DONAHUE’S NEW STUDENTS
S E E K I N G A FA I T H F U L S C H O O L F R O M A C R O S S T H E U S A N D ACROSS THE WORLD FAMILIES CAME FROM 14 STATES
Donahue Academy welcomed 80 new students to school this year—our largest one-year enrollment increase so far—made possible by the upper school expansion that added four new classrooms. The new students and their families came from across the United States and from across the world, many moving to Ave Maria so that their children can attend Donahue Academy and receive its authentically Catholic, classical education. The Schroeder family had searched in the US, Mexico and Paraguay for a Catholic school that would be both academically rigorous and faithful. When the school in Paraguay was not working out, Mariana SchroederIbarrola began searching in Florida. She found Donahue Academy and knew she had found her school—one that was unapologetically Catholic. “Wow, they have the guts to say it!” she thought, “and to teach the students to defend their faith!” Their family visited on the feast of the Annunciation, and from there, all the
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logistics fell into place “by the grace of God,” she adds. “Donahue Academy is what my heart was yearning for. It is a miracle!” The Spengler family moved from Germany to enroll Josephina ‘24 and Magdalena ‘25 in Donahue. Mom Berlind said, “The girls are enjoying this incredibly great experience of education and Christian faith every day. Their classmates and teachers are very supportive. And their English is getting better day by day!” - Mariana Schroeder-Ibarrola
Donahue Academy is what my heart was yearning for. It is a miracle!
Donahue’s current students have enjoyed making new friends and welcoming them into the Donahue family. Along with new friends they are getting a new perspective on their school. Seeing families willing to make great sacrifices just to attend your school instills a deeper appreciation of how unique Donahue Academy is and what a gift a truly Catholic education is.
3 COUNTRIES CANADA
PARAGUAY
GERMANY
CATHOLIC CLASSICAL EDUCATION
THE KEY PILLARS Stated simply, Donahue is a classical school because we teach the classics—works that our ancestors found exemplary, challenging, or inspirational and which have remained so over time. These works are the foundation of the subjects, ideas, and questions we study, and our trust in their value to the great achievements of the human tradition is the first of the key pillars of classical education. But to fully embrace the classical dimension of Donahue’s mode of teaching, we need to consider the other key pillars: integration, transcendentals, wonder, and developmentally appropriate tools of learning.
Beauty. We lead students to see how the finite participates in the infinite, so that the smaller truths, goods, and beauties they encounter in this life are doorways or pointers to the fullness of Being: God.
Our curriculum and pedagogy are designed to assist students in accessing integration of truth so that knowledge from a discipline (e.g., math) is connected, synthesized, and integrated with other disciplines (e.g., science, theology, art) and, therefore, to other truths and, ultimately, to God—the fullness of the truth. In fact, the movement and purpose of integrated instruction is always toward the transcendentals, the ultimate desires of man: Truth, Goodness, and
Finally, Donahue’s educational vision seeks to recover the pedagogical modes ordered to how children learn, as described by Dorothy Sayers in her famous work, The Lost Tools of Learning. Sayers uses the terms grammar, logic, and rhetoric because they recognize the particular way in which children learn in three stages of growth. So Donahue’s tools of learning include: direct instruction, chant, and song at the grammar stage, when children are absorbing facts and knowledge; formal logic and proper questioning at the logic stage, when students seek to understand how facts and knowledge fit together; and formal rhetoric instruction, seminarstyle discussion, and research and writing at the rhetoric stage, when they are testing, affirming, and learning how to defend a thesis or an idea.
At the same time, this thirst for the infinite—the desire for the divine—cannot be fully quenched in this life; therefore, classical education aims to inspire in students a sense of wonder: awe and respect for that which we can never completely know or understand, and which points toward the mystery of God.
Donahue’s embrace of the key pillars of classical education ultimately leads students to wield the tools of learning for themselves, so that every Donahue graduate becomes a true lifelong learner. 13 13
