Classical Christian education isn't a new idea, it's the original one. But if you’ve never encountered it before, it can sound vague and easy to dismiss. 

Why read books written hundreds or thousands of years ago? Why study subjects one at a time instead of taking several classes at once? What does a college class look like that isn’t centered around lectures?

At Excel College, we begin with a more fundamental question: What kind of person should education form?

What is classical education?

Classical education draws from the ideas of the greatest thinkers throughout history. Instead of reading from someone else’s thoughts and opinions on what Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, or Aquinas has written, students engage directly with the original ideas themselves.

Textbooks, more often than not, give us thoughts about other people's thoughts. Classical education places you in direct conversation with the original thinkers themselves. You become part of what is known as the Great Conversation: throughout Western civilization, great thinkers have brought forth new ideas that address and build upon the ideas of other great thinkers and ideas.

The goal here isn't to memorize more information. It's to get a better picture of reality.

Classical education treats knowledge as a unified whole. Rather than separating subjects into disconnected academic terms, students learn to see how theology, philosophy, mathematics, science, history, the arts, and society relate to one another.

The classical tradition also focuses on the liberal arts—the artes liberales. The word liberal comes from the Latin liber, meaning free. Classical education exists to form people who can think, reason, discern, and live freely.

This pursuit hinges on three things: truth, goodness, and beauty.

What makes classical education Christian?

Classical Christian education starts with the same pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty, but it takes a stand about where those things come from.

At Excel, we begin with the assertion that the biblical narrative gives us the picture of ultimate reality: God Himself. The Bible is the Great Book, and students study all other great books through its lens.

That doesn't mean classical Christian education only studies Christian thinkers or only reads Christian books. It means students approach every discipline and every text with the conviction that God created reality and that all truth is God’s truth.

This transforms how students approach everything they study. Philosophy, mathematics, physics, biology, anthropology, the arts, sociology, government, and economics don't exist as isolated, secular subjects. Each one gives students a deeper understanding and appreciation of God's creation and humanity's place within it.

How does Excel organize classical Christian education?

At Excel, the Core curriculum follows the flow of the biblical narrative. Each discipline enters the story at a particular point, allowing students to see how one field of knowledge connects to the next.

• Theology: “In the beginning, God.”—this is where all things begin, so this is where our students begin.
• Philosophy: “Let there be”—the great transcendent questions about reality, existence, and meaning.
• Mathematics: a discipline that acts as the bridge between the transcendent and the immanent, revealing the language of creation.
• Physics & Biology: “And God created”—the study of the created universe and life within it.
• Anthropology: “Let us make man in our image”—what it means to be uniquely human, made in the image of God.
• Fine Arts: we are made in the image of the Creator, so we are co-creators.
• Sociology: “It is not good for man to be alone”—what happens when people live together and begin to build a society.
• Government & Economics: God's formation of a people and a nation with order and systems.

Students don't simply finish with a transcript full of disjointed fragments; they walk away with the unity of knowledge

Why does Excel teach one subject at a time?

Instead of overwhelming students with five or six topics at once, students move through the Core sequentially, studying and focusing on one discipline at a time.

This way students have the time and space to truly wrestle with one discipline before moving into the next. The sequence allows each subject matter to build on what came before it.

The approach also reflects the classical conviction that education should help students see relationships between ideas.

This is a different experience from that of the fragmented traditional high school or college classroom. Classical Christian schools often use the language of the trivium—grammar, logic, and rhetoric—to describe how students develop the tools of learning. Excel's Core takes that same broader classical conviction seriously: education should teach students how to encounter, understand, evaluate, and engage ideas rather than simply accumulate information.

Why does Excel read the Great Books?

Because students don't need someone to make every idea easier for them to attain. There are no textbooks in the Core. At Excel, students read the primary sources: the actual texts of the thinkers themselves.

Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Moses, Christ—these are our lecturers, so to speak. Engaging them firsthand is essential in learning how to pursue the true, good, and beautiful. 

An essential part of this pursuit and the formation of our students includes reading from thinkers who disagree with Christianity. Students don't read these works simply to discover what the authors got wrong. The goal here isn't apologetics. 

Why?

There are several reasons this is a benefit to the formation of a Christian’s character. There is a humility required in understanding that non-Christian thinkers still bear God's image and can offer genuine insight into reality. These opposing ideas can also expose weaknesses in our own thinking and challenge us to have a firm grasp on why we believe what we believe, strengthening our faith.

If the Bible is really true, we have nothing to fear. 

The more securely students understand their own beliefs, the more confidently they can engage ideas that challenge them without getting swept away. They can disagree without becoming dismissive and learn to be charitable without fully adopting another’s argument—this is the fruit of critical thinking. 

What does classical Christian education look like in the classroom?

The classroom at Excel centers on discovery rather than information delivery.

Faculty members serve as facilitators. They don't simply hand students conclusions and ask them to remember those conclusions for a test. They foster discovery by asking questions, creating space for discussion, and helping students wrestle with difficult ideas.

Students own what they have to put effort into; they hold firmly what they have to wrestle for.

Knowledge is collegial; no single person carries the full understanding of all knowledge. Students discover together—the work belongs to everyone in the room.

The great books provide the lectures. Class is where students get to bring forth the ideas and questions that arise from the readings, discuss and process them together, and build their worldview on the foundation of the biblical narrative.

Why choose classical Christian education?

Classical Christian education offers more than a list of classic literature or a different classroom technique. It brings forth the truest goal of education.

Education should help students understand the fullness of reality: that which surrounds them and is within them. It should form their minds and character. It should teach them to recognize truth, pursue goodness, appreciate beauty, and engage ideas with courage and charity.

It should give them a coherent story in which to live and flourish.

That is ultimately what classical Christian education means at Excel. Students don't simply learn about the world. They learn to see it as a unified whole—and to understand their own lives within it.

The goal isn't simply to produce students with a strong intellect. It's to form people who know who they are, why they're here, and what they were made to do.