Classical education movement

The "classical education movement" is a form of education that emphasizes history, literature and language studies within a modern school framework. The term "classical education" has been used in Western culture for several centuries, with each era modifying the definition and adding its own selection of topics. By the end of the 18th century, in addition to the trivium and quadrivium of the Middle Ages, the definition of a classical education embraced study of literature, poetry, drama, philosophy, history, art, and languages.[1]

UNC course catalog from June, 1819
Seal of the University of Pennsylvania from 1894

In the 20th and 21st centuries, it has been used to refer to a broad-based study of the liberal arts and sciences, as opposed to a practical or pre-professional program.[1]

There are number of informal groups and professional organizations which have led the classical education movement in the past century. Within the secular classical movement, in the 1930s Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins set forth the "Great Books" of Western civilization as center stage for a classical education curriculum. Also some public schools (primarily charters) have structured their curricula and pedagogy around the trivium and integrate the teaching of values (sometimes called "character education") into the mainstream classroom. There are several major societies and associations within the classical Christian education movement, including the Society for Classical Learning and the Association of Classical and Christian Schools.

The University of Pennsylvania seal (1894) depicted the trivium as a stack of books providing the foundation for a 'modified' quadrivium of mathematics, natural philosophy (empirical science), astronomy, and theology.

Three phases of modern education linked to classical education

The Classical Education Movement has borrowed terms used in educational history to name three phases of education introduced by Dorothy Sayers in her essay "The Lost Tools of Learning". The phases are roughly coordinated with human development, and would ideally be exactly coordinated with each individual student's development.

  • "Primary education" teaches students how to learn.
  • "Secondary education" then teaches a conceptual framework that can hold all human knowledge (history), fills in basic facts and practices of major fields of knowledge, and develops the fundamental skills (perhaps in a simplified form) of every major human activity.
  • "Tertiary education" then prepares a person to pursue an educated profession such as law, theology, military strategy, medicine, or science.

Primary education

In classical terms, primary education was the trivium comprising grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

Logic and rhetoric were often taught in part by the Socratic method, in which the teacher raises questions and the class discusses them. By controlling the pace, the teacher can keep the class very lively, yet disciplined.

Grammar

Grammar consists of language skills such as reading and the mechanics of writing. An important goal of grammar is to acquire as many words and manage as many concepts as possible so as to be able to express and understand clearly concepts of varying degrees of complexity. Classical education traditionally included study of Latin and Greek to reinforce understanding of the workings of languages and allow students to read the classics of western civilization untranslated. In the modern renaissance of classical education, this period refers to the upper elementary school years.

Logic

Logic (dialectic) is the process of correct reasoning. The traditional text for teaching logic was Aristotle's Logic. In the modern renaissance of classical education, this logic stage (or dialectic stage) refers to the junior high or middle school aged student, who developmentally is beginning to question ideas and authority, and truly enjoys a debate or an argument. Training in logic, both formal and informal, enables students to critically examine arguments and to analyze their own. The whole goal is to train the student's mind not only to grasp information, but to find the analytical connections between seemingly different facts/ideas, to find out why something is true, or why something else is false (in short, reasons for a fact).

Rhetoric

Rhetorical debate and composition are taught to somewhat older (often high-school-aged) students, who by this point in their education have the concepts and logic to criticize their own work and persuade others. According to Aristotle, "Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic", concerned with finding "all the available means of persuasion." Students learn to articulate answers to important questions in their own words, to try to persuade others with these facts, and to defend ideas against rebuttal. The student learns to reason correctly in the Logic stage so that they can now apply those skills to Rhetoric. Traditionally, students would read and emulate classical poets in learning how to present their arguments well.

Secondary education

Secondary education, classically the quadrivium or "four ways," consist of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Arithmetic is Number in itself, which is a pure abstraction; that is, outside of space and time. Geometry is Number in space. Music is Number in time, and Astronomy is Number in space and time.[1] Sometimes architecture was taught alongside these, often from the works of Vitruvius.

