Music, Art, and Physical Education: Forming the Whole Child
A classical education is not only delivered in the classroom. At Veritas, we believe that forming a student well means forming the whole person, soul, mind, and body, and that formation happens as much in the choir room, the art studio, and on the field as it does in the classroom. Music, Art, and Physical Education are not elective add-ons at the margins of a “real” education; they are essential expressions of the same classical vision that shapes everything else we teach.
Music
At Veritas, music is not treated as an elective or an enrichment activity tacked onto the curriculum; it is part of the classical core itself. In the ancient quadrivium, music stood alongside arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy as one of the four essential mathematical arts. Music theory is fundamentally a study of numerical proportion and order. To study music, then, is to study the same order and harmony that governs the created world. It is arithmetic made audible. Every student at Veritas engages in musical training as a core discipline, not a break from academics. Students in Kindergarten – 8th grade take music twice a week and perform in whole-school programs twice a year.
Art
Classical education has always pursued three things together: truth, goodness, and beauty, and art is where students learn to see, name, and pursue that third, often-neglected pillar. There is no better way to cultivate a love and appreciation for beauty than by learning to create beauty for oneself. When a student learns to paint or make art, they also learn to see and enjoy the details and skill in someone else’s work. Visual art trains a student’s eye to observe carefully, to recognize order and craftsmanship, and to distinguish what is genuinely beautiful from what is merely novel or trivial. At Veritas, art instruction is one of the ways we shape not just what our students can do, but what they can perceive. Students are training their minds toward beauty as an act of worship of the Creator who called His own work “very good.” Students in Kindergarten through 8th grade take formal art classes twice a week, taught by a teacher with an art degree.
Physical Education
Long before physical fitness became a matter of gym class or personal wellness, the ancients understood it as inseparable from the formation of the mind. The Greek gymnasium was not merely a place of exercise. It was a center of education, where physical training and intellectual development were pursued side by side because the ancients recognized what modern research continues to confirm: the body and the mind are not separate projects. At Veritas, physical education is approached with that same conviction. We train the body not as an afterthought to academics, but as a genuine partner in the formation of disciplined, resilient, well-ordered students. Students take physical education a minimum of twice a week. From PreK3 through 8th grade, physical development is prioritized.
