Sponsored by Concordia Academy – Wichita.
You, like many parents, may have been thinking over the idea of sending your high schooler to a private school. There are many choices in Wichita, ranging from conventional Christian schools, college credit oriented schools, and traditional parochial schools to tutorial cohorts. Because many people are choosing private schools for their families, new possibilities are coming, and for reasonable tuition costs. One such school is Concordia Academy.
Concordia Academy – Wichita Opens in Fall of 2022
This year, Concordia Academy – Wichita is opening its doors for its inaugural session. Concordia is a school growing from several traditional approaches to education that come together in order to make a student literate and eloquent, as well as to form them toward a life of virtue centered in Christ. When thinking about educational goals, you could say that one side of education is in order to benefit everyone, the other is to benefit the student. Concordia believes that the benefit to oneself and others is much more than the holding of a profitable job (which is important), but in the way we converse with and learn from each other, and in the way we live every aspect of our lives in the light of Christ. Concordia is a Classical Lutheran School.
What is Classical Education?
If you are not familiar with classical education, there are a few things you should note. The focus of classical education is developing the whole person, and subjects are viewed in an integrated fashion. Classical education recognizes certain time-honored exercises for producing good writing and speaking, high standards of discourse and rhetoric. Classical education deals with few textbooks, preferring the sources themselves. We don’t read about Plato, we read Plato. Classical education values the study of language. Happily, we can offer training in Latin, Greek, and Spanish, as well as German, French, and Italian. Along with literature and languages, we prize the study of history. With fewer colleges requiring Western Civilization courses, we love to fill that void and give the student a grateful appreciation for what they can inherit. Students needs to understand how they got here in order to imagine where they might go.
What is the Lutheran Approach to Classical Education?
Being in Wichita means that many of your neighbors could be Lutheran. This is a feature of the settlement of this land over a century ago, and this traditional presence goes back to the founding of the city. Lutherans in the past maintained the second largest parochial school system in the nation, with several historic high schools still operating in the Midwest. Concordia will be one of two in Kansas. What does this mean today? The Lutheran approach to education is Christ-centered and ordered on a liturgical day, beginning and ending with matins and vespers. These times are reflective times which are great for parents to attend when able as they drop off or pick up students. The school will immerse the student in Scripture and Church history, living together in the spirit of biblical obedience. Could a student be part of this school while being a member of another church? Certainly. Concordia is formed around Scripture and basic historic western Christianity, operating as a recognized service organization (RSO) of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
How Concordia Academy Utilizes a ‘Cohort Model’
Besides being on the cutting edge of classical education and providing Christian formation, Concordia offers another special feature. Shortly after the invention of the printing press, more people needed to learn how to read. This meant that schools had to grow in order to teach so many people at once. From this necessity came the grade system: ninth, tenth, eleventh grade and so on. At Concordia, we have ‘turned back the clock,’ teaching in the old small batch way, the ‘cohort model’. Think of it as a chartered trip rather than mass transit. A group of high school students from varying ages form a cohort and study together, working to pass what are called ‘forms’, which are levels of accomplishment in subjects, allowing them to study the next form for credit toward graduation. This individualized model allows students from different educational backgrounds to attend Concordia, regardless of whether they have already had a classical education.
Concordia Academy – Wichita is Now Enrolling & Scholarships are Available
Being in a place like Wichita, which offers so many innovative approaches to secondary education, highlights some of the best ideas in our common heritage: intellectual freedom and responsibility. Concordia is developing ideas based on the successful experiences of its staff, school board, pastors, and parents in order to provide the best possible education for our students and our world. If this sounds like a good place for your students, check out www.concordiaacademywichita.org or our Facebook page to learn more. Scholarships from half to full tuition are available for the 2022-2023 school year.
Dan Snyder, Headmaster of Concordia Academy, is a teacher, a former Marine, video game designer, international classical singer, and professional church musician. He has studied at Bryan College, George Mason University, Mannes Conservatory of Music, and did graduate work at The New School in New York City, where he also holds a certificate in screen writing from the film school. Mr Snyder taught logic, great books, and rhetoric at the Classical School of Wichita beginning in 2013, having relocated to Wichita from New York City. He and his wife Tracee, a professional musician, are members of Immanuel Lutheran Church.
Concordia Academy – Wichita, located at Immanuel Lutheran Church (909 S. Market St), is a classical Christian high school opening in the fall of 2022 with a cohort of 9th and 10th graders, expanding to 9th through 12th grades over the next two years. Concordia Academy seeks to form students in faith, hope, and love, by heeding wisdom and practicing virtue, restoring souls in the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty, according to the Word of God and the Lutheran Confessions.
