Imagine a newborn staring intently at her mother’s face, or a toddler fixing his rapt attention on the journey of a caterpillar through the grass. Human beings are born knowing how to learn, and it begins with wonder.

As long as adults don’t interfere with their dry analyses and sterile lectures, children are naturally fascinated with the world around them. Our approach honors that innate curiosity and channels it into productive insight and understanding. From there, students intuitively gravitate to new levels of wonder.

We believe students will never truly achieve academic excellence if they only learn from textbooks and lectures. They can’t take ownership of the knowledge that is being passed on to them unless they actively investigate. That’s why we provide real life encounters with the subjects we study. When they learn about animal husbandry and horticulture, we take them to a farm; when they learn about ancient art, we take them to the Met; when they learn about the American founding, we take them to Philadelphia. Our field studies help make school come alive for students, and serve to increase both their joy of learning and their mastery of the material.

The world is becoming increasingly global and complex, meaning the problem-solvers of tomorrow will have to be unconstrained by disciplinary boundaries. Our approach specifically teaches students how to think across subjects, applying what they’ve learned in one class to the problems raised in another.

Our students perform well on standardized tests, which is in keeping with the trend that classically educated students outperform their peers on these exams. In fact, our students take more rigorous standardized tests than those offered in most schools, including the National Latin Exam.

However, we spend far less time than most schools “teaching to the test,” because we believe it’s counterproductive. Students become bored, which then turns their brains into sieves — even if they retain material for the exam, they’re investing nothing in their long-term intellectual well-being.

Therefore, while we spend adequate time familiarizing our students with what to expect on standardized tests, mostly we prepare them to score well by fostering critical thinking and attention to detail. In this way, our students can succeed on these exams and then move on to the more important things of school, like engaging their curiosity.

OLMC has the great fortune to be located in one of the nation’s most interesting regions. We’re situated no more than 50 miles from some of the richest natural wonders in the country. We’re within driving distance to priceless works of art and sites of global historical and religious significance. And between New York, Philadelphia, and New Jersey’s own institutions of higher learning, we can easily partake of educational resources second to none in the world.

We’re always on the lookout for ways to enrich the student experience through the resources around us.