In modern schools, a teacher provides a “syllabus” to students because, without a syllabus, no one has any idea what will be taught in the course. Not only do parents and students not know what will be taught in a modern school course, but most school administrators don’t know either.) Though books may be required for courses, teachers may pick and choose what they will cover in the course, and require whatever they please on their quizzes and tests. The teacher controls the content of the course and that content can change from one teacher or school to another, and from year to year. The syllabus is the student’s only clue to know what to expect in a course.
In the Classical Liberal Arts Academy, we do not provide a syllabus for our courses because we study classic textbooks directly in every course. We do not pick and choose content from the texts, we do not change course content from year to year, etc. We study every chapter of every book in every subjects. Therefore, the course text IS the syllabus.
Moreover, all of our courses are self-paced, so the student, rarer than the teacher determines when lessons are started and completed. We give students the opportunity to student, complete assignments and continue working until perfect scores are earned on every assessment. Therefore, there is no need for test dates or deadlines.
Obviously, our courses will not align with modern K-12 school calendar years because they were not designed for the artificial modern K-12 school calendar. If you are concerned with how courses might be used to satisfy modern grade level requirements, please see our “Selecting Courses” page.
William C. Michael, Headmaster
Classical Liberal Arts Academy
