At a time of social and political change impacting where and how U.S. school children are taught, Trinity Classical School in Habersham County remains rooted in tradition. The private Christian school in Mt. Airy provides a different kind of instruction: basing lessons on how a student learns at that point in their life, while putting God at the center of it all.
Trinity’s classical approach to faith-based learning starts in their kindergarten classrooms and goes all the way through 12th grade.
“Everything that we do is based on God’s word, from the Bible to our science and history, everything,” TCS Head of School Susan Ramsey said. “God’s word is woven through all of that, because we believe it started with Him, and it filters down into every possible subject.”
What makes a “classical” education?
Ramsey says a classical education is a “tried-and-true” method that’s lasted centuries and educates children differently based on three learning stages in their lives. The learning stages, referred to as the “trivium,” teach topics at the optimal time of a student’s development.
“From a big-picture standpoint, classical education works through three stages of developing, learning or growth that a child already goes through,” Ramsey says.
Elementary-aged children work on the grammar stage, which focuses heavily on reading, spelling and comprehending language. Middle schoolers enter into the logic stage of the trivium, where they work on research, as well as building and understanding valid arguments. High schoolers are in the rhetoric stage, where they learn how to eloquently express their thoughts and beliefs through writing and speaking.
While math and science are important parts of education at TCS, the school is heavily based in the liberal arts. Ramsey says that a liberal arts-focused education teaches children to see God’s word in everything they do, not just while reading scripture.
“It does teach a child to acknowledge and recognize the good and the true and the beautiful, which goes back down to God’s word,” Ramsey says. “It boils back down to virtue and Christian morals.”
The school’s educational model also takes the involvement of their student’s parents seriously, making communication and partnership between teachers, parents and students integral in how they approach learning.
“One of our biggest things that we love is we covenant with parents,” Ramsey said. “Kind of like a partnership, we look at it as the child’s parents are their first teacher, and we kind of come alongside them and help them to educate their children.”
Ramsey says that anyone who wants a faith-based, private education for their students that wants to lean into what the “great western thinkers,” were taught, as well as teach students to find compassion in their education, should look into what TCS has to offer.
“The idea is that classical education wants to ground them [students] in faith and compassion for others and society,” Ramsey said. “Even those they don’t agree with. And right now that’s extremely needed in our culture.”
Learn more
TCS will host an open house this Thursday to share their school with local families who may be interested in bringing their children to TCS. Parents will have the opportunity to meet and greet with staff and current students to learn more about classical education, tuition and scholarship, homeschool classes and more.
“We want anybody in the community, prospective families who are looking for Christian education, or just an education built on excellence in general, to come and see [our school],” Ramsey said. “Meet our teachers and get to know about our facilities here and what we have to offer.”
For more information, visit trinityclassical.org.
