Math and Science
Classical schools are most often characterized as bodybuilders of the humanities, but wimps when it comes to STEM (Science, Math, Engineering, and Technology). With a rapidly changing job environment and a premium placed on technological skills, will classical school students be prepared for the so-called “real world”? The classical tradition has always regarded math as a central discipline for an educated human. Math provides an order and harmony to the cosmos and develops students’ minds to know truth in a different way than the language arts.
- Early science classes use exploration and living books to encourage wonder at the dynamic playground of God.
- Grammar school students lay a foundation by observing and recording key facts and information in life science, earth science, astronomy, and physical science.
- Logic and rhetoric students focus on integrating subjects and mastering concepts. Students may be asked to study key historical figures and movements to understand how changes in philosophy preceded a development in math or science. Nature provides answers only to the questions which we ask.
- Like all courses at Charis, math and science are taught through living books which provoke delight and wonder. Teachers employ Socratic discussions to guide students in their discovery of truth.
- Our science program attempts to revise the traditional order of biology, chemistry, physics to align with the math curriculum and order these sciences in a more natural way. Our typical science curriculum sequence moves from physics, to biology, then to chemistry.
- Our typical math sequence runs geometry, Algebra II, Trigonometry, and Calculus.