I used to be a tad skeptical of those that went around touting the benefits of a classical approach to learning. My perception of it was little kids memorizing state capitals and the names of presidents, and middle schoolers enduring Latin classes.
That was then.
Now I am sold out in favor of it.
Why the change?
I will let you eavesdrop on two conversations that took place in my house this week.
My wife to our nine year old son, "Do you want to do your presentation on Pompeii? [note: he does a presentation every week in his classical program]
My nine year old son, "Sure. Pompeii was not the only place that had volcano problems. The Minoans had to leave Crete because of a volcano. Once the ashes settled, the Myceneans moved in and took over."
Wife: "Hmm. I've never heard of the Myceneans. Where is Crete anyway?"
Son: "Near Cyprus, kinda near Greece."
Wife: "Well what happened to the Minoans?"
Son: "They moved to Greece and became part of the Greek population."
Wife: "How did you know this stuff?"
Son: "The Story of The World."
Moving on ....
Me to my fifteen year old daughter, "How is your paper on the Tokugawa period coming?"
My fifteen year old, "Good. I finished my note cards."
Me: "What is your thesis going to be?"
Her: "I am not sure. But I was thinking of structuring my paper by contrasting Perry's two visits to Japan."
Me: "Sounds interesting. Why did you pick this topic?"
Her: "Because Japan went through a major technological upheavel in a very short period of time at the close of the Edo period. I am interested in the effect of that sort of rapid change on a society."
... end of eavesdrop ...
These two snippets of conversations give you a glimpse of the classical learning model in action.
My nine year old is in the stage where learning is fun for him. He is a sponge. He likes to memorize things. He is adding pegs of knowledge to his mental database. Advance a few years and you get to my fifteen year old. She has the pegs of knowledge in place. She knows how to think and reason and communicate. She is more interested in knowing whether something is right or wrong and why.
The classical approach leverages the way we learn and maximizes it. The Christian classical approach gives a Biblical context for understanding. It dovetails perfectly with our goals for education.
I want my kids to not only gain knowledge in school, but I want them to learn how to learn. I want them to love learning. And, I want them to learn how think, reason and engage the thinking of others around them. Most importantly, I want them to grow in the wise application of that knowledge. Cultivating wisdom, a passion for truth, and a heart towards God are the top educational priorities in our house.
In an age where gazillions of our tax dollars are poured into a black hole called public education, there is a powerful education movement sweeping across the country. It is a movement back to the wisdom of the past. The movement is not toward just a Christian education, but toward a Classical Christian education.
The first benefit is obvious. Every subject is taught in the context of Christian worldview. The teachers believe in truth with a capital "T". But you can (or should) get that at any private Christian school. The classical approach goes further.
It emphasizes rigorous academics by leveraging something called the Trivium. This time-tested approach to learning has three phases. Each phase is designed to cut with the grain of how kids learn. The phases are called the grammar phase, the logic phase and the rhetoric phase. The phases roughly correspond with elementary, middle and upper school years.
In the grammar phase, memorization is emphasized. Kids learn language skills, sentence diagramming, history facts, math facts, geography facts … and memorize their socks off. They like it too. They love to show off. What they don't realize is that they are putting pegs of knowledge into place that they will draw on later. You also begin to teach them Latin.
Why Latin? I'll let education guru Dorothy Sayers handle that question.
"I will say at once, quite firmly, that the best grounding for education is the Latin grammar. I say this, not because Latin is traditional and mediaeval, but simply because even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin cuts down the labor and pains of learning almost any other subject by at least fifty percent. It is the key to the vocabulary and structure of all the Teutonic languages, as well as to the technical vocabulary of all the sciences and to the literature of the entire Mediterranean civilization, together with all its historical documents."
In the logic phase, critical thinking is taught. Logic is the art of arguing correctly. Kids in those middle school years like to argue … so why not work with that? Teach them the laws of thought, how to structure valid syllogisms, make sound arguments and spot fallacious arguments.
In the rhetoric phase, the art of persuasion is taught. By now, the kids know how to think and they have a vast storage of knowledge. They have connected those pegs of knowledge that were put in place earlier. It is time to apply that knowledge. It is time to put that worldview into action. The capstone for a classical education is a meaty thesis on a culturally relevant topic. The student must write his thesis, present it, and then defend it in a public forum.
Are all the "standard" subjects taught (literature, science, language etc.)? Yes. But what I really like is that there is cross-over between subjects. Learning should be holistic and integrated, in my opinion. Logic and math are related, science and theology, history and philosophy and on and on. Knowledge is unified. The more we erect false dichotomies between pools of knowledge, the more harm we do.
