Classical Education is a teaching method, traced back to its origin in ancient Greece, that helped produce some of our greatest minds. Philosophers were influenced by this method, as well as top scientists and great leaders. It became popular in the Middle Ages, and is still used today in many of our higher institutions of learning, including some of the most prestigious, like Yale, Stanford, Harvard and Princeton. Most of us, whether we realize it or not, are aware of this method because it’s how we were taught, at least in part, in school. The main concept in the Classical Education method is that first and foremost, students must be able to teach themselves.
The reasoning behind this philosophy is the belief that our brains grow in three stages.
1. Grammar. Children 12 and under are believed to be in this stage. This is when reading, writing and listening are key points in learning. Most everything else—science, history, social studies—are presented in facts. Children memorize these facts, but are still believed to be too young to understand the larger concepts behind the events and ideas.
2. Logic. This is generally from age 12 to 14, and is the stage of brain development when a child can start reasoning and using critical thinking to not just memorize facts but to ask why, and to consider large and abstract concepts.
3. Rhetoric: This is the stage a child is believed to be in during the high school years. Traditional study is combined with critical thinking skills. The child should be able to take information, consider it, synthesize it and form his or her own opinions and arguments about the information.
The Classical Education method has two different approaches.
1. The single-subject method. This involves teaching one subject at a time as the child is best suited to understand it. Grammar would be taught until the child is 12, and then math, which requires logic, would be taught during the logic stage, for instance. Philosophy and higher concepts would wait until high school.
2. The modern method. This is a modernized version of the classical method in which all subjects are taught, regardless of age, with the concepts from that subject that are best suited for the brain development stage being stressed before moving on the more difficult ideas.
Critics argue that the rigid structure doesn’t allow for individualism and a child to learn at his or her own level of ability, regardless of age.
Just as all of us in school were urged to study, study, study, the self-learning concept of the Classical Education method stresses the child’s ability to study and self-learn. This is the home school program and philosophy that’s closest to that of a traditional school.
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