John Paul the Great Academy seeks to carry on the tradition of authentic Catholic classical education. Classical education embraces excellence in human achievement and holds this before students as a model. Giving witness to goodness, truth, and beauty—and thereby, to God—this exposure to excellence awakens in the student the deepest sensibilities to all that is noble and good. The classics of literature, art, and music endure and remain to inspire and to educate those who study and absorb their lessons. The classics document humanity’s search for the truth; this search finds its complete fulfillment in the Incarnation of the Son of God.
The classical curriculum:
At John Paul the Great Academy, we believe that there is greatness in every child, and that greatness is God’s. Everything we do is aimed at helping that child discover, cultivate, and return that greatness to God by living life for Him, fully alive. We share our faith in all of its joy and mystery as something known and something lived. We teach the best of our Western Civilization. We study all subjects for their own sake. We give necessary focus to every part of the human person. We challenge students to grow in virtue through dictum and habit. We seek to do all things in excellence for the greater glory of God. We seek to offer an education that is both Catholic and Classical.
Classical education aims to make its students fit for freedom through the cultivation of virtue and the rich acquisition of knowledge, mental acuity, and eloquence. This approach makes them fit to engage more fully in their humanity, in life, and in society. In Catholicism, classical education takes on the grand and eternal ambition that students become saints so as to stand as citizens in the City of God. A truly liberal education cultivates an affection for the summum bonum, the highest good, which philosophically is broken down into the three transcendentals of the Good, the True and the Beautiful, those ideals by which we measure our lives. By faith we know this to be the nature of God Himself.