PETRA RESOURCES
There are a variety of resources available for the Petra community. From volunteer opportunities, to reading lists, to informational websites about classical Christian education. We have curated content and have information about curriculum that can help parents integrate into the community.
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
The mission of Petra Academy is to partner with parents to cultivate faithful Christian students who delight in truth, beauty, and goodness in their worship, work, and service. As is true for any school, volunteers – one-time, daily, weekly, monthly – have been an essential part of what has made Petra Academy successful over the past 27 years. Many of these volunteers have been parents whose children attend our school, but many more have been grandparents, neighbors, and people who simply love children and have a heart for classical and Christian education in the Gallatin Valley. If you would be interested in volunteering your time, treasure, or talents, please email Sarah Cook to find out what opportunities are available.
EDUCATING PARENTS
We will have multiple opportunities a year to host parents for informational and instructional times discussing the intricacies of classical Christian education, and what the CCE association of schools is doing to impact the next generation. For our parents, it is essential for them to gain an in-depth understanding for all that classical Christian education has to offer, so we have speaker events, presentations, and open houses to integrate parents into the community and grow the partnerships with students, faculty, and administration.
As a classical Christian school, not only do we feel the responsibility to teach and train students entrusted to our care, we also desire to help parents learn and grow in their understanding of what we do and why. Beyond keeping parents informed about our school, we want to serve all parents with recommended articles and books for those interested in considering more about classical and Christian education. Click into the accordion below to see some of the recommended readings.
The following list includes articles from a variety of authors concerning specific aspects of classical and Christian education or general challenges that classical and Christian education strives to overcome.
John Agresto
“The Suicide of the Liberal Arts” (The Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2015)
Jerram Barrs
“Everything Is Interesting: Raising Educated People” (The Thistle, October 24, 2012)
Susan Wise Bauer
“The Teacher’s Dilemma: Reflections on History, Children, and the Inevitability of Compromise” (Cardus, September 4, 2014)
Ellen Berg
“Teaching Secrets: Don’t Cripple with Compassion” (Education Week Teacher, May 26, 2010)
Anthony Bradley
“The Four Questions of Christian Education” (Acton Institute, March 12, 2014)
Nicholas Carr
“Does the Internet Make You Dumber?” (The Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2010)
Janie B. Cheaney
“The College Conundrum” (World Magazine, November 11, 2013)
Sam Dillon
“High School Courses May Be Advanced in Name Only” (The New York Times, April 25, 2011)
Brian Douglas
“Five Temptations for Classical Christian Education” (First Things, November 8, 2012)
Anthony Esolen
“Reform and Renewal Starts with Us” (Crisis Magazine, July 21, 2015)
“Classical Education Can Purge a Multitude of Sins” (Crisis Magazine, February 19, 2015)
“The Illusion of Neutrality” (The Public Discourse, September 11, 2014)
Janice Fiamengo
“The Unteachables: A Generation That Cannot Learn” (PJ Media, May 20, 2012)
Stanley Fish
“The Crisis of the Humanities Officially Arrives” (The New York Times, October 11, 2010)
“A Classical Education: Back to the Future” (The New York Times, June 7, 2010)
Neil Gaiman
“Why Our Future Depends on Libraries, Reading, and Daydreaming” (The Guardian, October 15, 2013)
Joshua Gibbs
“Jesus Hung Out with Prostitutes: Too Cool for School” (The Circe Institute, August 12, 2015)
Richard Gunderman
“Is the Lecture Dead?” (The Atlantic, January 29, 2013)
Loretta Jackson-Hayes
“We Don’t Need More STEM Majors. We Need More STEM Majors with Liberal Arts Training.” (The Washington Post, February 18, 2015)
Wilfred McClay
“The Secret of the Self” (First Things, December, 2005)
Jennifer Medina
“Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm” (The New York Times, May 17, 2014)
Anna Mussmann
“Why Helicopter Parenting is the New Victorianism” (The New Federalist, July 15, 2015)
Ronald Nash
“The Myth of a Values-Free Education” (Acton Institute)
Christopher Perrin
“Interview with Author James K.A. Smith on Classical Education” (Inside Classical Education, March 15, 2011)
John Mark Reynolds
“The Shallow Education of America” (Patheos, July 29, 2015)
“On the Common Core: Out of Many, One” (Patheos, May 22, 2013)
Marilynne Robinson
“Reclaiming a Sense of the Sacred” (The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 12, 2012)
Scott Samuelson
“Why I Teach Plato to Plumbers” (The Atlantic, April 2014)
Michael Shammas
“For a Better Society, Teach Philosophy in High Schools” (The Huffington Post, February 25, 2013)
Valerie Strauss
“Teacher’s Resignation Letter: ‘My Profession…No Longer Exists” (The Washington Post, April 6, 2013)
John Tierney
“AP Classes Are a Scam” (The Atlantic, October 13, 2012)
Douglas Wilson
“School Rules Are Not the Answer” (Blog and Mablog, October 20, 2013)
“Read Until Your Brain Creaks” (Blog and Mablog, May, 31, 2010)
The following list includes books from several different authors who have helped shape or elaborate on the modern renaissance of classical and Christian education and its aims.
