Sequenced-Modular Curriculum
Simply put, there is no surer way to end education than by taking away the reason for learning. Herein lies the root problem today!For a true liberal arts education to succeed it must be intimately tied to a Great Narrative or Story that supplies both young and old the reason to learn. The Story we speak of is the Biblical Narrative.
At one time, God supplied education with a Grand Story, a comprehensive worldview that explained all of life. This context gave meaning to all its individual parts. As a result, students received a full education. They understood the Big Picture and how each subject – Theology, Philosophy, History, Science, Mathematics, Psychology, Art, Government, Law, Economics, etc. – fit into the greater whole.
When God and His Story were removed, the liberal arts and sciences degenerated into a meaningless, hodgepodge of isolated subjects notoriously referred to as the General Education Requirements or rather Gen Eds.
Understood to be the core of education by America’s Founders, these academic disciplines have become a waste of time and money in the eyes of many students today, a necessary evil one must endure to reach his/her vocational studies. Without God’s Transcendent Story, their analysis is correct.
This problem is easily remedied. By simply injecting God’s Story back into the liberal arts and sciences, what was once a meaningless, hodgepodge of isolated subjects suddenly becomes a meaningful, orderly and coherent whole. And once more, students gain interest and have a reason to learn.
Rivendell introduces sequenced-modular education, where the liberal arts and sciences are studied one subject at a time in a sequence that follows the Divine flow of the biblical narrative. Rivendell’s academic semesters, illustrated below, are broken down in the following courses and are listed in the order in which students study them.
Each semester listed above is 18 weeks long and is followed by a 2 week break. Each individual course (module) is six weeks long in which students will receive 6 hours of academic credits. After completing Rivendell’s 18 month sequenced-modular curriculum, students amass 72 credit hours of academic studies and exceed the general education requirements for most universities and colleges.
This revolutionary format has been shown to boost academic performance, generate desire for life-long learning, inspire underachievers to excel and increase graduation rates. Why? First, students receive a more organic education as all subject matter is woven together into a beautiful tapestry that reflects a unity of knowledge rather than isolated and fragmented systems of knowledge. Each module builds off the preceding module that provides a proper biblical context. In other words, we do not find it beneficial to study the subjects in Semester 4 (illustrated above) before grasping the context and content provided in Semester 3. This logic can be applied throughout all 4 semesters.
Second, a sequenced modular system enhances learning by providing students with intensive and focused time on each topic. Time and attention is never divided between five or six subjects at once. In a typical semester, within the conventional college model, students attend multiple lectures, read multiple books, write multiple essays, and study for multiple exams for courses that are seemingly unrelated to one another. Often, college is more about endurance and survival than learning.
Important note:
Rivendell holds that History, Literature and Composition are to be an integral part of every academic module and thus not taught separately (compartmentalized). For example, when approaching History, we call upon the wisdom of Neil Postman who believes history should be the focal point when studying each discipline. He writes,We maintain the same principle regarding literature and composition. Students are taught how to read and approach the different genres of literature throughout their academic career at Rivendell. If you recall, students learn how to critically read, write and speak in the very first module and are required to apply these skills in every academic discipline thereafter.“History is not merely one subject among many that may be taught; every subject has a history, including Biology, Physics, Mathematics, Literature, Music, and Art…To teach, for example, what we know about Biology today without also teaching what we once knew, or thought we knew, is to reduce knowledge to a mere consumer product. It is to deprive students of a sense of the meaning of what we know, and of how we know. To teach about the atom without Democritus, to teach about electricity without Faraday, to teach about Political Science without Aristotle or Machiavelli, to teach about Music without Haydn, is to refuse our student’s access to “The Great Conversation”. It is to deny them knowledge of their roots, about which no other social institution is at present concerned.”