CLT is proud to feature Delaware Valley Classical School in New Castle, Delaware as our latest Partner School Spotlight. We had the opportunity to sit down with Head of School School Anthony Urti to ask some questions about what makes his school so successful.
What traditions or rituals does your school incorporate to encourage school culture and community?
Our day starts with morning worship in both the grammar and upper schools. On Monday mornings, we have a joint worship in our gymnasium. The other four days, grammar and upper schools meet independently. This is a liturgical time of prayer, singing, Scripture reading and recitation, and catechesis.
Throughout the year, we also have opportunities for the school community to come together. Parent education nights (this year a parent-focused study of The Aeneid; previously The Iliad), a fall camping trip, Reformation Day celebrations, along with athletic related pushes or support, all encourage school culture and community.
What does your school do better than any other?
While I am not sure “better” is apt, what we do well is incorporate music into the daily rhythm of the school. We require choir and music theory K-12, have additional opportunities for a select ensemble which sings outside the school (this summer, they sang the National Anthem at the Phillies game), and begin lunch and classes with song.
As a classical Christian school, we believe students must be cultivated in singing both as an act of worship and as a means of joy or soul growth. One story to illustrate this emphasis comes by way of our annual participation in a local city’s “Christmas Days.” Historic New Castle is our neighbor, and our students have been invited many years over to sing, each year garnering a more visible stage. The ensemble, Vox Vallis, now headlines an 18th century church and continually receives audible praise during its performances from folks who wander into the church.
What is the one piece of curriculum that your school could not do without?
Well, since you are asking me, I would say that one piece of curriculum we could not do without is our theology sequence. That includes, but is not limited to, the Bible. We have experts teaching Old Testament (two years), New Testament (one year), Systematics (one year), and Natural Theology (senior year). It is vital for students to understand the Scriptures, the history of biblical events, and metaphysics as part of not only a vibrant faith but a solid education.
How do math and science fit into your vision of liberal arts? What about athletics? Arts?
They fit well, though sometimes it seems as if they do not. There is order to numbers and beauty, and there are real humane applications and implications for those steeped in the humanities and desiring something more of a human world.
Take architecture. Buildings and cities built to human scale require not only understanding of geometry, but even an understanding of patterns inherent in the world, like fractals. I am a mere non-expert with curiosity here, so at the risk of saying too much and further revealing ignorance, I will leave it there.
Aside from the standard curriculum, in the past we have offered an elective entitled “The Liberal Art of Math” wherein students studied great mathematicians and the ways in which they connected to the arts and letters. We are also a strong participant in our state’s Science Olympiad competition, which takes knowledge and requires application and persistence.
Athletics is a natural fit with classical schooling; it is one of the few ways that a sedentary society is forced to test the body through physical challenge and thus, ideally, grow in virtue. Athletics, like everything else, can take on perverted forms, as in the travel ball circuit. I say this as someone who played travel baseball and who has a daughter that plays travel volleyball. But the emphasis on sports within this context is distorted, in my view. It comes from an idol of wanting to make it “big.” For us, we try to center all we do athletically on Christ.
From our handbook: “High school athletics can take on a romantic quality: The ball falls through the net in the last moment, the running back finds the end zone on the final play, or the volleyball player makes the game-ending serve. While the anticipation of such theatrics makes the games fun, the reality of high school athletics is that success takes hard work. Some have made high school sports the avenue in which a player will secure a college athletic scholarship. Late game theatrics and scholarships may be a part of the journey, but it is the journey of daily commitment, hard work, and selflessness toward teammates that builds a young man or young woman into a faithful, driven, and humble person. Again, the traits that magnify Jesus Christ. The Bible speaks of God using the difficult moments to shape and strengthen the believer’s faith (Romans 5:4).”
Our school also hosts a Fine Arts: Poetry and Prose Symposium. This is an annual event (and is a significant part of our humanities curriculum) where each student in grades 1-12 memorizes a selection of classic poetry or prose for recitation; the kindergarten class memorizes a class poem. The students memorize these selections over the course of several weeks. They are encouraged to work not only on memory, but also on skills such as eye contact with the audience, voice projection, diction, and expression. The goal is to have each student prepared to present their piece for an audience. From this experience, the students learn beautiful works of prose and poetry and grow in the experience and skill of speaking before a friendly audience.
What advice would you give to schools considering CLT?
Do it. Standardized tests are a necessity in American schooling, and given that necessity, you ought to incorporate the most humane version of one. Schools should also use a test that is consistent with both curriculum and curricular aims at your school.
My first year as Head of School, I moved to adopt the CLT as our internal testing mechanism, and we have gradually increased our adoption to include all grades that we test, which is 3-12. There is a low barrier to entry, and the time to administer is much less than that required for a College Board exam.
Anecdotally, everything I have seen in terms of score comparisons of the CLT to the SAT has borne out as being true.