A proven curriculum, adopted whole

Hillsdale College describes an American classical education as one “rooted in the liberal arts and sciences,” that “offers a firm grounding in civic virtue, and cultivates moral character.” Hillsdale Academy, the K-12 school the college owns and operates, sets its mission as training “the minds” and developing “the hearts of young men and women through a content-rich, Christian classical education in the liberal arts and sciences with instruction in intellectual, moral, and civic virtue.”

Hillsdale Academy's program, the model the Academy intends to adopt, includes:

• Explicit instruction in phonics and grammar, with cursive in the younger grades
• Latin, required from third grade
• History, literature, mathematics, science, the fine arts and physical education at every grade level
• The Western and American traditions at the center of history, literature, philosophy and the arts
• Teaching that holds to objective standards of truth, goodness and beauty
• Music and visual art for every student, and a morning opening ceremony that gathers the school each day

Every Hillsdale school shares the following 10 Key Characteristics of Hillsdale Classical Schools:

1. A curriculum that is content-rich, balanced, and strong across the four disciplines of math, science, literature, and history
2. The Western tradition is central in the study of history, literature, philosophy, and the fine arts
3. Study of the American literary, moral, philosophical, political, and historical traditions
4. Explicit instruction in phonics and grammar
5. The study of Latin as a requirement for all students
6. An approach to instruction that acknowledges objective standards of truth, goodness, and beauty
7. A well-educated and articulate faculty who use traditional, teacher-led methods of instruction
8. A physically present, human teacher leads the classroom with excellence; technology does not overshadow the student's encounter with the curriculum through the teacher or impede the student's moral and intellectual formation, but focuses the student's attention on the subject matter
9. A plan to serve Grades K through 12 (though the school opens with fewer grades) so as to provide continuity and a recurrent examination of subjects throughout a student's career
10. A school culture of moral virtue, decorum, respect, discipline, and studiousness among both students and faculty

On the model the Academy is applying to join, teachers are engaged through the college and return there for training each summer. The curriculum is not a parcel of textbooks dispatched to a school - it is a living standard, and those who teach it are formed by the institution that wrote it.

The founding team is trained as well. That is unusual, and it is deliberate: those who govern the school study the same tradition the children are taught, so that one standard is held from the founding table to the classroom.