A Classical Education

There has been a worldwide renaissance and renewed interest in classical methods of education. A Classical education is a process of training the mind, focusing on the incorporation of Latin, Greek, Mathematics, History, Geography and Classical Writing, Sciences, Music and Art. Critical thinking and the conscious and purposeful development of logic is it’s banner supported by an extraordinary foundation in language and expression. A classically trained student should have mastered the skill of speaking eloquently and writing in vigorous English.

The structure of classical education is loosely divided into three stages:

The Grammar Stage Grades 0—6

The Dialectic Stage Grades 7—9

The Rhetoric Stage Grades 10—12

The Author of “Climbing Parnassus—An Apologia for Greek and Latin” Tracy Lee Simmons, would disagree with the allocation of Grades 10—12 for the Rhetoric stage, maintaining that Rhetoric is built throughout the stages of one’s education. We happen to agree with him. However, we have maintained this category more from a high-school demarcation perspective, a formal study in Aristotelian Rhetoric and the more difficult of the Great Books.

The Grammar Stage is characterized by the development of a firm foundation of facts pertaining to each field of study, the classification of that knowledge and memorisation of basic facts. Children in Grades 0—6 are eager and ready to absorb information and enjoy the singing and memorizing. This phase is primarily characterized by the learning of facts. I like to call it the “What?” stage.

The Dialectic Stage begins with the maturing of abstract thought. We could assign the terms “Why?” and “How” to this stage. This stage is characterized by the emergence and careful honing of analytical, logical thought. The focus is to teach our children to be logical, precise and thoughtful. Cause and effect, root causes, relationships between subjects and topics, and how everything fits together are the areas of focus for a student in this stage. “The study of logic commences, and the student begins to analyze and evaluate the great ideas of the ages. Logic further trains the mind and affords the student the skills he needs to properly assess what he reads. He also begins to inter-relate the bits of knowledge he has accumulated, determining the process of cause-and-effect and synthesizing the various branches of knowledge into a unified whole.”Beth McKain

The Rhetoric Stage is generally accepted to follow the first two stages. Susan Wise-Bauer explains this stage beautifully when she states “The final phase of a classical education, builds on the first two. At this point, the high-school student learns to write and speak with force and originality. The student of rhetoric applies the rules of logic learned in middle school to the foundational information learned in the early grades and expresses her conclusions in clear, forceful, elegant language.” Beth McKain states “The training of the Rhetoric stage is intensively focused on reading and writing, particularly reading the Great Books and considering the ideas that are contained in them. The end of the Rhetoric stage is not the end of the student's education, but the beginning. From this point, he can begin to participate in "the Great Conversation" of the Western world. The classical training he has received should free him to debate the ideas of the ages from a position of knowledge, and it is hoped, a degree of wisdom.”
Educating classically according to these three stages is known as the Trivium and develops a high degree of mental dexterity, well-honed reasoning ability and impressive language skills. Dorothy Sayers, in her essay, The Lost Tools of Learning, presents a motivation for the revival of this method.

You may wonder why Latin is so important. After all, it is a dead language. However, the study of Latin develops orderliness of mind and discipline of character, as well as building language and vocabulary skills.

Love2Learn seeks to implement a Classical Education using Charlotte Mason’s principles. There is a considerable overlap in philosophy and methodology between Charlotte Mason and Classical Education and the two methods work extremely well together in a home-school context. Love2Learn adopts an amalgamation of the two methods.

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