Does this approach work? You better believe it. The rigorous academics produces kids who are blowing away SATs and getting into top colleges. More importantly, in my opinion, it produces young men and women who are prepared to engage false worldviews head on.
The movement started in the mid 1990s. There are now 186 Classical Christian schools in America. On average, membership is growing at 10 schools a year. Virginia has 10 such schools. One other thing. Unlike so many private schools which cost from $15k to $25k a year, these ones are around $7k a year. And many offer parents tuition assistance.
I will give a plug for one of those schools in a future post.
Further Reading:
The Lost Tools of Learning : the classic Dorothy Sayers address to Oxford in 1947.
Classical Christian Education, Ben House
Patrick Henry College takes the classical approach as well. The provost there has written a book about returning to classical education.
I find it meshes well with my preferred style: Charlotte Mason's.
We use Story of the World in our homeschool. :) My 10yo is in the modern volume this year. I have learned so much myself! I told her just yesterday that the chapter we had just read was *completely* new information to me. We never adequately covered history in school (and part of my education was spent in private Christian schools). The emphasis is on American history, then state history, then one Western history survey course before graduation. I feel it is a *huge* deficit in public education. I came out knowing nothing about Asia, South America, little about Africa beyond the slavery issue, and nothing about Canada, either. Most of the historical details I knew were those I picked up in my own reading.
How can we accurately assess the present without understanding it in the context of the past? I wish public schools would adopt the classical method.
Posted by: Susannah | February 09, 2007 at 11:22
Caldwell Academy in Greensboro, which follows the Classical Christian approach, has been an enormous blessing for my two sons, and indeed, for my family. I have been an earnest believer in the concept ever since I heard the presentations when the school was started up about a dozen years ago.
But it is more important to point out, as you do, that the implementation works well-- and especially for motivated students.
Posted by: Joe Guarino | February 09, 2007 at 15:44
Caldwell is an excellent school. I have many close friends associated with the school, as you know.
Folks in Greensboro really ought to check it out.
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | February 10, 2007 at 07:00
Susannah,
You are preaching to the choir.
Charlotte Mason rocks. Susan Wise Bauer rocks.
The Story of The World is amazing ... simply amazing. We listen to the readings. My sons are sponges and know more about world history than most adults.
Bauer has taught me so much as well. For example, little did I realize how much the events of World War I played in shaping the landscape of the Middle East. Significant things happened in the Middle East around that time period (and WWII) that have direct relevance to today's war in Iraq.
Like you said, there is a context for everything.
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | February 10, 2007 at 07:06
The idea that we spend "gazillions of dollars" on public education is kind of silly, in the grand scheme of things. The low estimates of what we spend on, say, the Iraq War, are around $75 billion a year (some have it closer to $90 or $100 billion). What we spend on education, even when you include state and local dollars, is a pittance by comparison. The idea that public education is a "black hole" is equally ignorant. Look at virtually any top college/university in the country, and somewhere between 85-90% of its students go their primary and secondary education in public schools.
It's admirable that you and your wife are properly equipped to teach your children, but not all parents are, nor do they necessarily live anywhere near a good home school association.
Finally, I wasn't aware that public schools were en masse abandoning the classical approach to education. When I was in school, there was plenty of memorization, and that was also true for my niece, who just graduated a few years ago. The problem with institutionalized education, if there is one, is that it's too uniform -- different children learn in different ways, and the one-size-fits-all teaching approach works for most, but not all children.
Posted by: tgirsch | February 12, 2007 at 17:20
I don't know...I just read today that in this county the per-pupil cost of education is around $12,000. That's not even as much as surrounding counties spend...$16,000+.
That's a *lot* of money. Besides salaries, you know a good percentage of that gets sucked up in buildings and maintenance, and other administrative costs. I educate my kids for around $400-$600 per year, and that includes all supplies, right down to the pencils and crayons and glue. A determinedly frugal parent could do it for far less using a library card, a printer, and a free online curriculum like Ambleside. It doesn't take a lot of money.
It really doesn't take genius or teacher certification or even a college education to homeschool, either. Most hs materials (at least the ones I use) are scripted, and parents have only to open the book and learn right along with the student. Our math program even comes with a DVD that provides a demonstration for each lesson.
All you really need is one person available & willing to devote around 4.5 hours a day to it.
Posted by: Susannah | February 17, 2007 at 20:30
Susannah,
I would like to read your source article on those costs. Sounds like important reading.
By the way, going classical does not mean giving up homeschooling. We still homeschool * and * use the classical approach to do it. Just look for a reference to the classical conversations web site under my "moving from sonlight to classical" post. Why not get the best of both?
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | February 17, 2007 at 22:09