In Dialectic School students learn how facts relate to each other. Each day begins at 8:00 a.m. and ends just before 3:00 p.m. 

Veritas Academy and classical Christian education changes its approach to students during the Dialectic years because students grow and change during these years. In Grammar School students loved singing songs, chanting chants and learning by memory. By the time they are Seventh Graders, this method can become burdensome. So the classical Christian educator changes his approach. Students at this age are pert—they love to argue and to catch others in inconsistencies. So at Veritas Academy we teach them to argue really well.  

These students sharpen the skill called discursive reasoning, which some might call critical thinking or thinking logically. During these years students learn to argue forcefully and winsomely with each other, and they learn to defend themselves against the fallacious thinking that many times passes for sound argument within our culture. These skills are learned in places like Logic class. At Veritas Academy student learn Categorical and Symbolic Logic. They also learn how to discern logical arguments from the newspaper and commercials.

Here is some of what students learn in Dialectic School at Veritas Academy:

Much debate takes place around tables as students begin reading through the Great Books of Western Civilization during the class called Omnibus. Omnibus is a Latin term meaning “everything.” This unique approach encourages students to think through the great issues that have faced Western civilization and to think through these issues. Students consider issues such as the nature of reality as they read Plato’s Phaedo. They consider free will and predestination as they read Luther’s On the Bondage of the Will, and they ponder what it means to venture toward the Celestial City as they read Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. They also read Lewis and Tolkien, Rousseau and Jefferson, Sophocles and Aeschylus—learning from and arguing with all of them and with each other.

Students study general and physical science as well as biology during the Dialectic years.

In language studies, students move from Latin to Greek. At Veritas Academy each student spends at least two years studying Biblical (Koine) Greek—the original language of the New Testament. This helps them with their study of the scripture in both Greek and English.

In Math, students take two years of Algebra (I and II) and a year of Geometry.

All of these classes focus on learning the art of thinking, so students are encouraged to debate, question assumptions and to think biblically for themselves.