Truth

A Trinity learner will have a vibrant life of the mind, a well-trained reason inspired by a robust imagination. Through practicing the “tools of learning”—the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric— Trinity learners will awaken and train their logical faculties and so learn how to learn.

Students who have practiced these tools know how to listen well to what others say; read and understand many different kinds of literature; play with ideas; reflect on profound questions; imagine creative solutions to complex problems; carry on a deep conversation; express an opinion winsomely; ask thoughtful questions; form a hypothesis and test it; make a presentation or give a speech; argue for and against a proposition with passion and civility; write an essay or a research paper, a memoir or a poem; manipulate math concepts accurately and elegantly; make connections between seemingly disparate subjects; understand how to get things done in the world; and seek wisdom in every reading and every encounter.

Loves to learn

• Exercises a natural and healthy desire for knowledge
• Demonstrates a curious posture towards reality and truth
• Enjoys learning for its own sake

Practices the tools and habits of learning (the liberal arts)

• Listens and hears
• Reads and understands
• Speaks well and talks with anyone
• Thinks clearly and critically
• Writes clearly, persuasively, and movingly
• Understands the structure and grammar of a foreign language
• Masters the mathematical and scientific arts
• Grasps the universal order and harmony of mathematics
• Analyzes, synthesizes, evaluates data and texts
• Solves a wide variety of problems
• Employs science to explain the world around them

Nurtures the imagination and curiosity

• Reads imaginative literature
• Thinks creatively and innovatively

Makes connections eloquently and elegantly

• Between ideas that cross disciplines
• Between people who are unlike one another