The Edmonton Classical Academy (ECA) is changing education by copying the classical education model at its sister school the Calgary Classical Academy (CCA). .“We started the Edmonton Classical Academy because following the successful opening of our elementary school in Calgary last year, we started receiving a lot of inquiries from educators and parents in Edmonton asking when we would be in a position to open there,” said ECA founder Caylan Ford in an interview. .“We felt strongly that we had to try to serve that community as one of the major metropolitan areas in the province.” .Ford said classical education involves understanding people are the heirs of a civilizational inheritance and are the temporary stewards of it. She added it is about understanding what has been thought and written throughout history and being nourished by great works of literature, philosophy and art. .Another difference classical education offers is rejecting the value of subjectivity that is prevalent in many education systems. The ECA will teach students concepts such as truth, beauty, goodness and justice exist and have their souls orient towards them. .The classrooms will use minimal screen-based technologies. This will create an environment conducive to deeper thought, contemplation and a real spirit of friendship. .Ford acknowledged the ECA will be one of a handful of schools offering Singapore math in Alberta. Singapore math is a teaching method based on the national mathematics curriculum in Singapore, where students go through problems through concrete, pictorial and abstract ways. .She said the history curriculum is a major highlight. Students will study three times through their kindergarten to Grade 12 education a cycle of world history, progressing through prehistoric and ancient worlds, the Medieval Era, the Renaissance and the modern era. .The ECA will offer the Great Books program, so students will be reading whole texts in depth. These texts are classics which have endured and stood the test of time. .The classical education movement is thriving in the United States, with about 500,000 students attending these schools. It had not existed in Canada aside from a handful of private religious schools until recently. .While the CCA is the first, the ECA will be the second. Ford said it is “wonderful to see this movement is growing and that there is evident demand for this among parents.” .In the ECA’s first year, it will have 200 students from kindergarten to Grade 7. It will be growing each year after until it runs from kindergarten to Grade 12. .To prove the CCA has been successful, she said there were 300 students at it when it launched. Now it has 680 students and more than 1,000 on its waitlist. .These referrals came from word of mouth. Students met others going to it and heard great comments about it. .The most common feedback Ford has heard from parents is their children would come home from their previous schools and say they learned no new material. Almost every parent said their children now come home bursting with enthusiasm and excitement to share what they learned. .She said there is a spark of wonder in them, adding they are excited to learn about world history, literature, and science. .ECA principal Conal Tanner said he took this position because he had been working in the classical education movement in the US for the last five years. .“Having lived in Canada for so much of my youth and on and off in my adulthood, I knew that there wasn’t very much classical liberal arts education happening,” said Tanner. .“I wanted to be able to bring that good stuff, that goodness, that ability to give students the fullness of what education was and can be again.” .Tanner said the ECA will take education in a different direction “by going back to the roots of what education should be.”.Education comes from a Latin word which means to lead out of, and it will lead people out of the darkness of ignorance and ugliness into the light of truth and beauty. .Ford concluded by saying education is soul craft. .“If you like living in a free society, if you care about your democracy, if you care about civil liberties and you want to preserve them, then you have a stake in making sure that the next generation is educated in a way that they’re qualified to preserve those liberties,” she said. .The CCA took education in a new direction in 2022 by being Canada’s first ever non-denominational classical education charter school. .READ MORE: Calgary Classical Academy offers different approach to education.“The classical movement has been growing in the United States, and we’re really the first of our kind in Canada,” said CCA principal Colleen Parks. .“It was an opportunity as a principal that I couldn’t overlook.”
