Everything new is old.
That is how Diane Roddy, the office manager at Delaware St. Mary School, said she often describes the school’s classical curriculum to inquiring families.
While it might be a new concept for some, the curriculum is a traditional form of education that has existed for years.
“The word ‘classical education’ was never used because it was just assumed that was education. That was the understanding of education,” Roddy said. “It’s only been in the modern era where we kind of shifted how we even viewed education.”
“One of our big focuses at St. Mary is recapturing what education is in general as the Church has always understood it and being rooted in the formation of the human person – correctly understanding the human person as made in the image and likeness of God,” principal Eric Pfeifer said.
The school partnered with the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, which equips educators to renew today’s Catholic schools by drawing on the Church’s tradition of education, freeing teachers and students for the joyful pursuit of faith, wisdom and virtue. Liberal comes from the Latin ‘liber,’ meaning, ‘free.’
Pfeifer said education helps children become free to be the human person that God created them to be.
St. Mary adopted the curriculum at the beginning of the 2023-24 academic year. Since implementing the program in July 2023, enrollment has increased by 35 percent, he shared.
“We’ve transformed our curriculum. We’ve emboldened our staff. We’ve leaned into our identity as Catholics, and with it, we’ve seen growth off of that number,” he said.
Now in the second year with the curriculum, which is for students in first through eighth grade, the school is committed to making God the center of its students’ education.
History is presented as a story taught in chronological order. The chronological and narrative approach begins with the dawn of time and creation, continuing with studying ancient civilizations, the story of the Hebrew people in the ancient Near East and Greco-Roman culture up to the modern era.
Pfeifer explained that students will recognize cause and effect, God’s purpose and plan, and how, after the Fall in the Garden of Eden, every era has searched for truth and sought to understand who they are and why they exist.
At St. Mary School, “we’re saying, ‘Hey, we’re starting at 6 years old, helping you understand dates and times and important people who have moved the story forward, so that, when we get to fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade … we’re going deeper into that,” he said.
History and English curriculums at the school are integrated. As an example, sixth grade students will study the Middle Ages while reading King Arthur.
“We’re focused on good, quality literature that stood the test of time,” Pfeifer noted. “We’re not reading things that are necessarily written in 2010 … maybe not with our worldview or our anthropology in mind. … We’re reading books that have had lasting moral questions and lasting true human experiences that we can recapture and then discuss with our children.”
Students from third to eighth grade receive their own copy of every novel that they read. Being able to keep the book, they can mark certain parts, annotate and write questions. By the time they graduate eighth grade, Pfeifer said, students will have 20+ books of great literature to keep in their personal libraries.
The curriculum also utilizes song and chants to help with memory. Whether in poetry or learning grammar rules through song and chant, Pfeifer explained, music is a tool used to increase memory.
The school uses textbooks and resources rooted in the Catholic faith and tradition.
“It really puts before our students the impact the Church has had – good and bad – on the making of the Western world, the world in which they live right now,” Pfeifer said.
“That’s different than utilizing maybe some of the history textbooks that you see in a lot of our public schools or even some of our other schools – parochial schools – around. We’re really leaning into the fact that the Church has shaped and formed the Western world and that its worldview is worth considering again.”
The school is experiencing significant results.
Since implementing the classical curriculum, St. Mary School achieved a school ranking in the 80th percentile nationwide for reading skills. Middle school students ranked in the 85th percentile. Pfeifer shared that 75 percent of middle school students read at a 12th grade level or above.
At the kindergarten level, 90 percent of students are at or above benchmark in early literacy. Kindergarten students read at a first-grade level on average.
All students passed Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee, a state program that ensures no student progresses to the fourth grade without being able to read on grade level. St. Mary’s fifth and eighth grade students all scored proficient or better on the state science test.
The school’s science curriculum, as opposed to integrated science that is often used in middle school science classes, focuses on one field of science each year rather than multiple sciences in a year.
Delaware St. Mary School is taking a classical approach to education with its students.
