Elementary Education (K-6)

In Ave Maria University’s Education major you will experience:

• Up to date teaching standards, expectations, and best practices, but rooted firmly in the liberal arts and resting on a deep understanding of the dignity of the human person as a son or daughter of God.
• Extensive hands-on experiences in real classrooms under trained master teachers during each of the 4 semesters of the major.
• Immediate and intimate access to caring professors with extensive degrees and years of service in small classes of about 15 students.
• 100% contract offers to program completers before graduation
• Double the state average of first-time pass rates for all sections of the Florida K-6 Teacher Exam

Ave Maria University is located in the Collier County Public school district and works closely with them. The district is currently growing and experiencing a real need for teachers. Our graduates will on average have spent a total of 40 or more full days serving as aids in at least 3 different schools over the period of three semesters, and another full 14 weeks of student teaching in the schools. A number of our faculty are also active K-6 teachers, trainers, and administrators ensuring the most up to date, relevant and real-world  formation by those working in the field. Our graduates are ready to move right into a public or private school teaching position.

We are also extremely well connected to various dioceses and Catholic school networks around the nation seeking faithful teachers. Catholic school leaders are especially interested in hiring our uniquely well-formed graduates to enhance the academic quality and authentic Catholic identity of their schools. Ave Maria means excellence!

Because of your liberal arts core preparation, Classical schools, including many of the growing number of classical charter schools, are desperate for our graduates. Many AMU graduates are already active in these schools and their leaders come directly to us seeking to fill the growing need, not just for teachers, but teachers “who get” the classical tradition and are well versed with first-hand experience in a liberal arts environment. Something AMU is uniquely positioned to deliver, even among other faithful Catholic schools.

The Elementary (K-6th) Education major seeks to further teaching, inquiry, and scholarship in the field of education with a special focus on Catholic and classical education. While examining the field of education using methodologies and practices proper to the discipline, the program will maintain a deliberate and explicit foundation in the philosophical and theological insights of the Catholic tradition, especially its understandings related to the nature and dignity of the human person, the nature of Truth, and the unity of all knowledge as ultimately rooted in the order of creation and God.