Christopher Hall
Common Arts Education
Justin Whitmel Earley
Habits of the Household
Pete Hegseth and David Goodwin
The Battle for the American Mind
Susan Wise Bauer
The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had
Rod Dreher
How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History’s Greatest Poem
Anthony Esolen
Life Under Compulsion: Ten Ways to Destroy the Humanity of Your Child
Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Children
Richard Gamble
The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to Be an Educated Human Being
David Hicks
Norms & Nobility: A Treatise on Education
Ravi Jain and Kevin Clark
The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Classical Christian Education
Sister Miriam Joseph and
Lou Markos
From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics
Restoring Beauty:The Good, the True, and the Beautiful in the Writings of C.S. Lewis
Cornelius Plantinga
Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living
John Mark Reynolds
The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization
When Athens Met Jerusalem: An Introduction to Classical and Christian Thought
James K.A. Smith
Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation
Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works
Cheryl Swope
Simply Classical: A Beautiful Education for Any Child
Gene Edward Veith and Andrew Kern
Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America
Douglas Wilson
The Case for Classical Christian Education
Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning: An Approach to Distinctively Classical Christian Education
Repairing the Ruins: The Classical and Christian Challenge to Modern Education
The following list includes blogs from several different sources that work toward the promotion of ideas within classical Christian education and its aims.
The Association of Classical Christian Schools
The Society for Classical Learning
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute
SCHOLARSHIPS
Many parents who are seeking quality in education consider independent Christian schools. They understand the benefits of smaller classes, excellent teaching, Christian values, and a real sense of community. In many instances the only obstacle they see is the cost. Petra Academy recognizes the sacrifices parents make when they enroll their student(s) in an independent school and wants to provide them access to this education as financial resources allow.
Thanks to the generosity of others, 33% of Petra students receive some kind of financial assistance. We are committed to offering a classical Christian education to all qualified applicants based solely on demonstrated economic need. We do not offer merit, athletic, or special achievement scholarships and expect a family to take primary responsibility for the cost of their student’s education.
PORTAL ACCESS
As technology continues to integrate many pieces of our school environment, we can take advantage of conveniences unavailable to parents and students of the past. If you need information about schedule, homework, calendars, events, and the latest news (as well as many other things), please visit the Petra Academy Portal to find specific information that relates to your student and school updates.
CURRICULUM OVERVIEW
Challenging classes in the Maths, Sciences, Humanities (including language arts, literature, history, and civics), and Arts form the basis of a Petra education. Petra’s classical pedagogy includes, as well, the teaching of Latin (grades 3-9), formal logic (grades 8-9), and rhetoric (grades 11-12). Consistent with Petra’s Christ-centered focus, Bible classes are taught at each level and constitute the integrating center of our curriculum. Emphasis is placed on the great books of Western civilization and primary source material in an attempt to cultivate the sensibilities of our students with the best that has been written and not to prejudice the modern era over voices of the past.
Click here to see a short video from our Academic Dean, Sam Koenen about literary curriculum and why we read some of the sources we do.
SECONDARY LITERATURE LIST OF PRIMARY SOURCES READ
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle
Poetics, Aristotle
The Emperor’s Handbook, Marcus Aurelius
The Bacchae, Euripides
The Iliad, Homer
Josephus: The Essential Writings, Josephus
Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis
The War With Hannibal, Livy
On the Nature of Things, Lucretius
Metamorphoses, Ovid
Republic, Plato
Plutarch’s Lives, Plutarch
God’s Big Picture, Vaughan Roberts
Troilus and Cressida, William Shakespeare
The Annals of Imperial Rome, Tacitus
The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
Eclogues and Georgics, Virgil
The Divine Comedy, Dante Alghieri
Introduction to Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas
City of God, Augustine
Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio
The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius
Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin
St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi, G.K. Chesterton
The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis
Martin Luther: Selections, Martin Luther
The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli
Chronicle of the Kings of England, William of Malmesbury
Le Morte d’Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
Tartuffe, Molière
The Art of Poetry, Christine Perrin
Antony and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare
Othello, William Shakespeare
The Faerie Queene (Book 1), Edmund Spenser
Idylls of the King, Alfred Tennyson
Saga of the Volsungs, Unknown
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford
The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan
Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke
The Stranger, Albert Camus
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
Discourse on Method/Meditations on Philosophy, René Descartes
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis
Perelandra, C.S. Lewis
That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis
Lincoln’s Speeches, Abraham Lincoln
The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Battle Cry of Freedom, James McPherson
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Paradise Lost, John Milton
Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche
Collected Short Stories, Flannery O’Connnor
Tell Me a Riddle, Tillie Olsen
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Pensées, Blaise Pascal
The Moviegoer, Walker Percy
All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
The Social Contract, Jean Jacques Rousseau
The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara
On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry
Beauty, Roger Scruton
The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
The Origin of the American Revolution, Friedrich von Gentz