Sixth grade students learn biology, or life science, and seventh graders study earth science, focusing on geology. The eighth-grade class studies physical science.
Pfeifer said it gives students a “better sense of the whole.” Each year, they can study a system entirely rather than in small segments.
“Every one of our subjects is helping us enter into a relationship with the Creator,” he said. “That’s our end goal. I don’t know if there will be mathematics in heaven or not, but entering into mathematics and into science and into history and into literature, all of those are directing us to prepare us for an eternity of communion with God.”
He said the school is committed to intentionally living the Church’s liturgical life.
As an example, during Advent, community prayer services were held every Monday and silent lunches took place on Wednesdays to help students quiet the mind.
Each day, the school prays a modified version of Morning Prayer, part of the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours prayed by clergy, consecrated religious and many laity. The school prays the Angelus every day in the 12 p.m. hour.
The school also has intercessory classrooms.
Each classroom participates in intercessory prayer as a class, and teachers have intercessory boards for students’ intentions. Classmates pray with and for each other. Pfeifer said it helps students practice compassion as they recognize each other “truly as humans in all aspects” and breaks down barriers.
Students attend Adoration and Mass weekly in addition to holy days of obligation, and the Sacrament of Reconciliation is offered to students every six weeks.
It appears children are embracing the faith. The school has 12 students preparing to enter the Catholic Church through baptism this school year.
Pfeifer said it is a testament to God’s presence in the school.
For non-Catholic students, he believes a “constant and consistent encounter with the sacraments,” although they cannot receive them, is making an impact. They regularly observe their Catholic peers receiving the Eucharist and reconciliation, and they join them in Adoration and prayer throughout the school day.
Some students who entered the Church received the sacraments for the first time during a school Mass.
“The whole school body is standing there as a witness, and it’s also a moment of realization for all those students that are there,” Roddy said.
“They might not remember their own baptism if they were an infant, but it’s not just something that they learned about. Now they’re actually witnessing a classmate that they just played football with yesterday receiving that same sacrament they just discussed in class.”
Pfeifer said some students’ first experience of the faith might have been through Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS). CGS, a parish and school program, is an enrichment program at St. Mary School and the religious education program for the parish.
CGS is a method of catechesis based upon the belief that, to best serve children’s religious needs and capacities, especially the youngest, there needs to be a prepared environment, an atrium, and a prepared adult, the catechist.
The sacred space, separate from a classroom, known as an atrium, is set aside for a child to develop in their relationship with the Lord, Roddy said.
Pfeifer noted the program “brings to life a lot of the truths of the faith” through hands-on experiences.
CGS is also offered once a week for students in first through fifth grade. The program enriches what students are doing in school, he said.
“It is not as if it is a totally foreign experience for them,” he added. “It’s a very natural outgrowth for what they’re getting in their classrooms.”
CGS has three levels: Level I, ages 3-6; Level II, ages 6-9; and Level III, ages 9-12.
Level I takes place regularly in St. Mary’s Children’s House.
The term “Children’s House” describes a 3- to 6-year-old classroom in a Montessori setting, which includes the school’s kindergarten class, said Emily Wu, the Children’s House director.
Montessori, developed by Italian physician Dr. Maria Montessori, is a student-led and self-paced education in a multi-age classroom. Students are guided, assessed and enriched by teachers, the leadership of peers and a nurturing environment.
Everything in the Children’s House is child-size and tailored to children.
In Children’s House, Wu said, children learn about the world, exploring the continents, biomes, animals and social environments. She said it can be useful for studying ancient civilizations later on.
The school currently has three Children’s Houses.
“The human person hasn’t changed, but we’re restoring that beauty, truth of the Church and their wisdom in how to educate the human person,” Wu said.
“We’re going back to the core, the center of our tradition of education that is easily lost in the modern age. It feels radical, but it’s not. It’s not like we’re doing something new that has never been done before. It’s a restoring of that understanding of the human person.”