The Master's Academy of Fine Arts is an historically based fine arts program for home schooled students meeting one day each week for a minimum three hours for a minimum of twenty-five weeks. Each year a Master's Academy location studies the arts based on one of the six rotating historical time periods:Ancient, Medieval/Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern. During each class day the students take a history course where we combine arts history in it's world history context, as well as courses in art, drama and music. Students will also choose an elective class for more in-depth study of an area of interest to them.

WHAT MAFA IS!
- MAFA is a school
- MAFA is important
- MAFA is work
- MAFA is fun
- MAFA is a program that requires responsibility from children and parents.

WHAT MAFA IS NOT!
- MAFA is NOT a mother's morning out program
- MAFA is NOT a daycare program
- MAFA is NOT a babysitting service
- MAFA is NOT a play day
- MAFA is NOT a co-op
- MAFA is NOT a waste of time

Not at all! There are many different levels within the Master’s Academy to provide for all ages and all levels of development. Our exposure level program is for students age 5-18. The students wanting more in a specific area of the arts may check into our Master’s Institute classes. If you would like to receive a performing arts high school degree, register for our Artios program (not currently available in all locations)

Yes it is. All of the classes are taught from a Judeo/Christian Biblical worldview. While no doctrine is taught, we do have students of all faiths, and no faith as well, enrolled in our program. All students are welcome regardless of their faith, but everyone should know up front that the classes will be taught from a Christian perspective.

The Master's Academy Exposure program is a complete package as described above and as such cannot be broken into individual classes. Many schools offer additional options however which may be taken apart from the regular MAFA program. These Master's Institute classes are offered either prior to or after the regular Master's Academy program each week. You would need to contact the specific location of your choice to find out what is being offered as Master's Institute options. 

Absolutely! At the end of each year, certificates are given to the students who have participated in the program stating how many hours they have had in arts education for that year. For high school transcripts you may count the total for history, fine arts, or an elective. For students enrolled in our high school Artios program, there are even more credits available.

High School Credit Guidelines - Calculating Hours for Credit

Students who wish to use their classes at Master’s Academy for one high school credit must do the equivalent of 2.4 hours of related outside study for each of the 25 weeks that classes meet.  This is based on the Carnegie Method. 

 

For instance, a year of course work (one credit) is roughly 36 weeks at 45 minutes per school day, or 135 hours.  Students in the Master’s Academy classes complete a minimum of 75 hours in class (this does not count the hours for related field trips, rehearsals or performances).  That leaves 60 hours of extra study time to be done outside of class (less if you count the field trips, rehearsals, and performance hours).  If that is divided over the 25 weeks that the classes meet, that means an additional 2.4 hours of study time per week for 25 weeks. 

 

These extra hours are easily accomplished when the students do outside work on the projects that are assigned, attend the field trips that are scheduled, and read the corresponding chapters in the Streams of Civilization textbook and suggested reading list. In fact, if they do all of these activities, they will exceed the minimum requirements for a high school credit.

The classroom hours at Master’s Academy can be applied toward several types of credit, depending on the student’s needs and interests.

History

All of the classroom hours at Master’s Academy can be applied toward a history credit.  Each student could choose to use those hours toward World History, Geography, Government and Economics, or Church History depending where they focus their outside work.  

Literature 

The Ancient Civilization period has books rich in classic literature. Students may apply their hours at Master’s toward a literature credit if they choose to do their outside work in this area.  All of the classes contribute to the historical and cultural context within which the literature was produced.  Depending on the needs of the student, this study could be done as an overview of many works, or by delving deeply into one or two.

Electives

Students can apply their hours at Master’s toward a general Fine Arts elective or focus their outside time toward a specific elective in Art, Music, or Drama.  Again, the classroom time at Master’s provides the historical and cultural context for all of these.

According to Profiles of SAT and Achievement Test Takers, The College Board, “ There is a direct correlation between improved SAT scores and the length of time spent studying the arts. Those who studied the arts four or more years scored 59 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on math portions of the SAT than students with no coursework or experience in the arts. For each additional year of arts study, the students gained an average of 22 points on the SAT.”

According to Frances Rauscher, Ph.D, and Gordon Shaw, Ph.D, of the University of California, Irvine, “ Music lessons have been shown to improve a child’s performance in school. After eight months of keyboard lessons, preschoolers tested showed a 46% boost in their spatial IQ, which is crucial for higher brain functions such as complex mathematics.” If we want our children to do well in math and science, they need to learn the creative thinking skills that the arts offer them.

