This coming fall of 2011, Grace Academy of North Texas will open its doors as a school rooted in the Classical education model.
Which means I am once again being asked, “Jody, why Classical? What is it exactly?”
I love answering this question.
This is not the first time I have opened a school based on the Classical education model. I believe in it deeply, for more reasons than I have room to share with you here. So I will try my best to boil it down to the highlights.
If you want to read more, check out Dorothy Sayers’ “The Lost Tools of Learning,” Douglas Wilson’s Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning and Repairing the Ruins: The Classical and Christian Challenge to Modern Education, and Susan Wise Bauer’s The Well-Educated Mind.
The short answer to the question “Why Classical?” is that Classical education is the most powerful educational tool available to sharpen the Biblical mind.
Rooted in ancient Greek and Roman thought, developed during the Middle Ages, and used in the education of our American founding fathers, the Classical model incorporates tried-and-true principles that align not only with modern ideas about child development but with the foundations of Christian theology as well.
At the heart of the Classical model is the Trivium. Three stages of development are contained within it: Grammar (grades 1-5), Dialectic (grades 6-9), and Rhetoric (grades 10-12).
In the Grammar stage, children are absorbing all the many new facts from their experiences in life. During this stage they acquire and experience new information which will go through transitions in the next two stages.
In the Dialectic stage, students begin assembling the information they learned when they were younger. Essentially, they’re putting the puzzle together as they examine each piece. If you have ever encountered a child who loves to debate, dialogue, and dispute everything you say, then you have been in the presence of someone deep into this Dialectic stage.
In the Rhetoric stage, the student matures and moves into the important level of applying and articulating this new knowledge. Sometimes this is known as the “poetic” stage, as the tools of expression become just as important as the knowledge itself.
Dr. Louise Cowan interprets the Trivium as being about grasping/experiencing, mapping, and then making/creating. In theology, the progression from knowledge to understanding to wisdom is therefore mirrored by the Trivium. Even in modern ideas of child development — from parroting to being pert to poetic refinement — can be seen in the Classical model.
The goal, then, as Dorothy Sayers writes, is simply this: to teach students how to learn for themselves. The Trivium provides the roadmap to making that goal a reality as the students educate, evaluate, and express what they learn.
Along the way, the classical model incorporates many wonderful aspects that are too often neglected by typical educational systems.
One of these characteristics that matters so much to me is the placement of great literature and original documents at the core of the curriculum. From Plato to Shakespeare to Lincoln to the Bible, Classical education embraces the wealth of knowledge and truth found in Western civilization and goes straight to the sources themselves in mining their key ideas. With the Bible as the foundation and basis for truth, the other documents can be read critically through the lens of a Christian worldview.
Tied to this idea of original documents comes another of my favorites: the central role played by history. I consider myself a part-time history buff, and any model that places historical context and lessons from past leaders’ triumphs and mistakes at its core is, for me, the ideal for education. History reveals the providential hand of God, and is always a source of great wisdom and knowledge.
Other defining characteristics of Classical education are the incorporation of Latin, fine arts, and disciplines such as apologetics and logic into the curriculum. The arts enhance the academics and neuroscience supports this research. Latin does for the mind what exercise does for the body by structuring and organizing it, as well as preparing students for SATs, vocabulary building, and study in science, law, and literature. The tools of apologetics and logic refine the students’ thinking, preparing them to be learners for life who have not only theoretical knowledge but practical means for approaching the complexities of life.
In the distant past, most institutions were founded by Christians who saw it as their duty to conquer the intellectual arena for Christ. Today that is sadly not the case. Yet that is precisely why Classical education is so important. It is a proven strategy for educating tomorrow’s thinking Christians by stimulating the minds, imaginations, and souls of our children, thus providing the needed surgery for the spiritually clogged arteries of the modern world.
