The Trivium at Élan
With a classical approach, we remain true to the art of the Trivium. Trivium refers to the three foundational liberal arts: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. At Élan Academy, we believe that the Trivium not only illustrates the the cycle of learning, but that the three phases of the Trivium also correspond to the stages of child development.
As a kindergarten through eighth grade school, we focus on the grammar and logic stages of development.
The Grammar School
The first stage of the classical Trivium, the Grammar phase, takes advantage of the young student’s great natural ability to absorb large amounts of material, whether math facts, rules of phonics, principles of science, or another language.
The Logic School
The second stage of the Trivium, known as the logic or dialectic phase, leverages the logical stage of brain development reflected in the students interest in cause-effect, analysis, and reasoning to teach students critical thinking. Here, students are ready to take the information they learned in the School of Grammar and make logical connections among them as they assess the importance of the academic content, question and analyze it, and seek truth.