What Is Classical Education

Classical Education is an approach to education that says every subject has building blocks which must be known to understand the subject (its Grammar). Once we learn these we learn how they work together (its Logic), and then we learn how to explain it to someone else (Rhetoric). The goal of teachers is to guide students through these parts and teach them when appropriate.

Early Childhood – Primary (PreK-2)

During this time we especially focus on the Grammar of subjects, introducing students to the building blocks of education. In language we learn letters, sounds and how to read, in math it is beginning to count and learn math facts. We do simple experiments in science to see cause and effect, and in history we learn some key events as well as things like the Pledge of Allegiance.

Elementary (3-5)

This is the Logic state in education, where we begin to take the building blocks and learn how to make things with them. We delve a bit deeper into stories we are reading and learn about characters, and in math we begin to multiply and divide as well as figure area. We begin to ask “why” questions in science and learn the answers, and we begin to look at cause and effect in history.

Middle School/jr high (5-8)

This is the Rhetoric stage, where we begin to take the blocks and build something on our own. We read more complex stories and discus their importance, as well as doing much more writing. In math we begin the move from arithmetic to mathematics such as algebra and geometry. We start to see how science can be predictive, and how history gives us insight into the present.

High School (9-12)
High school is about making the full transition into the Rhetoric stage of a student’s education. Up until this point most of their schooling focused on the questions Who? What? Where? When? and Why? Now we spend more time on the question How? Rather than passively consuming the ideas of others, high schoolers learn to actively engage with them and articulate their own thoughts. Rather than memorizing answers, students begin to ask better questions about the world around them. Questions that must be lived. Questions that Google cannot settle, that “introduce us to ourselves,” as Paul Tillich said. Questions that invite us to shift from the pronoun “I” to the pronoun “we.” Students who develop this type of rhetoric-stage thinking across a range of subjects are well-prepared, not just for college but for life itself, wherever it may take them.