Classical education. The good, the true, the beautiful. Educating the man. Preserving the good. Entering the Great Conversation. Inheriting Western Civilization.
Terms and phrases have been bandied about to such an extent these last few years among pop-up schools that their meaning has become ambiguous.
How can we define a classical education with so many forms and variations surrounding us?
For some, the quality of classical education depends upon the pedagogical approach, and base their school model on the trivium made famous by Dorothy Sayers’s Lost Tools of Learning. To such proponents, the purity and authenticity of the formation rests in the designed “when”. What should a child be taught in the grammatical? In the dialectic? In the rhetoric? These stages dictate the content yet, while aptly taking into account the development of the child’s mind, yet decree a generalization in application.
Others contend that the “what” should reign supreme. Philosophy, ancient literature, Greek, Latin, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Plutarch, Augustine, Aquinas…These names and titles mark a “good classical program”. If Greek and Latin are not studied, then the approach is not truly classical. What is essential is the child’s exposure to this beautiful wealth of the ages. Inheriting the wisdom contained in these works establishes each young person in their place, their time, with this firm foundation beneath them to understand truth and their purpose.
Both of these approaches are good, beautiful, and true; and while their advocates sometimes conflict because of their different focus, both types of programs benefit any person who journeys through them.
I would argue, contrarily, that the “how” is most important.
No child will be a lesser person for not knowing Latin, for not having read Homer, for taking courses out of the proper order. With the plethora of intellectual riches we can offer each student, the opportunity cost we risk in our educational endeavor is minimal. Yes, a curriculum must be carefully crafted to include much wealth and wisdom.
But how we teach a child cannot be undone or replaced, and not everything can be taught in the short childhood years.
To continue growing through life and pursuing their final end, a child must learn to ask questions. To engage with other people and ideas, a child must love to learn. To endure when sufferings and opposing philosophies are encountered, a child must possess faith and hope in the absence of love.
A successful classical education, therefore, regardless of its pedagogical structure or content, must openly acknowledge the dignity of the student, seek individual customization to the highest degree to meet his/her unique personality and cognitive development, and demand an integration of subjects so that he/she will recognize the oneness of truth.
In turn, as we determine how best to convey the lessons and beauty inherent to our subjects, we must also be careful not to hold our methods with frigidity; learning does not only occur in seminar nor in the natural world, for instance. Similarly, a Montessori approach to our younger children’s learning can inspire and mold them, but is not the sole methodology to consider. We cannot declare that homeschooling is the only way or that true classical learning can only happen in a school setting.
Our guidepost must be the individual child, whose thoughts and manners will fill us with wonder, as we lead him to discovery after discovery. A near-perfect meeting can occur when stories and skills are brought to the child in the place and time he is ready to encounter them.
Practically, this demands: a clear mission that is not altered due to fiscal concerns or parental pressure although flexibility is built into a school’s program; a curriculum that builds with each level; the goal of Socratic seminar and discussion within the higher levels of classes; instructors who can customize to each new class or section while not compromising the principles of the program and still directing the students to the next set of academic goals.
The stages of learning form an important guiding structure, provided the “when” does not become so rigid as to imprison the child within a pre-ordained system. Good and proper curriculum is central to our efforts – indeed, our cornerstone! – as long as we refrain from a pharisaical judgment of others who choose slightly different goods for their feast and inflexibility at the cost of the student.
How we teach must be given our highest consideration, for this bestows life to our schools and joy to our pursuits, transforming the stark frame of a child’s mind to a beautiful home for truth.
May it rest there, grow, and emanate to the hearts and minds of others.
“Bold is her [wisdom’s] sweep from world’s end to world’s end, and everywhere her gracious ordering manifests itself…Her, then I would take to myself, to share my home; to be my counsellor in prosperity, my solace in anxiety and grief. “ (Wisdom 8:1, 9)
