On Tuesday, May 7, several of TAA’s elementary students traveled to Beaumont retirement community in Bryn Mawr, PA, to perform Scottish dances for the residents. Our dancers performed the Fling, the Sword, and the Lilt. Mrs. Susan Null has been teaching these girls the art of this particular dance genre in a Scottish Dancing Club after school on Tuesdays all school year.  The club grows more every year, and Mrs. Null is always eager to teach anyone new. All students participated in making Mother’s Day cards to take to Beaumont and give to the ladies that were watching the show.

Before the performance, the dancers performed the Fling, Sword, and Lilt for members and staff of Antioch Presbyterian Church, who so graciously host our school. After the Scottish dancers came off the stage, other students gave Mother’s Day cards to the audience.

Special thanks to Mrs. Null for all her hard work, and for her dedication to the Scottish Dance Club!

The Bulletin, a Philadelphia newspaper, published an op-ed piece by Mrs. Lee K. Anthony in today’s edition.  She asks:

Can our children be expected to serve two masters, i.e. pervasive indoctrination in postmodern relativism in the secular schools and a Judeo-Christian heritage necessary to continue our unique American heritage of liberty and representative republican democracy?  Lincoln, quoting the Bible, said that a “house divided cannot stand.”  There are serious consequences to our neglect of K-12 education, and I hope I have convinced you that we cannot leave that task to the state or to “values-neutral” secular schools.

Mrs. Anthony is the Founder and Head of Academy at TAA.

As announced on WFIL 560 Christian radio, The American Academy will be holding an open house for interested parents and their children on April 18th at 10AM in Villanova, PA (not at the school location in Conshohocken).  This is a great time to meet the faculty, staff, students, and board of the school in an informal setting.

Please contact us at 610-864-6288 for more information and directions.

We’re proud of our students’ artwork submissions to the Philadelphia Classical Society contest, pictured below.

Congratulations to the following TAA students who won “Top Ten” honors from Creative Communication’s Essay Contest:

• Laura Null “Winning and Losing,”
• Sarah Null “Growing in Spirit,”
• Ace Robinson “Happy Changes,” and
• Elena Sutton “Visiting and Traveling East and West.”

• Mr. Pat Devine, former TAA Board member, now an army chaplain, deployed on December 4.  Prayers are welcome! Our school has adopted an additional military man, Lt JG Garrett Moore, who is a Navy SEAL in California. Our other military adoptees are: Lt JG Matthew Anthony, deployed in early December to the Arabian Gulf, LCpl Jonathan Guelzo, Marines, and Cpl James Chun, Marines, and member of Antioch Presbyterian Church.
• Older students started a unit on Greek pottery in ceramics in early December at the Whitemarsh Community Art Center. We will study Greek pottery and produce our own, which shall be entered in the Philadelphia Classical Society Art competition in February.
• Special thanks to Mr. Tom Anderson for an enlightening discussion on John Milton’s Paradise Lost.  We celebrated Milton’s 400th birthday with a special birthday cake and a pencil with the Milton quote, “What is dark in me, illumine.” (We trust that students know that Milton also wrote Paradise Regained.)
• The final installment in the fall FPRI lecture series on the Middle East was Thursday, December 11, at the Union League.  The lecture was “U.S. Policy Toward the Middle East,” by one of our favorite speakers, Dr. Harvey Sicherman, President, Foreign Policy Research Institute. Mrs. Chagan prepared her world affairs student over the last several weeks on this important and timely subject.

The American Academy now accepts donations online via Click and Pledge.  If you wish to make a donation online, or even via mail, please visit our donations page.

On October 27th, Dr. James Kurth gave a lecture entitled What are We Fightin’ For? Western Civilization in the 21st Century for the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.  From the FPRI website:

James Kurth is the Claude Smith Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College, where he teaches defense policy, foreign policy, and international politics. Professor Kurth is the author of numerous articles and editor of two volumes in the fields of defense policy, foreign policy, international politics, and European politics. His recent publications have focused upon the interrelations between the global economy, cultural conflicts, foreign policy, and military strategy. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (New York) and of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London).

This was the inaugural Robert Carr Lecture on Western Civilization, made possible by a grant from FPRI trustee Robert E. Carr.

This is an excellent lecture by an accomplished scholar who is a friend of TAA.  Dr. Kurth emphasizes the importance of teaching the rich history and values of western civilization to our children, and laments that mainstream education has largely abandoned it.  Several members of the TAA community were in attendance, including Mrs. Lee Anthony, head of school.  During the lecture, Dr. Kurth twice singled out TAA as an example of the kind of education our society must promote if we hope to defend western civilization.  TAA is both thrilled and humbled to receive the endorsement of a scholar of Dr. Kurth’s stature.

FPRI posted the entire lecture available in streaming video format from its website.  Dr. Kurth mentions TAA and Mrs. Anthony twice, once at the 56 minute mark, and once at the 1:11 mark.

On Friday November 14th, students from the American Academy were the guests of a kind benefactor at a Kimmel Center concert in Philadelphia.  Before the performance, Mr. Tom Anderson prepared the children for the performance of Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, Grosse Fugue, and Missa Solemnis.  After the performance, our students were invited backstage to meet the conductor and performers.  Praise God for this wonderful opportunity, and thanks also to Mr. Anderson and to our very thoughtful benefactor!