What is Classical Education?

Classical education has a long and distinguished history, beginning in ancient times, maturing in the Middle Ages, and becoming prominent in this country until the early 20th century, when progressive, child-centered education became the dominant model. Classical education is not, however, a nostalgic desire to return to the past. It has endured so long and is now enjoying something of a renaissance precisely because it is adaptive and equips students with the skills and knowledge to go forward and live interesting, thoughtful, and productive lives.

Read about thePrincipals of Classical Education at Nova.

Classical education is language intensive; it is knowledge-centered rather than child-centered; it trains the mind to collect and analyze information and to draw conclusions based on that information; it demands self-discipline and instills virtue (the ability to do what is right despite one’s baser inclinations); it produces intelligent, literate, curious young adults who can read, write, calculate, think, understand, solve problems and follow through on a wide range of interests. It requires a student to examine moral and ethical issues. A classical education is multi-cultural in the best sense of the word. Because it takes history as its organizing principle, students learn the place of their lives, families, and communities in the broad landscape of human existence and achievement. It imparts the skills and passion for thinking and learning that allow a person to teach herself for the rest of her life. Classical education is systematic and rigorous; it has purpose, goals and a method to reach those goals.

Classical education rests on the concept of the Trivium—grammar, logic and rhetoric—not as subjects, although these subjects are studied, but as the structure of every subject and discipline.

• Grammar is the foundation of a subject—the collection of its parts and the mechanics of how they work.
• Logic is the organization of these parts into a whole and an understanding of the relationships among the parts.
• Rhetoric is the ability to apply the foundational knowledge and logical understanding of a subject purposefully and creatively to solve a problem, express an opinion with clarity or create something new.

Every subject we attempt to learn, at any time in our lives, has its grammar, logic and rhetoric, from reading and math, to gardening and law, to music and auto mechanics.

The Trivium also parallels the maturation of the mind from childhood to adulthood. Young children are able to memorize huge amounts of information, from the alphabet to TV jingles to names of constellations. (How many of us still hum a little bit of the alphabet song in our heads when we want to know what letter comes after K, or silently review the “i before e” rule when writing, or start thinking “30 days hath September...” when we want quickly remember how many days there are in June?) They want to give a name to each thing in their world. This is the grammar stage. The middle school student chafes at having to learn facts for their own sake, becomes argumentative, wants to look at the big picture and wants to know why things are the way they are and work the way they do. This is the logic stage. The high school student feels compelled to express thoughts, opinions and individuality through whatever means are available, whether it be through forceful writing or purple hair. This is the rhetoric stage.

Classical education always has integrated into a whole what various educational movements have tried to isolate and treat separately. The “back to basics” movement gets stuck in the grammar stage. Reading, writing and math skills, along with a knowledge of the facts of science, history and geography are essential, but are of limited usse without an understanding of how they are related and how they can be expressed and applied. Critical and higher order thinking skills are the essence of the logic stage, but many would skip over the required foundational knowledge, and the tools to acquire that knowledge, about which one is expected to think critically. Creativity and self-expression are buzzwords today, but too many children have no tools with which to be creative other than personal feelings and limited experiences. The rhetoric stage is defined by creativity and self-expression, but from a foundation of knowledge and understanding.

In the years of the grammar stage, priorities must be set on skills in language arts (reading, writing, grammar and spelling) and math. Reading and writing in particular are the foundation upon which all other learning rests. Children who are not fluent readers upon entering 1st grade must become so before leaving it. Basic arithmetic must be mastered. The foundations of applied art and music are learned. Content areas—history, science, literature and art and music appreciation—are introduced and studied for familiarity and enjoyment rather than complete mastery and students should be handed knowledge on a silver platter rather than being forced to dig for it. Latin is introduced, not because it is the defining element of a classical education, as many think, but because it trains the mind to think in an orderly fashion (it is extremely systematic and no longer evolving), it improves English skills and prepares a child for the study of a modern foreign language. Children’s strengths are recognized and developed, but even more importantly, more attention is paid to shoring up their weaknesses. Instruction in these years is primarily “parts to whole.”

By the time a child enters the logic stage, the mechanics of reading, writing and arithmetic must be second nature. Although a child continues to learn facts throughout the school years, the focus switches to analysis and an understanding of why things are the way they are. Instruction switches to “whole to parts,” students are made to dig deeper and do more discovering on her own. There is less lecturing and more discussion. The student begins to see the relationships between pieces of knowledge and to understand that all knowledge is interrelated. Initial mastery of content areas is expected and modern foreign languages are introduced. Reading and writing become more complex in both content and form. The abstractions of algebra, the basis of all higher level mathematics, are studied. Applied art and music continue to be studied. Students also study formal logic, both to bolster critical thinking skills and to help a student understand the logical organization of all subjects.

In the rhetoric stage, students use knowledge and critical thinking skills to write and speak with fluency, eloquence and persuasiveness about all subjects in the curriculum. The study of history, literature, government, philosophy, ethics and art and music appreciation have become so intertwined that they are studied together as a seminar with the core of the curriculum being a Great Books list. Advanced science, mathematics and modern foreign languages are studied as well as rhetoric and debate. In the last 2 years, students choose topics on which to do in depth projects in an area of interest.

Physical Education. A healthy body promotes a healthy mind. Students will be taught physical fitness and encouraged to become competent in sports which will become life long activities.

This brief description of classical education neither does justice to the concept, nor adequately conveys the freedom within a framework that it allows. However, not only is this the education we want for our children, it’s the education we wish that we had received.