Classical Christian education

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Classical Christian education is the traditional and historic model of education that began with the emergence of the ancient Christian faith in the early middle ages and continued to develop throughout the centuries, maintaining several persisting themes such as the teaching of the seven liberal arts, natural science, "great books," and cultivation of wisdom and virtue in human beings.


The seven liberal arts were codified by the 400s AD as the verbal arts of grammar, logic and rhetoric and mathematical arts of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. The verbal arts were often called the Trivium (meaning the threefold way) and the mathematical arts the "quadrivium" (the fourfold way). These arts were considered to be a "way" or "path" to skill and wisdom and appropriate for any one who wished to be free to serve and flourish. The arts were called "liberal" (from the Latin liber, meaning "free") arts because they bequeathed and preserved such freedom to those who studied them well.


Classical Christian education is "classical" in that dates back to the classical period of the Greeks and Romans and incorporates elements of the education developed by the Greeks and Romans, such as training in the liberal arts. It is "Christian" in that those elements were incorporated into the training of Christian students and transformed by biblical teaching and the Christian faith. It is often regarded as "classical" in that it seeks to preserve and extend anything that is "classic" in the sense of partaking of enduring excellence worth passing onto succeeding generations.


Classical Christian education emerged and traveled wherever the Christian faith spread over many centuries, beginning in the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea but extending globally over the centuries. It was the dominant education in largely Christian nations throughout the world until the late 1800s.


Since classical Christian education endured so long in so many places, it did not completely disappear even after the advent and great expansion of progressive education that began in late 1800s and became dominant by mid-20th century. Classical Christian education continue various forms, often in remnants in many places in the United States, but often diminished and diluted.

Modern Renewal of Classical Christian Education[]

Thus classical Christian education never really disappeared in the U.S. being too big, too deeply-rooted, to be completely eradicated. It was, however, fragmented and greatly reduced and diminished. By about 1950 the ascendancy of the progressive model of education was complete even if not universal, and there were also some secular classical schools that persisted. Many Christian schools (and notably the thousands of Catholic schools) began to embrace and employ progressive models of teaching that became standard in university education departments. After 1962, when prayer was eliminated from public schools, many Christians began to create private, Christian schools in reaction—but they to a large extent continued to employ the same curriculum and teaching methods as public schools while adding the teaching of Bible, integrated biblical instruction, and weekly chapel. This model continues in significant numbers, but is declining as evidenced by the shrinking enrollments and the closing of many such schools (though this trend has been slowed greatly as a result of the COVID pandemic which has driven many Christian families back to Christian schools of all kinds).


It was at about 1980 when the first Christians began to question the “public school plus Bible” model and search for a richer, more meaningful tradition of Christian education. Some Christians began to read those writers in the 20th century who questioned modern, progressive education and argued for the traditional “classical” tradition. Such writers included thinkers such as G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, C. S. Lewis, Jacques Barzun, Gilbert Highet, Mark Van Doren, and Mortimer Adler.


In the last 40 years, the Association of Classical Christian Schools has been the leading organization fostering the renewal of classical Christian education among Protestants. In the last 20 years its example has encouraged Catholics and Orthodox Christians to engage in the renewal in those traditions. Christians in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions all began in small ways to renew classical Christian education right around 1980. Three schools were founded within two years, in 1980 and 1981, representing all three traditions of Christianity, all based on the classical Christian model, and each unaware of the others.


The first was the Cair Paravel School founded in 1980 in Topeka, Kansas. It was ecumenical in nature featuring leaders from the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. Then in 1981, two additional schools were established: The Logos School in Moscow, Idaho (in the Reformed tradition) and the Trinity School in South Bend, Indiana (largely Catholic but ecumenical). The Trinity School has been very influential in the renewal of classical education among Catholics. The Logos School was the first among many classical Protestant schools. Cair Paravel has a rich history and has produced many leading classical educators and professors (such as Dr. Brian Williams dean of the Templeton Honors College).


Some important books were also published, beginning in 1980 and following: In 1980 David Hicks published Norms and Nobility, the first book of that decade to mark a return to the classical Christian tradition. Mortimer Adler published his Paideia Proposal in 1982. Doug Wilson published Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning in 1991. The Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS) was started in 1994. In 2013, Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain published Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education

Size of the Renewal[]

The renewal of classical Christian education has steadily grown since 1980. The ACCS in 2021 includes over 300 schools nationwide. The Institute for Catholic Liberal Education was started in 1990 and now has over 150 member schools in the country (and growing rapidly as Catholic schools return to classical Christian education). A growing network of Catholic classical high schools (the Chesterton Schools Network) was started in 2007 by Dale Alquist and includes 27 schools. There are about 40-50 classical Christian schools in the National Association of University Model schools. There are about a dozen Orthodox classical schools and several new ones starting in 2021. There are about 30 classical Lutheran schools in the Consortium for Classical Lutheran Education. There are over 200 classical charter schools in the U.S. that are friendly to people of all faiths, though they are not Christian schools. There are thousands of classical Christian homeschool groups (some quite large) and cottage schools. It appears that there are at least as many home-schooled classical students as schooled students.


