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Academics
Curriculum Overview & Philosophy
The Roger Bacon Academy teaches a classical curriculum espousing the values of traditional western civilization and founded on the belief that one must be able to communicate one’s ideas clearly and understand the communications of others.
To this end, all communication must be grounded upon commonly understood and agreed-upon rules. Only when these rules are learned can one strive to communicate new ideas that may lie beyond the rules’ abilities and thereby create new, more powerful means of expression.
In literature, for example, the progression of skills and knowledge of rules from handwriting to vocabulary, from vocabulary to grammar, from grammar to composition and, finally, from composition to personal expression cannot be shortened. Omitting any step in this progression invites miscommunication and erroneous understandings. An analogous progression exists in art, in music, in drama, in mathematics, in science, and in every human endeavor to express ideas - regardless of the medium of expression or the subject of the expression.
The Academy’s curriculum is structured to teach the established rules and to develop the skills for using the tools for expression - whether a word-processor for literature, a paint brush for art, a chisel for sculpture, or an experiment for science.
Along with skill development, the curriculum ties examples - both classical and contemporary - of techniques for expressions from our world. For example, the artistic expressions of the hunter-gatherers’ cave paintings, the works of Caravagio, and impressionists such as Van Gogh are studied. The literary works of Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Hemingway, and the expressions of Bacon, Galileo, Newton, and Einstein in science are examples of recognized expressions of our universe.
These men all sought, by one medium or another, to express their understanding of some bit of truth about our universe and thereby improve our ability to exist within it.
The combination of learning rule-based methods for expression and error-free communication, with examples drawn from our civilization, prepares children for life-long learning and for contributing to their generation and to generations of the future.
VALUES
The Roger Bacon Academy strives to inculcate the four classical virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance and the three virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Each person associated with the Academy - student, faculty, or staff - is accountable for ensuring that his or her actions exemplify, and are in accord with, these virtues.
It has been said that virtue is its own reward. The Academy desires that every student be able to attest to the truth of this statement through his or her own experience.
in association with
The Roger Bacon Academy