History was always taught to provide a context and show political and military development. The classic texts were from ancient authors such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Cicero, and Tacitus.

Biographies were often assigned as well; the classic example being Plutarch's Lives. Biographies help show how persons behave in their context, and the wide ranges of professions and options that exist. As more modern texts became available, these were often added to the curriculum.

In the Middle Ages, these were the best available texts. In modern terms, these fields might be called history, natural science, accounting and business, fine arts (at least two, one to amuse companions, and another to decorate one's domicile), military strategy and tactics, engineering, agronomy, and architecture.

These are taught in a matrix of history, reviewing the natural development of each field for each phase of the trivium. That is, in a perfect classical education, the historical study is reviewed three times: first to learn the grammar (the concepts, terms and skills in the order developed), next time the logic (how these elements could be assembled), and finally the rhetoric, how to produce good, humanly useful and beautiful objects that satisfy the grammar and logic of the field.

History is the unifying conceptual framework, because history is the study of everything that has occurred before the present. A skillful teacher also uses the historical context to show how each stage of development naturally poses questions and then how advances answer them, helping to understand human motives and activity in each field. The question-answer approach is called the "dialectic method," and permits history to be taught Socratically as well.

Classical educators consider the Socratic method to be the best technique for teaching critical thinking. In-class discussion and critiques are essential in order for students to recognize and internalize critical thinking techniques. This method is widely used to teach both philosophy and law. It is currently rare in other contexts. Essentially, the teacher referees the students' discussions, asks leading questions, and may refer to facts, but never gives a conclusion until at least one student reaches that conclusion. The learning is most effective when the students compete strongly, even viciously in the argument, but always according to well-accepted rules of correct reasoning. That is, fallacies should not be allowed by the teacher.

By completing a project in each major field of human effort, the student can develop a personal preference for further education and professional training.

Tertiary education

Tertiary education was usually an apprenticeship to a person with the desired profession. Most often, the understudy was called a "secretary" and had the duty of carrying on all the normal business of the "master." Philosophy and Theology were both widely taught as tertiary subjects in Universities, however.

The early biographies of nobles show probably the ultimate form of classical education: a tutor. One early, much-emulated classic example is of this tutor system is of Alexander the Great, who was tutored by Aristotle.

Modern interpretations of classical education

There exist a number of modern groups and professional organizations which take the classical approach to education seriously, and who undertake it in earnest.

Classical Christian education
Main article: Classical Christian education

These schools tend to rely for upon one or more of the visions of classical education represented by Dorothy Sayers essay "The Lost Tools of Learning", Mortimer Adler's Paideia Proposal, Alfred North Whitehead's. The Aims of Education, or Susan Wise Bauer's The Well Trained Mind.

Most classical Christian schools employ the trivium as three stages of learning which are linked to child development:

  • Grammar: The fundamental rules of each subject
  • Logic: The ordered relationship of particulars in each subject
  • Rhetoric: How the grammar and logic of each subject may be clearly expressed

Classical Christian schools vary in their approach to the sectarian integration of Christian thinking. Some schools ask parents to sign a statement of faith before attending, some do not require this of parents but are clear in their sectarian teaching, others are consciously ecumenical.

Classical secular education

There exist a number of classical schools in the public/secular sector. These schools, primarily charter schools, also structure their curricula and pedagogy around the trivium and integrate the teaching of values (sometimes called "character education") into the mainstream classroom without involving any particular religious perspectives.

Methods of classical education have also often been integrated into homeschooling, particularly due to the publication of: "The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home," by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer (W.W. Norton, 1999), is a modern reference on classical education, particularly in a homeschool setting. It provides a history of classical education, an overview of the methodology and philosophy of classical education, and annotated lists of books divided by grade and topic that list the best books for classical education in each category.

Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins, both of the University of Chicago set forth in the 1930s to restore the "Great Books" of Western civilization to center stage in the curriculum. St. John's College is an example of this type of classical education at the college level. Although the standard classical works—such as the Harvard Classics—most widely available at the time, were decried by many as out of touch with modern times, Adler and Hutchins sought to expand on the standard "classics" by including more modern works, and by trying to tie them together in the context of what they described as the "Great Ideas," condensed into a "Syntopicon" index and bundled together with a new "five-foot shelf" of books as "The Great Books of the Western World." They were wildly popular during the 1950s, and discussion groups of aficionados were found all over the US, but their popularity waned during the 1960s, and such groups are relatively hard to find today. Extensions to the original set are still being published, encompassing selections from both current and older works which extend the "great ideas" into the present age and other fields, including civil rights, the global environment, and discussions of multiculturalism and assimilation.

Classical Catholic Education

In 2008, the Classical Liberal Arts Academy was established to research, restore, publish and teach the classical liberal arts in the classical Catholic tradition. In contrast to classical Christian education described above, promoted primarily among Protestant educators, classical Catholic education restores the curriculum studied and taught by the Catholic saints and doctors of the Catholic Church in Catholic schools throughout history. These influential men include St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Benedict, Boethius, St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Ignatius of Loyola, Desiderius Erasmus and St. John Henry Newman. St. Albert the Great said, for example, said “Wisdom hath built herself a house, she hath hewn her out seven pillars” (Proverbs 9:1). This house is the Blessed Virgin; the seven pillars are the seven liberal arts." Classical Catholic Education seeks not merely to improve the modern school curriculum by adding attention to the liberal arts, but to replace it with the pre-modern curriciulum that was used throughout Catholic schools before the modern parochial school movement, from the original texts.[2] Historical sources detailing the content and methods of this curriculum can be found in the Ratio Studiorum (1599) of the Society of Jesus. Authoritative texts used in classical Catholic education include the Latin Grammars of Emmanuel Alvarez and William Lily, the Organon of Aristotle, the rhetorical treatises of Aristotle and Cicero, the Ethics, Physics and Metaphysics of Aristotle and the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Classical languages

A more traditional, but less common view of classical education arises from the ideology of the Renaissance, advocating an education grounded in the languages and literatures of Greece and Rome. The demanding and lengthy training period required for learning to read Greek and Latin texts in their original form has been crowded out in most American schools in favor of more contemporary subjects.

The revival of "classical education" has resulted in Latin being taught at classical schools, but less often Greek. The Association of Classical and Christian Schools does require Latin for accreditation, and New Saint Andrews College requires both Latin and Greek to graduate with a four-year degree. A new group of schools, the Classical Latin School Association, does require Latin to be taught as a core subject.

Such an approach—an education in the classics—differs from the usual approach of the classical education movement, but is akin to an education on "The Great Books" followed by St. John's College.

Parallels in the East

In India, the classical education system is based upon the study and understanding of the ancient texts the Vedas, a discipline called Vedanga, and subjects based upon that foundation, referred to as Upaveda and incorporating medicine (Ayurveda), music, archery and other martial arts.

Similarly, in China, the fulcrum of a classical education was the study and understanding of a core canon, the Four Books and Five Classics.

In Taiwan, Classical Chinese takes up 35% of Chinese education in junior high school (7-9th grade, compulsory), and 65% in senior high school (10-12th grade).

For more on Chinese education see:

For classical Islamic education see:

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gollark: Also Intel, once they use the Management Engine to get access to every modern Intel computer on the planet and steal all their classified data. They can totally do that.
gollark: Yes, probably the military contractors.
gollark: I mean, the big tech companies around now are Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and to be honest probably some random Chinese ones I don't really know about.

See also

References
  1. Unger, Harlow G., ed. (2007), "classical education", Encyclopedia of American Education, New York: Facts on File, 1: 239, ISBN 978-0-8160-6887-6, OCLC 470617943
  2. Michael, William C. (2020). Understanding Classical Catholic Education. Classical Liberal Arts Academy. ISBN 9781716878176.