The number of students being educated in classical Christian schools or homeschooling communities is difficult to calculate. If there are approximately 1000 schools with an average of 200 students per school, there may be about 200,000 students in classical Christian schools. Classical Conversations is the largest network of classical Christian homeschooling communities with 2500 groups and 125000 students (with most in the U.S.). Other networks like Scholé Groups are smaller but growing, and there are a great number of independent classical homeschooling communities. It appears reasonable to assume that outside of Classical Conversations, there may be another 100,000 students receiving a classical Christian education. Altogether, therefore, there may be over 400,000 receiving this kind of education. (200,000 in schools and 200,000 in homeschool communities). Since there are 53.7 million K-12 students in the U.S., this means that about 7.5% of the U.S population is receiving a classical and Christian education.


Many Christian home-schooled students are receiving part of their classical education online. Several online classical Christian schools have emerged over the last ten years, with the following being the oldest and largest.


As the renewal of classical Christian education ahas grown a number of classical curriculum companies have emerged, as well as organizations that support classical schools and homeschools via annual conferences and other services. The larger classical curriculum companies include Veritas Press, Classical Academic Press, Memoria Press, and Canon Press. Organizations that host conferences include the Circe Institute, the Association of Classical Christian Schools, Society for Classical Learning, the Institute for Classical Education, and the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education. The Classic Learning Test, was started in 2015 to provide standardized tests (as alternatives to the ACT and SAT) that are oriented towards students receiving a classical education.

Ongoing Renewal of Classical and Christian Education[]

Since about 2018, classical Christian education has attracted national attention, possibly due to the gradual and extending growth of the renewal, and likely due to the general interest in private and high-quality education that the COVID pandemic has created. Before 2018, there has been a steady stream of commentary and coverage regarding classical Christian education.[1][2][3] The most-read article in 2019 in Christianity Today was the article on the rise of classical Christian education written by Dr. Louis Markos.


In late 2021, Pete Hegseth of Fox News announced the release of a five-part documentary called "The Miseducation of America" criticizing secular progressive education and advocating a return to Christian classical education. The documentary is due to release in December 2021.


As the renewal has grown, so has the number of colleges that have aligned themselves with the renewal and created programs of study for classically-educated students, including students who want to become classical teachers. The following list of Christian colleges have degrees (majors or minors) designed to prepare students to become classical Christian teachers:

Great Books or Classic Texts[]

The renewal of Classical Christian education provides training in the liberal arts that in turn provide the skill needed to read, understand, enjoy, and apply the insights of the classic enduring collection of literature, perennially regarded as wise or "great." Classical educators often refer to this ongoing ready and study as joining "the Great Conversation" that is present among this collection of great books. While the list of books that students engage is not fixed from school to school, there are a number of texts that are regularly engaged for study.

The list of books contained in the Great Books of the Western World, published by Brittanica, has been influential, but so have other collections.

Classical and Foreign Languages[]

Traditionally Latin has been the language almost always studied for the purpose of learning the art of grammar and also to provide access to the collection of great books written in Latin. Greek was often studied in additional to Latin for the same purpose--to learn the art of grammar and to access great books written in Greek. The study of Latin is regarded as valuable for multiple, simultaneous purposes: it helps students understand the grammatical structure of all language, increases English vocabulary, teaches attentiveness and puzzle-solving, opens the door to the study of Roman culture, and provides helpful access to the Romance languages of Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, and Portuguese which all evolved from Latin and are replete with Latin derivatives.

The modern renewal of classical Christian education follows this model. Virtually every classical Christian school or homeschooling community requires Latin study, and some require some Greek in addition to Latin, or offer Greek as an elective to Latin.

Many classical schools also require the study of Spanish or French, typically during the high school years.

Philosophy[]

Classical Education as the Liberal Arts and the Cultivation of Virtue

In The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian and Classical Education, Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain trace the history and philosophy of classical Christian education. They note that while the practice of classical education has been embodied with variety through the centuries, there are some persistent themes that have characterized nearly all its expressions. One such theme is the curriculum (or course of studies) of the liberal arts. In fact, often classical education is called liberal arts education and even simply "liberal education." Actually naming the liberal arts today is a challenge for many teachers and students. For example, English, philosophy, and history were not traditionally considered to be liberal arts but rather integrated disciplines of human learning and literature (sometimes called "great books" or "humane letters") that training in liberal arts helped on to access, study, and understand.


