Philosophy & Policies
In Loco Parentis
We believe that the teachers and the learning community your child participates in stands "in loco parentis," that is, in the place of the parents with respect to the responsibility of educating your children for the duration your children are a part of our program.
Finding a good fit between the values of one’s home and educational community is vitally important. We hope that you find that there is great continuity between your priorities at home and what you find here at St. Benedict, but there will inevitably be some points that you will disagree. We ask that you still plan to support wholeheartedly our philosophy of education. The Lord God requires parents to be active leaders in the education of their children, (Deut. 6:4-9, Eph. 6:4) but that responsibility does not include trying to reshape an entire class or program to fit your individual preferences. Positive criticism and ideas are always welcome, especially when they are in line with our stated philosophy.
We have had to make choices concerning our curriculum. We have based those choices carefully considering what falls in line with our values. We expect parents to support these choices and policies while we continually seek to improve our curriculum.
No aspect of the curriculum is optional and program policies should be willingly obeyed. If your attitude is not supportive, your child will pick it up, and this will be reflected in his work and attitude at the program.
Conflicts should be resolved as discreetly as possible and at the lowest level possible, in accordance with Matthew 18. If you have a problem with a teacher, a member of the staff or administration, or other parent, you must first meet with the person involved, and if an agreement cannot be reached, both parties should then approach the program director and/or rector of Christ the Foundation Anglican Church to find a resolution. You should, of course, not gossip with other parents about a problem.
Classical Pedagogy
Our educational philosophy is rooted in the classical belief that education ought to be the pursuit of wisdom and virtue. The ancients understood the meaning of schooling to be the development of children into men and women of character who loved what was good, true, and beautiful. We believe that the source of all that is good, true, and beautiful in the world is God himself, and therefore, developing a healthy and robust relationship with God is the ultimate end of our endeavors. The means and path toward knowing and loving God, is the child’s spiritual and physical growth in their curiosity, care, respect, responsibility, and attention to the people and place God calls them. All of our subjects are priming our students to these ends. As Charlotte Mason explains, education is a science of relations— the point of the educational endeavor is not primarily to learn facts and skills, but develop relationships with aspects of the world we live in. We learn facts and skills as a means to develop deeper loves for God’s Creation, His story for humanity and living in right relationship with Him.
Education, we believe, is about the formation of human loves towards that which is Good and Beautiful and True. The purpose of education is about far more than merely tooling them for the general fluidity of the market which demands total flexibility- geographical, social, political, and moral. It is instead about leading them to love learning, to love the things they learn, and to engage the world imaginatively in the pursuit of God and others. The medium is the message. We cannot separate how we teach from what is learned. The two go hand in hand. We want to avoid modes of education which are merely additive in content (ex. adding a chapel service, adding a technology program, adding Latin or Mythology, etc.). We want to be classical not only in our content, but in our core pedagogical convictions and methods. This methodology has six key components: piety, gymnastics, music, arts (the Trivium and Quadrivium), philosophy, and theology. The pedagogy described above works towards the vision of human flourishing cast in the Gospel.
Christian Education
St. Benedict Hall is a ministry of the Hawaii Anglican Network in the Diocese of the Rocky Mountains. We understand this educational program as an extension of our children’s program at the church. While we do not require our students or tutors to be members of our church or agree with all aspects of our theology, we do expect families to be willing to respect our Anglican practices and values. We have corporate morning and noon prayers taken from the Book of Common Prayer that involves daily scripture reading and prayer. We also celebrate a midweek Holy Communion service. All those who are baptized believers are welcome to join us at the table. If children or adults have not yet been baptized, they are welcome to receive a blessing rather than take the elements.
Our spiritual formation emphasizes an immersion in the Biblical narrative and the drawing out of theological principles from the stories rather than exclusively catechism memorization. Our Bible classes are taught and directed by an Anglican pastor. We believe giving our children a deep and rich spiritual tradition when they are young will prove to be a blessing to them later in life. Even if your family does not identify with the Anglican tradition, we believe there are only benefits to this kind of nurturing exposure to a beautiful and historic expression of the Christian faith.
Hybrid Education
Our hybrid model is a unique and essential part of the academic program at St. Benedict Hall. What is covered and introduced in our classes are intended to have repeated exposure to subject matter so that ideas move from short-term memory to long-term memory. Students should expect work assigned each day to work on at home. On days of the week when we don’t meet as a group, students will be given a heavier workload to do at home. We have guidelines for how much time a student needs to be spending on nightly work which varies from form to form, but it must be understood that this guideline is based on concentrated effort. If a student doesn’t have disciplined habits, work at home will take much longer.
All students are expected to write down assignments daily. Tutors will upload assignments, answer keys, and additional information to Slack.com for parents to access. Parents are responsible for leading the education of their children the other 4 days in which the program doesn’t meet. Our program at St. Benedict Hall is intended to be a partnership between our tutors and parents. Parents cannot expect a full and broad education exclusively based on our program alone. Parents are responsible at home for establishing a routine work place and time, free from distractions as well as keeping their students accountable to do their assigned work. A weekly newsletter is sent out to keep parents informed of all program activities.
Student Conduct and Discipline
St. Benedict Hall believes that humanity was created good, but that through Adam’s sin, all humanity is fallen. We are all naturally disposed to turn away from God rather than toward Him, and we are in need of reconciliation with God and our neighbor. We believe that through Jesus Christ, Christian believers are brought back into right relationship. Part of the Christian parents’ calling is to initiate and reinforce this great mercy of God through loving discipline. While it is primarily the responsibility of the parent, St. Benedict Hall recognizes there is a place to support discipline in the classroom. We believe discipline in the classroom to be aimed at bringing to light sin that has occurred, a call to repentance, and an invitation to restoration. This process is done by the tutor as quickly as is situationally possible and is not drawn out. If a student is outright disobedient to a tutor, hits anyone else in anger, that student will be sent immediately to the program director and parents will be contacted. Rebellious behavior, lack of respect for authority or for adults or for a student’s peers will not be tolerated. Expulsion from the program may be the final action the director administers, and in some cases, may be the first.
