What is Challenge A?

Our Challenge program, designed for students twelve years and older, provides the perfect setting for students to expand their command of the classical tools of learning—dialectic and rhetorical skills in particular.
Our curriculum path uses a core of familiar classical material and content; however, the Challenge program’s primary goal is the mastery of the timeless tools of the classical model. We identify Challenge “levels” rather than grades because we want students to enroll in the level they are prepared to study. Challenge A introduces middle school students to the rigorous course work of the Challenge program. We purposefully limit the amount of reading to give students time to work on their writing skills. This program bridges students from the parent/tutor-directed elementary level to a more self-directed stage of learning.

For fifteen weeks in the fall and fifteen weeks in the spring, students participate in a weekly seminar that is facilitated by a trained Challenge tutor. Weekly assignments are outlined in the guide (issued by the tutor to each student) specific to that Challenge level. At home, students study six subjects utilizing the learning skill associated with that strand; in the weekly class time, students practice dialectic and rhetorical skills. Tutors help point students to the integration of science and history, literature and history, math and science, philosophy and literature, and so on, while also pointing students to the plumb line of God’s Word. The weekly class time gives students further opportunities to hone skills in public exposition, speaking and debate, as well as to explore more advanced learning in research and logic seminars.

Although tutors facilitate the weekly community time and lead class discussions, parents continue to be students’ primary teachers. The tutor/parent/student partnership is a valuable relationship which fosters accountability for all the partners.