“Why did you assign this book?” At Cedar Classical Academy, we choose books for each grade’s literature curriculum by committee. Individual teachers do not independently choose their own literature books, but occasionally do have the freedom to select books from among the larger list. We follow the principle of multum non multa, which is Latin […]
Moral Imagination
The Adventure of Reading Alone
Congratulations! Your child can read. He has mastered the first stage of reading: decoding and recoding. Now that he can sound words out, he has even started reading chapter books on his own. Supporting your child in this next big step is a little bit like un-babyproofing the house. Once the baby gate is stowed […]
Cedar Hallways
You come into Cedar Classical Academy for the first time and many unique practices fill your first impressions. You notice our uniforms, the orderliness of the students’ boot mat, the friendly greetings of students when you enter a classroom. You say, “Wow! A school in a church!” (To see how the Lord orchestrates this weekly, […]
Family Worship
Jason Helopoulos is a Cedar dad since 2019 and pastor of University Reformed Church. He is author of A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home which calls parents and church leaders to reclaim the practice of family worship. To encourage Cedar families to build strong family cultures in their own homes, we asked […]
“A fountain of joy alive in you”: How Music Tunes the Soul
What did Plato observe in music that prompted him to label it the most important of the liberal arts? He perceived that, of all seven, music best “tunes the soul.” Here Plato addressed the development of character, for music can inspire the unfolding of moral and mental qualities needed to be a virtuous person. Our […]
“And they lived happily ever after”: Training kids’ moral imaginations to meet life’s demands and to demand more out of life
Clear thinking first requires imagination that is trained to expect things to make sense. Dragons get defeated, stories end happily ever after, 2 + 2 = 4, truth is objective — all of these ideas make sense to a well-trained imagination. If a person does not expect life to make sense (or, more crippling still, […]