In 1996, Providence Classical School was founded by a group of like-minded Christian parents determined to obey God's mandate that parents are responsible for educating their children. These parents sought to honor God's command by creating a multi-family school that would enable parents to partner together and collectively educate their children. This model would allow the children to benefit from each family's unique God-given talents and abilities without being exposed prematurely to concepts and ideas that are outside the Christian faith. For this collaboration to work, the parents needed to be like-minded in their core beliefs, respectful of the rights of fellow parents, and committed to following a collectively accepted educational teaching method. These founding parents' mutual desire was to provide their children with an education rooted in Christian worldview principles structured by an academically purposeful teaching method. The education method they chose was classical Christian. The school has grown through the years, adding many more like-minded families along the way, while remaining steadfast in this method and ideology.

 

A classical education employs teaching methods that capitalize on the strengths of the student in different stages of physical and intellectual growth and maturity. It goes beyond the assimilation of facts to include the teaching of values, truth, decision-making, and critical thinking. Classical education is conducted in three stages, which comprise the Trivium and correspond to the natural stages of a child’s development. These stages are Grammar, Dialectic/Logic, and Rhetoric. The Grammar stage capitalizes on the young student's innate ability to process and remember large numbers of facts. The Dialectic or Logic stage of the middle years involves the study of argumentation and formal logic. During the Rhetoric stage of the high school years, the student learns to use the facts and training from earlier years to express himself articulately in speech, debate, and writing. At Providence Classical School, the classical model of education is applied with a Christian worldview. Scripture is applied to all areas of life and provides a frame of reference through which all subjects are evaluated. Students are taught to see God’s hand and have His perspective as they view all subject matter, from math and phonics to science and history. The staff and student body are composed of families from a number of different protestant and evangelical churches who are united together by a common commitment to Christ.

Providence Classical School is currently the only classical Christian school in North Alabama that provides education for kindergarten - 12th grade.

 

 

 

For more details on Christian classical education, please read Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning by Douglas Wilson. You can also search online for an article written by Dorothy Sayers called The Lost Tools of Learning which is located in Appendix A of the before mentioned book by Douglas Wilson.