What we do and why we’re here. Here is a simple sentence that captures the one thing we do in everything. If you are an Oak Hill parent or a part of this community, learn it well as we strive together.
Nurturing wonder, wisdom, and virtue in Christ
through a banquet of truth, goodness, and beauty.
What makes Oak Hill unique.
Christian. “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” We delight in the Triune God. We delight in the Scriptures, the Gospel of grace, the Church, and the Great Commission. We stand in the historic orthodox Christian faith, the central truths of which are expressed in the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, and in the Reformed tradition, the central truths of which are expressed in The New City Catechism. God speaks, and so do we: read our Confession of Faith.
Classical. The heartbeat of the classical tradition is forming virtue and flourishing culture through a participation in Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. The intellectual hallmark of classically educated persons is (and was) a well-furnished and sharp mind. They are initiated into their cultural inheritance of literature, art, and inquiry from which the western world continually sprang. They are masters of language and math, able to think, write, and speak with clarity, confidence, and charm. And yet these are but fruits nourished by a deeper root and stand in total service to a higher purpose: to nurture wisdom and virtue that we may perceive truth, love beauty, and serve the good above self. Read more here.
It is from the classical Christian tradition that we further draw out the following additional distinctives.
Restful. Our English word “school” comes from the Greek word scholé, meaning leisure, or “unhurried time to think about the things most worthwhile” (Christopher Perrin). Long and fruitful is the tradition maintaining that we ought to educate our young not (primarily) for work (ascholé) but to enjoy their leisure (scholé) with nobility. The maxim of the Christian monastic tradition, which was consciously rooted in this principle, became “pray and work,” ora et labora. “Be at leisure [scholé], and know that I am God”, the Greek-speaking Jews translated Psalm 46. There was an emphasis on going deep, going slow. Multum non multa (“much not many”): it is better to go deeper with fewer things, to own them, to make connections, to enjoy them. Festina lente (“make haste slowly”): the goal is mastery, not finishing a textbook, and a restful, unanxious pace is key to competency, where we can cease to depend on the knowledge, skills, and confidence of another because we possess them ourselves. As we survey the schools and workplaces of today, we sense a growing need to recover this contemplative principle to nurture the wholesome growth of children and heal our hurried world.
Embodied. Many of us experienced school as a place where the body was not so much honoured and cultivated as it was tolerated. But to think that our first home was not a climate-controlled box, or even a library, but a garden, and the first human a gardener. God made us as body-soul unions. We were given hearts, minds, and five senses. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. The life of the soul is mediated through our senses: kneeling in prayer, receiving the Lord’s supper, serving our neighbour, gazing at a tree. Scripture only makes sense if you’ve read God’s other “book”, Nature, and lived a little (read again the psalms and proverbs, the parables, and God’s response to Job). We are shaped not only, or even primarily, by books and talks and reason, but also by the atmosphere, the culture, the patterns and habits within our days.
Integrated. We weave together the children’s journey through school by weaving together their course – our curriculum and practices – through several complementing means.
Seeing the whole or “synthesis” must come before any concentration on analysis (literally “a taking apart”). We must first learn to see things whole before we can learn to see life as an integrated whole. We must know the story or song or frog as it is in its living state, as it was intended to be. This means that when we read a story, for example, we do not focus on outlining the plot or use it as a laboratory for language, but we focus on the story as it is – a story! – and allow it to affect us. This also means much unmediated, hands-on, gloves off exposure to nature and real things, and many vicarious and ennobling experiences through poetry, living books, and performance. This matters if we want children to establish formative relationships to the their learning, to not only know about, but know in order to care.
History is the organizing spine of our curriculum and is taught as an unfolding story. History gives the context necessary for us to appreciate and remember the people, places, literature, art, technology, events, and ideas learned. By focusing on a particular time period in a given year (e.g. Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Modern), and connecting subjects to it, we paint a wide and bright picture of that world. We cycle through these time periods several times throughout Grades 1-12, and each time the students explore a little deeper. History then becomes a vantage point from which to step outside ourselves to see the world from the perspectives of others.
Narration is real dialogue, the telling back or writing down of what was learned. Knowledge is formed through narration, making it one’s own. We are talking creatures; the Second Person of the Trinity is named the Word; and the Scriptures were spoken before they were written. There is hardly an area of learning where narration cannot be used, and as children grow through the years, the dialogue grows more socractic in nature. Practically, we use the questions of Invention as tools to seek out and make knowledge: “What is (music)?” “How is it like (a story)?” “What did (Bach) say about it?” Perhaps the richest of questions to synthesize our learning might be “What should one do?”
Living ideas feed the soul, as food does the body. The diet is all that is good, true, and beautiful. “Begin with the best…” “Nothing inspires like the vision of greatness.” This necessitates a generous curriculum, to expand our hearts and minds according to the richness of the banquet. All living ideas have their source in the Living Idea, the Logos incarnate, and become a kaleidoscope through which we can better see the shades and colours of His glory. Jesus is the centerpiece of our all learning. All knowledge connects in Him, and we invite our students to see how this is so.
Communal. Oak Hill serves as an extension of the family and the church. God has given parents the privileged responsibility to raise their children in the instruction and paideia of the Lord, that they may love Him with their whole selves. We partner with parents in their responsibility for the wholesome growth of their children, and encourage parents to be active in the life of our school. Knowing that it takes a village, and that the school is but a part, we invite and encourage like-minded grandparents, pastors, churches, and the community at large to participate in the life of our school.