Academics
What is Classical Education?
The Classical education imparted in Rhodora J. Donahue Academy of Ave Maria will be structured and integrated so as to effect not only the mastery of facts and ideas but also to provide the students with the tools of learning and a general disposition toward intellectual virtue. Classical education is not just about subject matter but also about the integration of various disciplines and the development of intellectual faculties necessary to fruitfully and fully pursue truth and to appreciate the unity of all truth.
The means toward this end include a carefully structured curriculum, focusing on the great books, emphasizing reading and language (including Latin) and delivered with a pedagogical emphasis appropriate to the students' developmental abilities. Dorothy Sayers in her important article on classical education, The Lost Tools of Learning, referred to this as "teaching with the grain." The subject matter is structured, sequenced, and repeated over a period of years, growing ever deeper into details and increased depths of synthesis. History and literature, music and art are studied in a complementary context. Science instruction also follows a similar four-year pattern of biology, earth science, chemistry, and physics. Each iteration of the discipline and subject matter increases in depth and scope as the student advances through our school and is constantly challenged to connect existing information and ideas to new information, insights and challenges. A unified K-12 faculty will assist them in this exciting and rewarding journey. The process takes time, but as it follows the natural growth and development of children into young adults, there is no better way to proceed towards the goal of fully developed young adults ready to face the challenges of the modern age, and if they so chose, matriculate into Ave Maria University where this life-long pursuit of wisdom and learning can proceed under the direction of undergraduate and graduate faculty who have devoted their lives to this endeavor.
The Trivium
The progression outlined above is often broken down into a pattern called the Trivium. As the name implies, it flows in three general stages:
Grammar Stage: (Knowledge; Grades 1-4)
The Grammar Stage focuses on presenting information, the broad acquisition of facts and laying the foundation of knowledge. Grammar refers in this context to the simple concrete artifacts, basic building blocks or fundamental rules which inform a subject matter or exercise. This is the critical stage when students are learning "how to go to school", how school and learning works, and what expectations of behavior, conduct, and intellectual involvement are appropriate. The students explore in simple and concrete ways the basic elements of reading, math, art, language and science. Memorization and simple observation in a rich environment both of which come quite naturally and with delight at this stage, are maximized. Reading and being read to are at the heart of this stage as all students become fully fluent in reading and develop a love for stories, poetry, and the spoken and written word. The student becomes familiar with various parts of disciplines and future skills, in a basic but comprehensible. The student's developing intellect will more fully appreciate and synthesize the elements of this fact-focused stage as he grows in age and wisdom. 
Logic Stage: (Understanding; Grades 5-8)
The Logic Stage focuses on organizing information gathered in the Grammar Stage, making connections and learning to evaluate evidence. Here the vast array of data experienced at the grammar stage is categorized and organized with some level of integration. How basic parts and skills relate to each other, basic cause and effect relationships, and how different disciplines build upon and relate to each other is the focus at this stage. Reasoning is explicitly developed, including an emphasis on definitions and clarity of expression and thought. Independent thinking, verbal combativeness, and defense of positions comes more naturally and with more force at this stage. Enhanced symbolic thinking in math and basic formal logic, increased ability to hypothesize and predict in science, and an increased ability to understand the interaction of various historical events and cultures comes more naturally. Students begin to show habits of independent thinking and discovery at this stage and continue to read works of literature of increasing depth in their exploration of the human experience.
Rhetoric Stage: (Wisdom; Grades 9-12)
The Rhetoric Stage is the stage at which self-motivated learners are able to express themselves with ever increasing depth, clarity and originality. The student is able to engage not only in analysis of complex information, but is able to synthesize such analysis with other data and information and clearly express in both written and oral form the implications of their understanding. The student engages in depth reasoning as he looks at facts and data now accumulated over a twelve year career with us. Critical evaluation and graceful self-expression is the fruit of this final stage. Advanced mathematical, scientific, and language skills are complimented by a rich appreciation of literature and poetry. In possession of "the tools of learning" and broadly cognizant of the human experience as reflected in the various disciplines of the liberal arts, the student is able to take responsibility of his own learning as he continues to advance through his college career, and beyond.
Headmaster Dr. Dan Guernsey radio interview with Al Kresta of Ave Maria Radio
In this Catholic Schools Week, we take the temperature of Catholic schools in America. Do Catholic schools matter? Do they make a difference? Where do Catholic homeschools fit into the Catholic educational paradigm? We look at all of these questions and more with Dan Guernsey, Headmaster of the Donahue Academy of Ave Maria in Ave Maria, FL.