Are there any Orthodox elementary/secondary schools in the U.S., and do they use classical education/curriculum, like many
Catholic schools seem to be doing these days?
DENVER — Like too many other Catholic schools, Our Lady of Lourdes experienced declining enrollment throughout the past decade. By 2008, enrollment at the pre-K-8 school had fallen to just 100 — too low to remain open if the trend continued.
Suddenly, the picture has changed and mere survival no longer reigns supreme, thanks to a recent switch to a classical education curriculum.
Principal Rosemary Anderson credits classical education — known to some as “liberal arts prep” — with upward enrollment and the school’s new enthusiasm.
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Like other schools that adopt this mode of instruction, Our Lady of Lourdes’ new curriculum is based on the trivium, a method of learning that focuses on the teaching of grammar, logic and rhetoric. On its website, the Denver school notes that students educated according to this method scored an average of 100 points higher on their SATs in 2011.
“The classical method of education not only provides academic rigor, it also instructs and prepares the students to become independent thinkers … and equips students to be leaders in the community with their ability to communicate logically with their peers and colleagues,” the school website states.
