Primary and secondary schools increasingly focus on the hyper-specialization of students for economic purposes or employment from an early age to the detriment of educating the whole student to think freely and critically. CHCA will pursue the kind of academic rigor and excellence that marked the tradition of education that developed some of the greatest minds and lives – Aristotle, Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, Helen Keller, not to mention many of our Founding Fathers.

More than ever, children need a classical education that prioritizes critical thinking and virtue, but also instructs in what John Adams called the “principles of freedom” preparing them for a robust civic life of service. CHCA will offer a content-rich classical education in the liberal arts and sciences with instruction in moral character and civic virtue, nurturing self-governing citizens and encouraging curiosity, excellence, wisdom, and virtue by providing a Christ-centered education that studies what is true, good, and beautiful.

But is a classical education relevant to the increasingly technologically-oriented modern culture in which we live and work? To answer this, C.S. Lewis provides some insight, “I agree technology is neutral: but a race devoted to the increase of its own power by technology with complete indifference to ethics does seem to me a cancer in the Universe. If man goes on his present course much further he cannot be trusted with knowledge.” Lewis experienced this firsthand in the trenches of World War I, where he saw modern science used not as an agent of peace but of horrific death and violence, leading to a post-modern malaise. Even 100 years after the war to end all wars, we have not learned or changed much. We speak of science and technology in much the same way our predecessors did, optimistically believing an app, artificial intelligence, and space exploration, will prolong life, create virtual worlds and relationships, and ultimately make the world a better place.

It is indeed because of the influence and power of science and technology in our lives today that we must return to the study of virtue and ethics to train a wise citizenry with how to use technology with both skill and responsibility. And we will encourage students to pursue the sciences, in the tradition of great scientists like Isaac Newton, Gregor Mendel, and Louis Pasteur whose observations about what is true about the world also transformed the world.