The traditional seven liberal arts (septem artes liberales) were grammar, logic, rhetoric (the trivium), arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music (the quadrivium). Training the trivium arts enable students to accurately read, interpret (grammar), reason, infer, deduct, generalize (logic), and persuasively speak, write, and express (rhetoric). Training in the quadrivium arts enable students to count, add, subtract, multiply, divide, enumerate, calculate, measure, quantify, weigh, predict, compare. Training the liberal arts is training that is ordered or oriented to what humans alone can do--interpret reality using words and number. Thus training in the liberal arts help humans become better at being human, the liberal arts humanize us and are often connected to the study of "the humanities." One Latin word for education was humanitas, a word that contained this idea of an education that resulted in the cultivation and realization of one's humanity. Another Latin word for education was educatio (from the verb educere, "to draw or lead out") which mean "a drawing out" or gradual unfolding that occurs through lifelong parenting and instruction. Yet another word was eruditio (from the verb erudire, to remove from rudeness, courseness, rawness) from which we get the English word "erudition."


Humans that were trained in the liberal arts also needed and slowly acquired virtue--another important aim and theme of classical education. Virtue meant human excellence of any kind, but students in particular needed to acquire the "academic" or "intellectual" virtues that enabled them to learn and study well. These intellectual virtues included temperance, studiousness (or academic zeal), humility, constancy (or perseverance), and love. The word virtue is derived from the Latin virtus which is related to the Latin vir ("man"). The ideal man or woman, embodied human excellence of various kinds, has virtus or virtue.


Training in the seven liberal arts was considered the preliminary study for the study of great literature that would lead gradually to wisdom. The great literature included writing across genres and included poetry, history, drama, natural philosophy and natural science, philosophy, and theology.


Clark and Jain summarize the curriculum of a liberal arts, classical curriculum with an acrostic--PGMAPT--that represents the following:

  • Piety (learning to esteem and reverence the tradition you have inherited)
  • Gymnastic (learning to mediate the world and learning through embodiment, exercise, self-control)
  • Music ("musical" education inspired by the Muses, engaging the world with wonder as a living museum)
  • Arts (training in the seven liberal arts)
  • Philosophy (late high school and college training in moral philosophy)
  • Theology (late high school and college training in divine philosophy)


Classical Education as Three Stages of Learning

Dorothy Sayers delivered an address in Oxford in 1947 about education that was later published. The speech was called [4] In it she lamented that the “great defect of our education" was that schools taught information, but did not teach students how to think. She urged the return of the traditional trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and also noted how these three verbal arts corresponded to the way students develop and learn. Younger students are most apt to learn grammar when they are young, learn logic at middle school age, and learn to express themselves persuasively and study rhetoric at high school age. The verbal arts were "tools" that helped students to master learning and each tool (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) were appropriately studied at various stages of development or stages of learning. Thus there could be a "grammar stage" when students learned the rudiments of grammar but also the rudiments or "grammar" of other subjects. There could be a "logic stage" in which student learn the art of reasoning (logic) but also the "logic" or ordered reason and structure of other subjects. There could be a "rhetoric stage" in which older students studied ordered and persuasive expression (rhetoric) but also the "rhetoric" or compelling expression of other subjects.

Douglas Wilson published this speech in the back of his book Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning. In it he expanded on Sayer's speech and suggested a "three-stage" curriculum (already started at the Logos School) and some practical means of implementing it. Wilson, following Sayers, presents the various stages of learning along these lines:

  • From birth, the child learns language and about itself.
  • From about age 2 to age 4, the child develops social skills and gains mobility and dexterity
  • The Grammar stage begins around age 5. In this stage, the child is in a "parrot" stage of repeating what they are told. This phase sees them enjoying simple songs over and over, so songs, rhymes and memory aid teach the basics of reading, writing, numbers and math, and observational science. Many schools begin Latin language training in 3rd grade. Some schools will also teach a Christian Catechism while students are in this phase, as foundation for intensive study of the texts and structures of the Bible.
  • The Logic stage begins in 6th grade. At this age, students naturally develop an argumentative behavior, and are equipped with tools of logic and how to formulate a defense for an idea. This provides the foundation for Sayers' 'teaching them to think' model.
  • The Rhetoric phase happens during high school, blending the prior learning with specialized knowledge, generally in a college preparatory curriculum. [5]

See also[]

Bibliography[]

  • The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home (2009), by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise
  • The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education (2011), by Leigh Bortins
  • The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education (2013, 2021), by Kevin Clark and Ravi Scott Jain
  • The Question: Teaching Your Child the Essentials of Classical Education (2013), by Leigh Bortins
  • The Conversation: Challenging Your Student with a Classical Education (2015), by Leigh Bortins

References[]

  1. ^ Leithart, Peter J. (2008-01-29). "The New Classical Schooling". First Principles. Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Archived from the original on 2009-10-26. Retrieved 2008-09-11.
  2. ^ Ledbetter, Reed Tammi (2003-03-12). "University model, classical education emerging anew as schooling alternatives". Baptist Press. Archived from the original on 2007-08-23. Retrieved 2008-09-11.
  3. ^ Copeland, Libby (2001-11-27). "Higher Yearning: At Patrick Henry College, Home-Schooled Students Learn to Confront the World". The Washington Post. p. C01.[dead link]
  4. ^ "The Lost Tools of Learning".
  5. ^ "Classical Christian Education Overview".

External links[]

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