We want our children to remember what they learn. Current educational trends push high volume information in short periods of time. Sometimes called “cramming,” students soon forget.  We teach with durability in mind (we call it “Mastery”), so that learning “sticks.”

We don’t want our students to learn that truth is just the latest trend or opinion. Secular society teaches that knowledge is “relative.” But knowledge without truth becomes overwhelmed by passing opinions. Knowledge without beauty has no awe or joy. Knowledge without goodness is hopeless. We teach our students that knowledge reflects authentic truth, beauty and goodness.

• We teach that there is authentic truth. If truth is absent, education suffers in purposeless fate.
• Our students are taught to cultivate beauty. An education that fails to integrate knowledge and beauty lacks inspiration.
• Our students are guided to detect goodness and its design. Education that overlooks goodness can’t comprehend hope.

We help our young scholars learn their own and each other’s deep-seated value. For secular educators, the purpose of child education is to fulfill a function in society. This coldly “practical” and utilitarian way of seeing humans leaves the student unfulfilled and in the most important sense, uneducated. We teach our children they have infinite value, with purpose that is boundless.

A complete education embraces the relationship between all topics. Our math, humanities, arts and sciences are integrated. The relationships between the disciplines provide a woven meaning, rather than a glut of fragmented information. Interconnected knowledge reveals truth, goodness and beauty leading to awe and wonder.

By learning to interconnect knowledge, our students are prepared for life-long learning and flexibility. With a fast-changing world, students need mental adaptability. A student who studies and learns to connect new knowledge with other disciplines will be a creative, adaptive adult.

There is no such thing as a values-neutral education. When education separates virtue from learning, it has the effect of ripping away the soul of knowledge. Our teachers help a child discover that learning and virtue are necessary for a healthy, emotionally secure life.

Children spend most of their daytime hours under the influence of teachers and student peers. We want to reinforce virtues taught at home and church so that parents are supported. We believe this parental support is increasingly important to our children in today’s world.

The school’s name is Hagia Sophia Classical Academy. Hagia Sophia means Holy Wisdom. We teach that perfect Wisdom is Christ himself. He is the perfect Man – our example. He is the Word of Truth (Logos). He shows us good, truthful, beautiful Wisdom. At HSCA we believe education can point young people toward knowledge with Wisdom.

The wise are those who see more. They have unusual insights, though in humility they may not be aware of their Wisdom. They obtain the ability to recognize something “beyond.” This is the goal of education at HSCA: to teach children – mind, heart and body, to acquire knowledge in a way that leads to Wisdom.