Come visit the Ad Fontes Upper School and you will see the rarest of things: teenagers thinking and enjoying it. As students move into the rhetorical phase of their education, the emphasis in the classroom shifts from simply accumulating knowledge to mastering the arts of careful argument, diligent reasoning, and skillful persuasion.

Ad Fontes offers a core curriculum that develops a well educated person. Students take many of the same subjects as their contemporaries, such as Math, Science, History and English, with high expectations (at honors level and above) and an interactive, engaging approach. They also encounter distinctive courses in Classical Composition (Writing), Latin, Literature with Great Books, Logic, Rhetoric and Theology. The teachers teach with passion and purpose, leading their students in developing the tools of learning, thinking and communicating that prepares them for a faithful and fruitful life.

In his Republic, Plato described the process of education as a man being reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he’s forced into the presence of the sun. Indeed, the growth that accompanies true learning is often painful and difficult. A constant temptation for teachers is to smooth out the path for their students, to tell them the answers to the difficult questions that they face. It certainly makes the classroom time easier for students and teachers alike. But does this smoothing of the path really serve the student well. Is this the sort of education that we are called to provide as Christians? Can education be rough and difficult, yet enjoyable?

Student Discovery

In Mr. Mathwin’s Government class the Seniors study the Peloponnesian War, fought between Athens and Sparta during the 5th century B.C. Once they have read through the account provided by Thucydides, Mr. Mathwin assigns the students to one of the pre-eminent greek poleis of the time: Athens, Sparta, Corinth or Chios. The students then re-enact the war, responsible for fashioning a grand strategy for their polis. Each Friday they move their forces around the map, recruit troops, and negotiate alliances.

The ebb and flow of battle forces the students to realize that destroying the enemy on the battlefield is only one small part of war. They learn that diplomacy, careful attention to economic matters, and political stability are all necessary to the successful waging of war. To be sure Mr. Mathwin has told them all of these things, but when they discover them on their own, the lesson becomes much more real and much easier to comprehend.

The Senior Thesis

Before students graduate, they undertake the Senior Thesis project. Under the careful tutelage of Mrs. Faulkner they choose a topic which interests them. They raid local libraries for scholarly sources. They research their topic. They craft thesis statements. They assemble arguments. They consider counterarguments. They write. They revise. They write again. They revise again. After three quarters of a year of work, they have produced a fifteen to twenty page work of scholarship to call his or her own.

When they have assembled their fifteen page papers, they hone it into panel presentations. Members of the Board of Directors, Faculty, and other topic experts from the community listen to the presentations and question each student about their research.

Enjoying Thinking

It seems contradictory to talk about students enjoying thinking and then compare education to a rocky slope up which we drag young men and women. If the pebbles and rocks in the educational path become boulders, the faculty is at hand to guide the students over them. Ultimately, however, the pleasure that a student draws from repeating well what they have been told to think is fleeting and unsatisfying. Intellectual enjoyment rather stems from a growing understanding of the beautiful complexity of God and his creation. That understanding must be earned in many pages of attentive reading, refined by many hours of thoughtful conversation.

Indeed, if we examine the teaching of Jesus, we find that he himself often taught indirectly, through parables –answering questions with questions. His questioners had to think, and to grapple with truth, and that is our goal at Ad Fontes Academy.

Upper School Curriculum

  2009-2010 Grades 7-12 Curriculum