We believe the use of shame and guilt to manipulate children undermines their God given dignity as human beings. Instead, we believe that discipline should be facilitated by those in authority with a spirit of respect and care and never in a spirit of anger or spite. St. Benedict staff do not discipline with spanking children. If families have chosen to use spanking as a loving method of discipline, only parents at the program can spank their own children.
Children at all times ought to be respectful of adults and of those in authority. They need to be responsive and obedient to directions. Students are expected to conduct themselves at all times so as to bring honor to God. Courteous behavior and polite manners are expected. Knowing that different teachers have different styles does not mean that students should expect exception in the area of obedience and respect. Once a class begins students ought to remain quiet and attentive, neither talking nor being disruptive while the teacher is instructing (unless, of course, asked to be so by the teacher).
If at any time there are serious personal/health related reasons that render a child unable to participate in the directions of a teacher (sickness, allergy, etc.), that student (or their parent) ought to respectfully inform the teacher of the situation beforehand.
We want to cultivate the flourishing of virtue and honesty in our community. We want to exhort them to combat those occasional bouts of doubt, despondency, and self-loathing which afflict children as they grow, in ways that are healthy and aimed at joy and restoration. Thus, we want to push our children towards having an attitude of thankfulness and gladness and not of self-pity. If,however, children are feeling particularly downcast, we want to encourage them to confess their struggles in appropriate ways.
Excusing inappropriate behavior on the grounds of a child’s inner struggles is neither humanizing nor does it secure for them in the long run the tools of emotional integrity needed at later stages in life.
Sickness & COVID-19
Please let the director know if your child will be gone from school due to illness. For the sake of the health of the whole community, please keep your child home until they no longer have a fever for 24 hours. For younger students, parents should ask teachers regarding make up work, and for older students, they should take the initiative to find out what they missed from fellow students or the teacher.
If a school community member tests positive for COVID-19 they are asked to remain off campus for 5 days from the moment of the positive test. Close contacts are asked to test before returning to school.
We do not require or encourage our students or teachers to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. This is a decision we believe best left to parents and families, not schools.
Assessment
St. Benedict Hall seeks to return to an older, and what we believe to be, a more human way to assess students in their education than the dominant progressive model that pervades modern educational theories. Our philosophy of assessment is built on three principles.
1. Assessment ought to be primed and focused on the overall goals and purposes of education. Rather than approaching assessment with the assumption that “information recall” is an indication of actual learning, we give our students an opportunity to narrate in oral or written form what they really remember. In Form III and above, exams are an opportunity for deeper level synthesis, comparison, reflection, and evaluation of ideas.
2. Assessment ought to be qualitative and in the context of relationship. Tutors write notes on assignments and papers that give feedback to the student where they are doing well and what they can improve on. We assess assignments such as exams, essays, writing prompts, or nature study notes with a simple “acceptable” or “not acceptable” status in the early Forms. Not acceptable work needs to be redone at home either because of a lack of comprehension of the subject, a lack of diligence, or a lack of attention to detail. Once a student returns the assignment that is acceptable, the student can move on in the course. This method of assessment embodies a flexibility that works with the uniqueness of each student in relationship with his or her tutor with the goal that each student is growing and maturing from where they are at.
3. Assessment should be a joy to students and brings clarity of a student’s strengths and weaknesses to tutors and parents. Developing healthy habits of resilience, trying ones best, and keeping to a schedule is presented as more than adequate motivation for students to apply themselves. Students are told that their vocation and calling before God is to be the best student they can be. Their calling as a student should be taken seriously and ennobled. We don’t believe grades or exams in grades 1st-8th should be emphasized, idolized, or used as a carrot/stick to motivate students in their academic development. Assessment is rather a means to encourage students, tutors, and parents in what children are learning, not what they aren’t.
Learning Disabilities Policy
This policy applies to all students and tutors of St. Benedict Hall.
Definitions:
Severe Learning Disability: Any condition in a potential student which would require a separate classroom, program, and staff to provide the educational services desired by the parents, e.g. Down’s syndrome, deaf/mute, blind, etc.
Learning Disability: Any condition in a current or potential student which does not require a separate classroom, program, expansive accommodations, and/or staff to provide the education services desired by the parents, e.g. hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder, dyslexia, etc. For the purposes of this policy, it is not important whether or not the condition was accurately diagnosed and is a genuine learning disability.
1. Children with a severe learning disability will generally not be admitted to St. Benedict Hall.
2. Children who have been diagnosed (either before or after enrollment to St. Benedict Hall) as having a learning disability will be required to meet the same academic standards as all the other children in their form, and will be given as much individual instruction and encouragement as their classmates. Our program is only able to give minor accommodations.
Dress Code
All students wear appropriate clothing for the activities and responsibilities set before them. If the class activities include exploring outside or active in gymnasium class each day, students are encouraged to wear clothing fitting for these tasks. We ask students to wear their SBH polo shirt on Eucharist days (usually Tuesday) as a way of showing solidarity as a school when receiving communion together. Students are encouraged to wear their house t-shirts the last Wednesday of the month for their house lunches and house games. Overall clothing should be appropriately fitting and not distracting in the pursuit of their education. The director remains the final authority on the acceptability of the student’s dress.