Further reading

Books
  • Kopff, E. Christian. (1999) The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition. Wilmington, Del.: I.S.I. Books, Intercollegiate Studies Institute. xvii, 313 p. ISBN 1-882926-25-0
  • Hanson, Victor; Heath, John (1998), Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom, New York: Free Press, p. 290, ISBN 978-0684844534
  • Lowe, Robert (1867). Primary and classical education: an address delivered before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, on Friday, November 1, 1867. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas.
  • "Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Education" by Robert Littlejohn and Charles T. Evans was published in 2006 (Crossway Books), affirming Dorothy Sayers' contribution to the conversation about classical education, but challenging her assertion that the trivium is applicable as a developmental paradigm. Littlejohn and Evans emphasize the importance of curriculum over pedagogy and the liberal arts' 2500-year history of responding and adapting to current educational needs.
  • The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric by Sister Miriam Joseph Rauh, C.S.C., Ph.D. (ISBN 978-0-9679675-0-9)
  • "The Grammar of Our Civility: Classical Education in America," by Lee T. Pearcy (2005) provides a theoretical and historical account of classical education in the United States and suggests the need for a distinctly American approach to ancient Greece and Rome.

Online resources
  • "The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education" by Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain was published in 2013 (Classical Academic Press) and represents a significant additional recovery of the classical tradition of education that describes the context surrounding liberal arts education as PGMAPT: piety, gymnastic, music (as education in wonder) arts (as in the seven liberal arts), philosophy and theology.
  • The CiRCE Institute – is a provider of inspiration, information, and insight to classical educators throughout the U.S. and Canada via an annual conference, an online classical academy, in-house teacher training, Lost Tools of Writing™ Workshops and materials, consulting on board development, school leadership, and school start-up, as well as a content-laden website and blog.
  • The Institute for Catholic Liberal Education – provides teacher formation, website resources and networking opportunities for Catholic classical educators through its website and program offerings. Its Catholic Classical Schools Conference has drawn over 125 educators from 45 institutions.
  • Classical Conversations, Inc. Curriculum and Home School Communities including Foundations, Essentials and Challenge Programs and Practicum by founder, Leigh Bortins, serving Homeschool, Mission & Military Families Worldwide ~ Since 1997
  • The Classical Liberal Arts Academy offers hundreds of articles on the history and sources of classical Catholic education, as well as online courses for Catholic families and schools.
  • The Tapestry of Grace curriculum, by Marcia Somerville et al. (Lampstand Press, Ltd.), enables homeschooling parents with children on multiple levels to implement a full classical education by offering lesson plans and helps, and recommending and selling classical books.
  • Claritas Publishing[1] has developed curriculum for classical education including advanced English grammar materials, study guides, and comprehensive grammar stage memory work consisting of: Scripture, Latin, English Grammar, Math, Science, History, Geography, Timeline, and Hymns.
  • Expanding Wisdom website and blog. Helps parents understand the 5 elements of classical education and how to practice them in a variety of settings.
  • "The St. Jerome Educational Plan", by St. Jerome Academy in Hyattsville, Md., is a comprehensive Catholic classical curriculum suitable for implementation in primary schools or in a homeschool environment.
  • "A New Trivium and Quadrivium", an article by Dr. George Bugliarello (Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 23, No. 2, 106–13 (2003)). In it, he argues that the scope of the classical liberal education is inadequate for today's society, and that people should also be conversant with the basic facts of science and technology, since they now form a much more important part of our lives than did the tertiary studies of antiquity. He argues for a new synthesis of science, engineering, and the humanities in which there is a balance between what can be done and what ought to be done, between human desires and earthly consequences, and between our ever-increasing power to affect our surroundings and the ever-present danger of destroying the ecological and environmental systems which allow us to exist.[2]
  1. "Welcome". Claritas Publishing. Retrieved 2017-02-07.
  2. Bugliarello, George (2012-09-12). "A New Trivium and Quadrivium". Sigma Xi. Archived from the original on 2012-09-12. Retrieved 2012-09-12.
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