Curriculum
Mother of Divine Grace's curriculum is a particular application of Laura Berquist's recommendations in her book Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum. It is based upon the classical method which aims at establishing the tools of learning so that truth may be attained more easily and accurately. She has experimented with different materials and activities and has selected those that have been most successful. These have been incorporated in our syllabi. Thousands of parents and students have benefited from the structure and focus that the syllabi provide.
Learn more about the methodology implemented in Mother of Divine Grace School's curriculum on our Methodology page. On the Overview of the Curriculum page we give a more detailed explanation of our program, with links to various articles embedded in the explanation. The articles expand on the ideas presented in summary on the overview page.
Check out the various grade levels to see Mother of Divine Grace School's recommendations for the four stages of learning:
View a list of Mother of Divine Grace School's recommended Syllabi.
Our curriculum is Catholic and classical. We have been careful to select the best sources available in all subject areas. All the books we recommend fit the classical methodology. For example, the books we have selected for middle school help the students to analyze what they read, and the books we have selected for high school help them develop skills in discussing reasonably and writing persuasively.
Our curricular materials have been carefully examined to ensure that they are not opposed to the Catholic faith. While not every text in the program is explicitly Catholic, we avoid all materials which are opposed, explicitly or implicitly, to the truths of the Faith. The Catholic Church is universal, and has always made her own what was best in human culture. St. Augustine explains why:
“...if those who are called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, have said aught that is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use from those who have unlawful possession of it. For, as the Egyptians had not only the idols and heavy burdens which the people of Israel hated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and garments, which the same people when going out of Egypt appropriated to themselves, designing them for a better use, not doing this on their own authority, but by the command of God...in the same way all branches of the heathen learning have not only false and superstitious fancies and heavy burdens of unnecessary toil, which every one of us, when going out under the leadership of Christ from the fellowship of the heathen, ought to abhor and avoid; but they contain also liberal instruction which is better adapted to the use of the truth, and some most excellent precepts of morality; and some truths in regard even to the worship of the One God.”
Guided by this principle, we have included materials that do not come from Catholic sources in our curriculum. Of course, we prefer, whenever possible, to support Catholic authors and Catholic publishers and bookstores. Also, we know that some people do not wish to use materials from non-Catholic sources. We understand and respect their decision to find substitutes for such materials.
“Now in those things that come about by nature and art, art works in the same way and uses the same sorts of tools as nature…. This is why art is said to imitate nature…. (I)n the acquisition of knowledge, the teacher leads the student to the knowledge of things the student previously did not know in the same way that someone leads himself to discover what he previously did not know.”