why choose penn woods classical academy?

it’s the brilliant education of our founding fathers

  • PROVEN AMERICAN CLASSICAL CURRICULUM

    The Hillsdale K-12 American Classical Curriculum features the best of the Liberal Arts and Sciences and will be taught applying tried and true methods, using primary source documents, and focusing on conveying real knowledge with deep understanding of the content. It is balanced across four core disciplines: math, science, literature, and history and will include study of the fundamental contributions, shared values, and connected traditions in the development of Western Civilization.

    Our students will also study physical education, music, art, Latin, foreign languages, composition, civics, and moral philosophy. The curriculum will include stories of excellence, timeless tales from literature, the stories of people who made our common history, their achievements, their mistakes, their motivations, their discoveries, and their inventions. It will also include the exploration of human creativity and moral imagination in music and the arts. In lower elementary, special focus will be given to teaching phonics and grammar so that each student can achieve reading fluency and mastery of the English language.

  • CULTIVATING VIRTUE

    Seek the Truth. Do the Good. Love the Beautiful.

    Our goal is to cultivate virtue and shape the imaginations of students toward objectively True, Good, and Beautiful realities. We hope to awaken genuine inquisitiveness and foster the joy and excitement of deeply understood rich content so our students become thoughtful and virtuous leaders who will be well-spoken, well-read, and well-prepared to serve and lead in their communities.

    We maintain an orderly and respectful school culture that fosters character development and moral virtue with specific focus on gratitude, honesty, courage, respect, responsibility, self-governance, reverence, humility, civic-mindedness, and friendship in our student body as well as for our faculty and staff.

    If True, Good, and Beautiful realities are understood as a reflection of the Holy Trinity, then they are not only the end for which we strive, but also the means to that desired end. And, as the means to achieve the end, True, Good, and Beautiful realities are manifested in reason, love, and creativity. Reason is the path to truth; love is the path to goodness; and creativity is the path to beauty.

    Christ is not only an end for which we strive, but the very means by which the end is achieved. He is, as He says, not merely the Truth and the Life but the Way. Christ is, therefore, the path of reason, love, and creativity which leads to consummation in the Holy Trinity of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.

  • TIME-TESTED, ORDERLY & JOYFUL EDUCATION

    It is our distinct honor to offer time-tested, distinguished Classical Christian Education for our students’ lifelong and joyous pursuit of intellectual, moral, and civic excellence.

    In addition to building a strong foundation based on divine order, natural order, and human nature, our students will be able to authentically articulate genuine knowledge from across the various Liberal Arts and Sciences disciplines. This profound growth occurs organically as a result of operating according to an ordered course of study within the classical education framework that is often referred to as ‘Trivium’ and ‘Quadrivium’.

    It is a long tradition of education that emphasizes seeking after truth, goodness, and beauty, the study of the liberal arts and sciences, and understanding the great books. The underlying pedagogy includes pursuing mastery of the habits, skills, and knowledge required for virtuous character development. We believe this is the education every child should be afforded.

  • HUMAN NATURE, NATURAL ORDER, AND HUMAN HISTORY

    By studying original classic works of literature, moral philosophy, civics, and art, students will learn about human nature and the human good. In the study of mathematics and the sciences, students will come to understand and appreciate the joy and beauty in discovering natural order and what it means to “Do the Good.” Students will come to understand the historic contribution of Christianity’s conviction that the natural world is knowable and that intellect is ordered to pursue knowledge of the natural world for the sake of human good.

    Through the study of human history and civics, students will come to understand and appreciate their cultural, religious, and civic inheritances. They will discover that the world in which they live is a result of human strivings, sacrifices, and decisions - for better or for worse. They will come to know what foundational ideas, principles, and actions formed the world they now inhabit. They will in turn come to know themselves and begin to reflect on their own ideas, principles, and deeds, which will further contribute to the common endeavor of building a moral, free, and just society.