The Classical Liberal Arts curriculum offered by the Classical Liberal Arts Academy (CLAA) is fundamentally different from modern school programs. It is not a modernized version of a traditional education but a restoration of the actual course of studies used for centuries in the Catholic Church and classical world. This difference touches every aspect of how students learn, what they study, and why they study.

Modern education is primarily focused on career preparation and standardized academic achievement. It emphasizes skills that lead to employment, test performance, and measurable credentials.

The classical liberal arts curriculum is focused on the cultivation of wisdom and virtue. Its purpose is to form the intellect and will, leading students to the knowledge and love of God and the ability to live well as human beings. Academic skills are part of this formation but are not its ultimate goal.

Modern school programs are built around contemporary academic subjects such as English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Foreign Language. These subjects are often taught in isolation from one another and change frequently according to educational trends.

The classical liberal arts curriculum is built around permanent disciplines:

- Trivium: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric (the arts of language and reasoning)

- Quadrivium: Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy (the mathematical arts)

- Classical Languages: Latin and Greek

- Philosophy and Theology: the study of wisdom and divine truth

- Sacred Scripture and Catechism

This curriculum is stable and timeless. It has been used for over 2,000 years to form the greatest minds in Western civilization.

Modern programs rely heavily on lectures, textbooks, and teacher explanations. Students are often passive recipients of information, learning only what is required to pass exams.

The classical liberal arts curriculum relies on close reading, memorization, recitation, disputation, and demonstration of mastery. Students engage actively with the material, reading original texts, memorizing essential knowledge, and reasoning through arguments. Mastery, not minimal achievement, determines progress.

Modern school programs move students forward based on age and grade levels, regardless of whether they have mastered the material.

The classical liberal arts curriculum is mastery-based and self-paced. Students advance only when they have fully understood and retained the material. There are no artificial time limits or grade-level restrictions.

In modern programs, teachers serve as the primary source of information and instruction, often following a fixed curriculum designed by others.

In the classical liberal arts, the text is primary, and the teacher serves as a guide, tutor, and example. Students are trained to seek understanding through the text itself, not simply to repeat a teacher’s words.

Modern education is built on secular principles and frequently changes in response to cultural or political trends.

The classical liberal arts curriculum is rooted in the Catholic intellectual tradition, uniting faith and reason. It assumes that truth is objective and knowable and that education is ordered to eternal ends, not temporary goals.

- Purpose: Modern education focuses on careers; classical education focuses on wisdom and virtue.

- Content: Modern subjects are temporary and changing; classical subjects are permanent and proven.

- Method: Modern education relies on lectures and testing; classical education relies on text, memory, reasoning, and mastery.

- Pacing: Modern education advances by age; classical education advances by mastery.

- Teacher: Modern teachers deliver information; classical teachers guide students to the text.

- Foundation: Modern education is secular and changing; classical education is rooted in the Catholic tradition.

The Classical Liberal Arts curriculum is not an alternative modern program but a return to the authentic system of learning that formed saints, scholars, and leaders for centuries.