
What is Classical Education?
If you Google the question “What is Classical Education?“, you may find that this article is 20th or so on the list of results–and they go on for pages and pages. If you read this article and then read the others, you’ll notice something pretty quickly. Those other articles recycle the same small bit of information, from the same handful of modern sources, and never offer a shred of historical evidence to support anything they say. The publishers posting those articles are selling products and ideas that have never been taught in Christian history. Only the Classical Liberal Arts Academy provides Catholic students with real classical education. Let’s discuss what “classical education” really is. Continue reading…
True vs. False Classical Education
In the book, Understanding Classical Catholic Education, we explain the history of education from the ancient Egyptians through to the Catholic schools of the 20th century. Anyone reading that book, can understand clearly where education started and what its original goals were. Readers may know how education changed in history, when and where it abandoned its original aims and who the people were who orchestrated those changes. In this article let’s look at misguided efforts some have made to “repair the ruins” and compare them to the work of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. Read more…
Beginning Classical Studies
Before getting into specifics, one of the things I always emphasize with homeschool parents is that the homeschool is NOT a modern grade school at home. Homeschooling needs to be managed like a one-room schoolhouse, not like a modern grade school. The children should not be separated by age and given different programs to study as in schools. As a homeschool parent, you have only your own children to manage–and that’s a great advantage.
Second, classical Catholic homeschool education depends heavily on memory work. Modern schools cannot support memory work because they don’t believe there is any absolute truth to be memorized. The modern curriculum changes from one teacher to another, which is a mess. With a classical Catholic homeschool curriculum, master teachers have provided us with proven lessons that simply need to be committed to memory and put to work.
Our online system presents content to the children one lesson at a time, assesses each lesson and tracks all individual progress. You, as a parent, don’t need to worry about any of that work. Children can start in the same entry-level “core” courses and work at their own pace through the entire program. As they grow older and become able to work independently, they will depend less and less on your help with lessons, assessments, etc., and will be able to begin working on their own–which is the goal! What children need most from Mom and Dad is not for them to try and be the teachers of all of their school subjects (which is impossible), but for them to simply be Mom and Dad. This is the greatest difference between the CLAA and everything else you’ll find in homeschool circles. Continue reading…