Clifford V. Smith, President of the GE Foundation says “ GE hires a lot of engineers. That’s why the GE Foundation is making a major commitment to the field of arts and education. We want to develop young people who can do more than add up a string of numbers and write a coherent sentence. We want students who can solve problems and communicate ideas.” MIT reports that one New York accounting firm recruiting MIT students uses evidence of a minor concentration in the arts as a screening criteria.

A Rockefeller Foundation study ( 1994) reveals that college music majors have the highest rate of admittance to medical school, 66.7 percent of those applying. The acceptance rate for biochemistry majors is only 59.2%

Rexford Brown, speaking at the Education Commission of the States, said, “ Out of a classroom of 30 students, maybe 10 will be employed in arts-related occupations. This economic factor alone is a very good reason to support the arts in education.” The arts account for 6% of the GNP, more than the construction industry ( 4.8%) and just under wholesale trade ( 6.9%) “ the arts play an extraordinary role in the modern economy” says Denis Doyle, a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute. The arts are one area in which the US has a significant positive trade balance.

According to The Georgia Plan: A State Action Agenda for Arts Education “students in Japan and Germany, two of the most technologically advanced and economically sound nations in the world, are required to study the arts well into secondary school. In these countries, 14% of a student’s time in school is spent studying the arts. In Georgia, students in some school districts spend about 5% of their time in arts education, but most get less than that.” One day a week at MAFA exceeds the 14% of time required of students in Japan and Germany and far surpasses the requirements of the state of Georgia which is 0%.

The tuition amount is for the entire year. Tuition is broken out over the entire school year as a convenience to you, but may be paid in one lump sum at the beginning of the year if you so desire. Please keep in mind that you are not paying tuition based on the number of weeks you meet in any given month, you are instead paying an annual tuition rate broken down into monthly installments to keep the price more manageable for most families.

Ounce per ounce MAFA is still the best bargain in town. From the annual tuition,  students pay less than $20 per class day or  $7.00 per hour. The registration fee works out to be about $1.50 per class hour...... not bad for all of the art projects that come out of those classes! We hope that you can appreciate our efforts to keep the costs at a minimum and your money at a premium!

The Master’s Academy programs run on a limited resources budget. The registration fee is collected to pay for supplies for all of the classes as well as insurance costs. As children register during the spring and early summer, supplies for the year are purchased and the money simply is not available for refunds. In addition, we desire families to seriously consider their commitment to the program before they ever register. As described above, The Master’s Academy of Fine Arts is a serious, academic arts program and as such requires serious commitment on the behalf of both parents and children enrolled.

Once again, we require that you seriously consider whether or not your children should be involved in the Master's Academy of Fine Arts each year. We consider the arts to be of great value and importance, on a par with all other academic subjects and sports programs. Most parents would never consider pulling their children out of a Spanish program, or a sports program mid-year because they find those programs to be essential to their child's education. We want you to know up front that we consider the arts to be essential to your child's education as well and hope that you will give this program the serious commitment it deserves.

We know that there are often extenuating circumstances which cause you to have to leave the program so for that reason we have noted several exceptions to this policy:

• Family moving more then 50 miles from the current MAFA location ( if another MAFA exists in the area to which you are moving, you may transfer your enrollment to the new location.)
• Death or unemployment of parent
  

NO exceptions are made for children who are tired of the program, have re-enrolled in school, or who find the work too challenging. Children may decide not to attend for those reasons, but the parents are still held liable for the tuition. We are under commitment to our staff to pay the salaries we agreed to pay them, which are based on the number of students enrolled. Since we don't routinely add students throughout the year, when students drop out we simply don't have the funding to pay the staff as we had agreed.

Parents are always welcome visitors and if you are having out of town company, or watching someone else’s children for the day, they are welcome to attend as well. We also allow for children who may be considering enrolling in the Master’s Academy to attend for a day. We only ask that you and your children not make bringing visitors a weekly event and that you contact the director to get permission before bringing any visitors to the school.

70% of the MAFA graduates for the years 2004-2006 are continuing in arts education or are pursuing an arts related occupation.

“Time” magazine article recently stated that if school boards understood biology, every student in America would be learning an instrument by age five. It seems that music education wires young people for success, teaches them the unteachable and makes them smarter. – Taken from the article “ Why Am I Paying All This Money “ in the May-July 2004 issue of The SCORE.

While we recognize that many children are not born performers, we encourage all students to participate in our annual programs in some way. They may choose to take an elective course in art so that their participation is limited to the art exhibit, yet they are still participating in some way. We desire that the children see ALL of the arts as important and not just the performing arts. For that reason, in addition to the dramatic presentation, most schools offer an art exhibit, a project night and displays of other non-performing elective options.