Curriculum Design

This is our Father’s world. All of life is sacred. Nothing is secular. All truth is God’s truth. And the Bible is God’s Word to modern man, giving him truth about God, truth about man, and truth about the universe. All nature is a great wide-open volume written all over with the finger of God. It is a great sight and God has invited His children to come and see.

The Christian scholar must be a great observer of things. He must have sharpness of vision and great sensitiveness of soul. He must ask great questions. He must put forth reverent but fearless inquiries. He must think God’s thoughts after Him. He must have the mind of Christ.

How shall a school so order its educational experiences so as to present a student mature in Christ and present the student as a Christian scholar?

The following commitments shall light the way for the Danville Christian Academy:

1. The academic program at the Danville Christian Academy promotes a Biblical view of life.

The one distinguishing mark of a Christian school relates to that one unique reason for Christian education: to gain knowledge of the world from God’s point of view (rather than man’s) through the application of Biblical presuppositions in every area of the curriculum and school activity. This is the kernel of Christian education.

Life must be related to God and learning must be related to truth. The determination to apply biblical presuppositions to every area of life and learning is the commitment of the Danville Christian Academy. In order to achieve this commitment, the foundation for curriculum will be the Bible. It will be studied seriously, and its truths will be applied both to our personal lives as teachers and students and to our administration and school policies. While the Bible is the foundation of our curriculum, we do not limit our educational tools to the Bible. Since the Bible is absolutely true in all subjects with which it deals, we have nothing to fear from any discipline-whether math, science, history or language. The facts in any discipline hold no terror for the Christian scholar. The critical issues in society today do not involve a dispute concerning bare facts-the issues relate to the meaning, significance, and application a man attaches to facts. Non-Christians relate facts to their view of the universe, man and God. The Christian scholar relates all facts to God - to God’s revelation of Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Living Word, and in the Bible, and written Word.

At the Danville Christian Academy, students will constantly and fearlessly develop and use all their cognitive, effective, and psychomotor skills to search with diligence for the truth, to respect the truth and to apply the truth. At the Danville Christian Academy, students are free to explore new ideas, to study the newest scientific findings, to confront other philosophies without fear. They know that God’s Word is never in conflict with fact and that it will expose error just as surely as it reveals truth.

2. The Academic Program at the Danville Christian Academy shall be a planned program.

In order for a school to be truly effective, its philosophy, objectives, materials, methodology, and its forms of evaluation must be carefully planned. All components of the curriculum must be carefully selected and designed to fit together both within grades and between grades. When this is done properly, duplication of effort is minimized and the introduction and mastery of significant facts and concepts are maximized. Through the joint efforts of administrators and teachers planning together, the basic objectives to be obtained at each level and the methodology for obtaining those objectives will be specifically stated in writing. Although the curriculum is planned and structured, the Danville Christian Academy’s commitment is to the individual student and his true educational needs. The curriculum is centered on the individual student in order to move him toward maturity spiritually, academically, physically, and socially.

3. The Academic program at the Danville Christian Academy is designed to promote the development of higher order thinking skills.

The great need of our day is for students who can think, who can function cognitively at a formal abstract level. As one great philosopher observed, the merely well informed man is the most useless bore on God’s earth.

Critical thinking skills development represents the highest form of thinking known to modern man, and it is this skill that is required of individuals to succeed in college or to be leaders in a technological society. The Danville Christian Academy is committed to developing this kind of Christian leadership.

Critical thinking skills development is characterized by the ability to generate and test a hypothesis, to think both inductively and deductively, and to think creatively. In order for these skills to be mastered, a student needs a laboratory-like setting in which he can be active, not passive, in the learning process.

It is a basic principle of curriculum design that facts learned in isolation tend to remain there. Facts must be thrown into every conceivable combination and students must meet them in many different contexts in order to “own them” for themselves. The Danville Christian Academy is committed to the development of the higher order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis, evaluation and application. It is hard work, but it is the necessary stuff of which Christian scholars are made.

4. The Academic Program of the Danville Christian Academy will make rich the soul and the spirit of students.

The fine arts are all too frequently ignored in Christian schools. This is a tragedy. Man’s world is fitted, not only to be known, but to be felt and enjoyed, and to be acted upon; and this activity may also be enjoyed. Man is equipped for the production and enjoyment of the beautiful, and thus, he develops taste.

At the Danville Christian Academy, students will be assisted in acquiring command of basic skills for formulating standards of mature appraisal, and they will be given many opportunities to apply these standards to concrete situations. At the Danville Christian Academy, man shall not live by facts alone.