Academics

A Classical Education for the Twenty-First Century

Lower School Pedagogy  |  Upper School Pedagogy

Alexandria Academy employs an educational regimen that, for several hundred years, was accepted as the foundation of learning within the Western tradition.  Through the classical trivium of grammar, logic and rhetoric, each subject is taught in a way that is sequential and that builds upon the growing capacities of the student. 

The Lower School  (Kindergarten through Prep 6)

By design, there is no “middle school” at the Academy.  The Lower School—extending through Prep 6—is a safe, structured society in which childhood is nurtured, protected and enriched.  As a true grammar school, Latin provides a hardy and wholesome environment in which boys and girls can develop intellectually, physically, emotionally and spiritually.  The rituals, routines and rhythms of Lower School life are designed to celebrate and cultivate the curiosity and sheer joy that children bring to any and every endeavor. 

Recognizing the profound developmental and cognitive changes that take place during the earliest years, Latin’s Lower School provides an age appropriate foundation for life-long learning.   During the primary grades of Kindergarten through Prep 4, the focus is on student mastery of discrete bodies of knowledge and elementary academic disciplines—in short, reading, writing and arithmetic.

Alexandria Academy employs proven curricula and time tested pedagogical approaches that are research-based and developmentally appropriate.  Particularly in the primary grades, the principal teaching method is direct instruction*—the system of teaching and learning that is built around specific and finite surveys of information to be memorized and specific skill sets to be mastered.

From the earliest grades Latin students engage the humanities through the reading and discussion of worthy literature and become habituated to the inductive method that is at the heart of scientific discovery.  Regular grade level collaboration within the faculty ensures that study in different subjects is integrated, laying the foundation for more sophisticated interdisciplinary work in subsequent years.  At the same time, the linear scope and sequence of each subject is calibrated to prepare for Upper School coursework. 

At The Academy, book learning is only a part of a great education.  Lower School students play together, sing together, explore together and learn together.  They are kept busy with the great adventure of growing up.  Along with all the efforts to achieve a high level of proficiency in several academic skill groups, attention is paid to the forging of friendships, the development of hobbies, and the unique concerns and interests of every child.

The Lower School program fosters the social and emotional growth of children while stressing the development of rigorous academic skills. The Academy’s developmental approach encourages children to make discoveries on their own and allows school masters to tailor instruction to each child’s distinctive learning style and special needs. With both a school master and a highly qualified intern in each Lower School classroom, students receive a great deal of individual attention and the necessary support for meaningful small group projects.   

In preparing each boy and girl for success in Upper School and beyond, The Academy’s Lower School program is guided by clear objectives including; (1) the mastery of elementary content, (2) the cultivation of critical scholarly skills and sound habits of mind, (3) the fostering of a love of learning, (4) a deep appreciation for the arts, and (5) the development of each boy and girl as a citizen and scholar within a distinctive community defined by Alexandria Academy’s Public Virtues and Standards of Conduct and Civility.

The accomplishment of these goals is greatly aided by the fact that even the Academy’s youngest scholars are actively engaged in a literature-based program through which they are exposed to the traditions of Western civilization as well as those of the new global village.

Each young scholar’s progress is carefully and individually monitored and every student receives an annually updated Student Support Profile (SSP) which, combined with testing data, helps to identify an academic “thumbprint” that guides the Academy and the family in designing the best possible educational experience.  Each SSP includes measures of Motivated Intelligence, Demonstrated Learning Preferences and a Creative Aptitude Profile as well as more traditional data gathered through standardized tests and classroom evaluations.  

Students enter Alexandria Academy’s Lower School as boys and girls and they leave as young women and young men.  Between the tenth to twelfth year of life, students begin to reflect inwardly and to individuate, consciously constructing a unique identity somewhat distinct from that of their family.  Latin responds to this universal human passage with a carefully calibrated introduction of new ideas and new experiences that encourage the development of the student while supporting the norms of the family. 

Beginning in Prep 5, students are guided in taking on more responsibility for their studies through a comprehensive program that encourages them to pursue their talents and interests and master new areas of knowledge. Formal logic, a modern foreign language and an introduction to Cambridge Latin comes online during these years.  By Prep 5, although students continue to be based in a homeroom with a homeroom master, they become more independent as they move around campus for special subjects and manage their daily schedules.

At the same time, through the arts, athletic contests, student government and a variety of other activities and clubs, each student is given ample opportunity to demonstrate leadership within the Lower School Community.

The Upper School  (First Form through Sixth Form)

Latin’s Upper School is a whole new world of serious scholarship and heightened personal responsibility.  First Form students are no longer treated as children.  They are routinely referred to by their surnames.  They recognize themselves as models for younger Latinians.  Some even tutor in the Lower School.

