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Curriculum
Integrated
Curriculum
The study of Salvation
History provides a natural framework for the presentation
of material in other subject areas as well:
-
History &
Geography (the struggle of man to survive and thrive
in a fallen world, including cultures, economies, political
and social movements, wars, and technical advances)
-
Natural Science,
Mathematics, and Logic (the struggle of man to understand
the universe that God created What is it? How was it
made? From what?)
-
Stewardship
(the struggle of man to take care of what God has
charged him with maintaining: his own being as a creature
made in the image of God and the world around him, to
include hygiene, safety and first aid, nutrition and
physical conditioning, Godly lifestyles, childcare and
home-making, merciful service to the less fortunate
and civic responsibility, awareness of current events
in context of Gods commandments, environmental awareness,
and conservation of natural resources)
-
Literature,
Music & Music History, Art & Art History
(the struggle of man to document and interpret his experiences
in the world, and to emulate Gods creative work in some
way)
A
Six-year Cycle
The
study of Salvation History from Creation and the fall of
man, to the raising up of Saints in the young United States
is conducted in a six-year cycle, so that a student beginning
an Orthodox classical program will cover the needed material
twice before entering seminary or college. The topic- and
timeline are as follows:
-
Year
1 Old Testament (Creation and ancient Israel),
Ancient Mesopotamia (Sumeria, Babylon, Assyria), Ancient
Egypt.
-
Year
2 Ancient Greece, the Roman Republic and the
early Roman Empire, New Testament (from the Incarnation
to the Apostolic Age), the Church through St. Constantine
the Great.
-
Year
3 The Byzantine Empire (Apologists, Patriarchs
and Emperors, Ecumenical Councils), distortion of the
Faith in the See of Rome, medieval West/Orthodox East,
the rise of Islam.
-
Year
4 Falling away and fracturing of the See of Rome
(the Holy Roman Empire and the Franks, the Western Renaissance,
the Reformation and Counter-reformation), the Enlightenment
of Rus, and the Church under the Ottoman occupation.
-
Year
5 Orthodoxy and the Americas: The New World and
Enlightenment of the Americas. The planting of the Church
in North America, impact of changes in Europe and Asia.
-
Year
6 Orthodoxy and the World: World War I to Present.
The impact of war, the Russian Revolution, the nation
of Israel, Islamic fundamentalism, the information age,
and the ecumenical movement on the Church.
Reading,
Writing, and rithmetic
The
basics of education subjects which impart the tools a student
will need to study, communicate, and analyze on his own
as he continues are offered in parallel with the integrated
curriculum.
Daily
lessons and drills in phonics and spelling, grammar, handwriting,
mathematics, logic, and classical and foreign languages
are effectively scripted by many non-Orthodox sources.
Enrichment and Creativity
Creativity
is particularly evident in the exercises of writing, speaking,
and the manual arts (instrumental music, painting, sculpting,
weaving, sewing, casting metal, etc.). Organized, grammatically-correct
writing and oral presentation exercises are a staple of
the integrated curriculum, in which the student learns to
express each individual subject in relation to and in terms
of the other subjects. With such writing and speaking, the
student learns to make the subject matter part of his own
God-given experience for the glory of God.
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