Summit Academy
What We Are….are are not!
Summit Academy
What we are (and what we are not)
WHAT WE ARE: We are a hybrid tutorial program for homeschooling families and are a partnership between tutors and parents. The tutors will provide families with a weekly syllabus they can use at home to guide their home days. On two days each week, the tutors and students will meet together to work through reading/literature, language arts, science and nature study, a study of two or three artists, composers, and poets, as well as one of Shakespeare’s plays. Each year students will read through a section of the Bible together as well. Parents commit to working through a year’s course of study at home with their children on the other three days of the week.
WHAT WE ARE NOT: We are not a school but are a true hybrid of classroom and home instruction. Though the Summit Academy tutors provide a weekly syllabus, we consider the parents to be the primary teachers, not merely homework supervisors. This means that parents will enroll with the supervising agency of their choice: an umbrella school program (recommended) or their local public school system. They will then be responsible to that agency for any required testing. Parents will also be responsible for assigning final grades and reporting attendance and grades to the agency they have chosen.
________________________
WHAT WE ARE: An educational support for families.
WHAT WE ARE NOT: A replacement for parent involvement in schooling. We are not a 2-day school — that is, it will take four to five days to complete each week’s work: two days at Summit Academy and two to three days at home with parents.
________________________
WHAT WE ARE: A comprehensive curriculum. Parents are committing to follow a set course of study for thirty-six weeks. While we all understand that occasionally ”life” will happen, parents are committing to making sure that their students arrive at their tutorial classes prepared for the day’s work.
WHAT WE ARE NOT: Enrichment. An enrichment program is designed to “enrich” the “basics.”
_________________________
WHAT WE ARE: A tutorial. In a tutorial program, tutors will work in partnership with parents by providing a syllabus listing daily assignments and periodic assessments of students’ progress. Summit Academy is paid by the parents for the time our instructors spend teaching each week.
WHAT WE ARE NOT: A co-op. In a co-op, the parents divide the teaching among themselves and, in a sense, “barter” their time. Parents in a co-op generally commit to taking a turn teaching a certain subject or completing a certain set of tasks for a period of time. At Summit Academy, parents are not required or expected to attend classes with their students. Summit Academy parents do make a commitment to teaching their children 3 days a week in cooperation with Summit Academy tutors.
_________________________
WHAT WE ARE: A Charlotte Mason approach to education. A key to a Charlotte Mason education is a profound respect for the mind and imagination of children. Education is not a recitation of dry facts but a feast of living ideas; it is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life. Student assignments will include narration, copywork, studied dictation, nature study (nature journals), outdoor time, habit training, and living books. What it will avoid at all costs: twaddle (those things that talk down to children and insult their intelligence and personhood).
For a more specific summary short summary, please see Sonya Shafer’s free eBook, Education Is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life (available for download at simplycharlottemason.com).
WHAT WE ARE NOT: A modern-day approach to Classical education. Classical education has many variations, but most commonly modern classical education is divided into three stages of child development.
Grammar Stage (K-6th grades): focuses on the memorization of basic facts
Dialectic or Logic Stage (7th-9th grades): focuses on the classifying of facts
Rhetoric Stage (10th-12th grades): focuses on the communication of facts.
We do not hold to those stages of development, and neither did Charlotte Mason. God created children as individuals for specific and individual purposes and with individual gifts, personalities, and rates of development. Children can’t be placed in a box of developmental sequences for all stages of growth.
Karen Glass, author of “Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition,” explains how Charlotte Mason and the true Classical Tradition have much in common when she states, “As the classical education movement grows in popularity, I see an increasing amount of friction between those who call themselves classical educators, and those who call themselves “CM” educators. I have known for nearly fifteen years that Charlotte Mason belongs to the classical tradition…that conviction is stronger now than it was then, and I am more certain than ever that this is so….I’m not suggesting that Charlotte Mason belongs to the modern classical movement, but the historical, traditional understanding of classical education, and I would like to see some of the spirit of that tradition rekindled in our modern applications.”
_________________________
If, after having read this far, you’re still interested in applying for a spot for your child at Collegiate Peaks Living Education, please click here!