The Academy gives them the honor due to well prepared young women and young men who are ready to divide their time between a homeroom base and classes with masters who are members of the different academic departments. They assume greater initiative in their studies and begin to prepare for university.  From this point forward, they learn through the Socratic Method, the technique employed by Socrates and recorded in Plato’s Dialogues. 

Socratic teaching and learning in Harkness Classrooms is the very heart of the methodology employed in Latin’s Upper School. Teacher-as-lecturer is not the model. The grammar stage of memorization and recitation—valuable with younger students—is simply not developmentally appropriate for young women and men.  The Academy’s classrooms are Socratic by design with students as the primary presenters.  All teachers receive extensive training in leading highly participatory Harkness classes.  

Designed by educator and philanthropist, Edward Harkness, these classrooms ideally accommodate fourteen scholars seated around an oval table to engage in a Socratic interchange of ideas.  In schools like Philips Exeter and Lawrenceville, this pedagogical innovation has proven successful over many years.

Five characteristics of the Socratic Method are:

• It is skeptical. It begins with Socrates' real or professed ignorance of the truth of the matter under discussion. This is the Socratic irony which seemed to some of his listeners an insincere pretense, but which was undoubtedly an expression of Socrates' genuine intellectual humility. Unlike the nihilistic skepticism of the Sophists, Socratic doubt was and is an assumed approach to any subject and an indispensable first step in the pursuit of knowledge.

• It is conversational. It employs the dialogue not only as a didactic device, but as a technique for the actual discovery of various opinions.  Every student at Alexandria Academy has a voice and helps to frame the question on the table.  In Socratic classrooms, truths unfold as someone’s initial and perhaps hasty observation on the poem, play, essay or idea being discussed is met by other insights.  The Socratic Method is dialogical, birthing new ideas through the process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

• It is precise and definitional. In Socratic learning, one goal of knowledge is to know the meaning of things, including clear-cut concepts of justice, piety, wisdom, courage, etc.  Socrates tacitly assumed that truth is embodied in correct definition. Precise definition of terms is held to be the first step in the problem solving process.

• It is empirical or inductive. Proposed definitions are criticized by reference to particular instances. Socrates always tested definitions by recourse to common experience and to general usages.

• It is rational or deductive in that a given definition is tested by drawing out its implications, by deducing its consequences. The definitional method of Socrates represented a singular advance in the field of formal logic.  At Alexandria Academy, a sequential program of formal logic is an indispensable component of the Academy’s Socratic project.

The Alexandria Academy Upper School is a highly competitive secondary program that prepares every Latinian for entrance into America’s most selective colleges and universities.  The challenging coursework they master is supported by a personalized mentoring program and a highly professional Office of Educational Placement.  The Academy, through its administration and governing boards, is constantly working to cultivate strong relationships with the admissions offices of a few superior liberal arts colleges and research universities. 

Even the clubs, societies, sports offerings and extra-curricular activities of the Academy are designed to satisfy the constantly changing entrance requirements of the very best tertiary institutions.  Objectives of the Upper School include:

A Balance of Breadth and Depth

A liberally educated person is one who is both widely conversant in several fields of knowledge and genuinely well informed in at least one area of human inquiry.  By their seventeenth or eighteenth year, Latin students should be passionately interested in something.  At the same time, they should not have prematurely closed themselves off to the thoroughfare of ideas they will encounter in the university—and in life.  As a comprehensive secondary school, a goal of Alexandria Academy’s program is to prepare students who are well versed on all subjects that represent the cultural literacy of their time and place—and who can integrate this knowledge into a cohesive worldview while at the same time demonstrating a high level of competency and curiosity in a given area. 

The Capacity to Reason Effectively

An education in the liberal arts is an education in research and reasoning.  It produces scholars who are able to employ several modes of reasoning, selecting rational methodologies that are fruitful in the apprehension of particular subjects, issues or problems.  This kind of research and reasoning employs very basic skill sets such as listening, observation, logic, reading and conferencing along with higher order capacities such as reflection, interdisciplinary analysis, valuation and creative re-visioning.  

Cultural Literacy

The first premise of a classical education is that there are enduring expressions of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness that, although antique, are not spent.  They must be known.  In our culture, that knowledge has always included the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.  It has always included the history, religion, literature philosophy, science and art of Europe, England and the United States.  Today, that core of knowledge is changing and expanding, but the need to master a broad survey of it remains.  Cultural Literacy simply means a well furnished mind. 

A Humane Understanding

The Academy seeks to help students see through the facts to the truth, and to know the difference.  It empowers them to perceive the metaphorical quality of all things.  It helps them understand that, just as there are laws that govern the physical universe, there are laws of human nature and societal behavior, the discovery of which enables them to read history and biography as relentlessly and dispassionately as they would the Periodic Table of the Elements.  Through The Academy’s program, students learn to value and champion the truly human things. 

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