Classical education movement

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

The Classical education movement advocates a form of education purportedly based in the traditions of Western culture, with a particular focus on education as understood and taught in Classical antiquity and the Middle Ages. The curriculum and pedagogy of classical education was first developed during the Middle Ages by Martianus Capella, and systematized during the Renaissance by Petrus Ramus. Capella's original goal was to provide a systematic, memorable framework to teach all human knowledge. 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]

In the 20th and 21st centuries it is 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 exist a number of informal groups and professional organizations which undertake the classical approach to classical education in earnest. 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. Within the classical Christian education movement, the Society for Classical Learning, the Association of Classical and Christian Schools, and the CiRCE Institute play a leading role.

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

Classical education developed many of the terms now used to describe modern education. Western classical education has three phases, each with a different purpose. The phases are roughly coordinated with human development, and would ideally be exactly coordinated with each individual student's development.

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 the workings of languages, and allowing 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." The student now learns to articulate answers to important questions in his/her 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. Basically, 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 was that Alexander the Great 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

Within the classical Christian education movement, the Association of Classical and Christian Schools, the Society for Classical Learning, the CLT exam, and the CiRCE Institute play a leading role. Much of this modern renaissance of classical education is owed to the Dorothy Sayers essay "The Lost Tools of Learning",[2] in which she describes the three stages of the trivium—grammar, logic and rhetoric—as tools by which a student can then analyze and master every other subject. Sayers' perspectives were popularized in the United States by the 1991 publication Douglas J. Wilson's Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning[3] which inspired establishment of a number of classical Christian primary and secondary schools, and even a classical Christian college in 1994 (New Saint Andrews College), that organized as the Association of Classical and Christian Schools in 1997. These schools combine teaching a "Biblical Worldview" (see Ch. 4 of Repairing the Ruins[4]) with "classical teaching methods"(see Ch. 7 of Repairing the Ruins[4]). As proposed by Sayers, the trivium is then viewed as three stages of learning which are linked to child development:

A more detailed discussion linking child development to these three stages of learning may also be found in The Lost Tools Chart or An Introduction to Classical Education, A Guide for Parents.[5]

Classical secular education

There exist a number of classical schools in the public/secular sector. These schools, primarily charter schools, 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 USA, 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 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 contemporary, or even 'pop-culture' , subjects.

The revival of "Classical Education" has resulted in Latin being taught at Classical Schools, but less often Greek. It is worth noting that 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 4-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:

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Unger, Harlow G., ed. (2007), Encyclopedia of American Education, New York: Facts on File, 1: 239, ISBN 978-0-8160-6887-6, OCLC 470617943 Missing or empty |title= (help); |contribution= ignored (help)
  2. ↑ Sayers, Dorothy (presented at Oxford in 1947), The Lost Tools of Learning Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ↑ Wilson, Douglas (1991). Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning: An Approach to Distinctively Christian Education. Good News Publishers. ISBN 0-89107-583-6.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Wilson, Douglas, ed. (1996). Repairing the Ruins: The Classical & Christian Challenge to Modern Education. Cannon Press. ISBN 1-885767-14-5.
  5. ↑ Perrin, Christopher A. (2004), An Introduction to Classical Education: A Guide for Parents, Classical Academic Press, ISBN 978-1-60051-020-5

Further reading

Books

Online resources

  1. ↑ "Welcome". Claritas Publishing. Retrieved 2017-02-07.
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