Models of Classical Education
Last updated 7/4/7
Classical education has taken a long and winding road to
arrive at its present state. Here we explore models of classical
education, both historical and contemporary. In so doing, we
hope to move closer and closer to the heart of classical
education.
Please note that this page is a work in progress. It is, in
fact, part of a major, long-term research project on the history
of classical education, beginning with the outline below. We
hope you will find it both informative and helpful to you as you
think about and enact classical education in your setting.
We also hope you will feel free to respond to what you find
on this page.
To participate in this discussion, by way of
contribution or challenge, please visit our forum on Models of
Classical Education by clicking
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your feedback. Thanks.
Contents of this page (with
hyperlinks to the sections)
The Birth of Classical Education: Education in Ancient Greece
and Rome
The Age of Faith: Education in the
Christian Classical Era
The Age of Anxiety: Education in
the era of Fragmentation
The Age of Despair:
Education in the 20th and 21st Centuries
Reason for Hope: Education in
the Christian Classical Renewal
The Birth of
Classical Education
Education in Ancient
Greece
Classical education began in the classical world, namely
ancient Greece. It would not be too much to argue that it was
birthed by Homer in his Iliad and Odyssey as the Greeks
(Hellenes) all considered him their teacher. He set standards of
taste and applied a naturalism to his writing that has
influenced, literally, every single western writer to this day.
Greek philosophy arose on the western coast of Asia minor
when a few brilliant thinkers tried to come up with an explanation for the
universe that made more sense than their gods, whom they
rejected. It is here, especially in Miletus, that we see the
birth of a conflict between philosophy
and pagan religion that has continued (and must continue) to
this day.
The philosophers were looking for some other unifying principle that
could uphold and sustain the universe. Their multiplicity of
gods and forces only begged further questions about where the
world came from. The philosophers knew there had to be one
single principle that had sufficient explanatory power to make
sense of everything. Among other things, they called this
unifying principle "the Logos."
They tried a number of options for this first
principle, including water, fire, number, change, and being
itself.
This quest for a unifying principle of life and being is at
the heart of classical thought and classical education. Because
of it, classical education is logocentric.
When the Persians conquered the Greeks of Asia Minor, the
philosophers fled to their protectors, Athens. When they did so, a new
chapter was begun, perhaps the most important, in philosophical (which is
to say, educational) history.
The primary means of philosophy entering Athens seems to have
been in the lectures of the Sophists. I'll add more on this as
soon as I can. You can read more by ordering our
free E-book (it's in the upper left
hand corner beneath of banner)on
education in ancient Greece.
Pre-Sophistic and the rise of naturalism
Sophistic and the rise of rhetoric
Post-sophist and the rise of philosophy
Isocrates
Platonic
Aristotelian
Education in Ancient
Rome
Classical education came to Rome gradually, beginning around
the early 2nd century BC. Greek teachers came to Rome and
introduced the teaching of rhetoric as a formal study. What
seems to have conquered the Romans, however, was Greek
literature, especially Homer.
Roman classical education differed from Greek in a number of
ways. The Romans were eminently practical people, builders
instead of contemplators. While Greek thought and education
lifted the Romans to a new refinement, it would be difficult to
claim that the Romans ever matched Greek artistic insight. It is
not unlike a comparison between the French and the English, or
even the French and the Americans.
But the Romans were master imitators and codifiers. They
preserved the Greek texts that became the foundation of the
Great Books tradition. They developed handbooks on Grammar and
Logic. And they developed political theory beyond what the
Greeks had achieved, especially with Cicero's profound
contribution of the idea of "natural law."
The Romans justified their conquest of the world in two
essential ways. First, they argued that every battle they fought
was defensive. Second, they came to believe that they were the
civilizers of the barbarian world. To them, this meant spreading
classical education wherever they conquered. Instead of
executing the children of local kings and chieftans, the Romans
would send them back to Rome, where they would be classically
educated. Later, they would return to their homelands and apply
the principles of their learning to their local situations. Thus
did Homer conquer the Mediterranean.
But later, when the Empire lost its glorious ideals, the
schools still clung to the classical vision. During the decadent
4th century, Martianus Capella wrote his "Marriage of Philology
and Mercury" in which he presented an allegory of the seven
liberal arts as bridesmaids. It is a decidedly unartistic work,
but a very useful handbook.
Cicero
Quintilian
Seven Liberal Arts
The Age of Faith
Education in Medieval Europe
The Church Fathers and Classical Education
Sciences
St. Augustine
St. Thomas
Scholastic
The Age of
Anxiety
Descartes
Bacon
Luther
England under Henry VIII and Elizabeth
Education to be an aristocrat/servant to
the state
Modern
Effects of the Renaissance and Enlightenment
Imperial/classical
England
France
the rise of
bureaucracy
Darwinism and education
Secular
French
German
The Age of
Despair
Sources and causes of decline
false roots
secularization
The Management Revolution
The Great Fragmentation
"Omnibus" replaces the classical curriculum
Graduate schools lead to the growth and spread of the
elective system
The Great Castration
Man as "conditioned reflex" and "adapting drives"
The Darwinian Revival and Education
Excessive claims of the prophets of
neuroscience
Those crazy mixed up 60's
Reason to Hope
Dorothy Sayers
and the call to the trivium
Douglas Wilson and the ACCS
Susan Wise-Baur
Home Schoolers and Christian classical education
Hutchins, Adler, and the Great Books tradition
Marva Collins
David Hicks
Traditional Liturgical Churches and Christian Classical
Education
Christian classical colleges
Classical colleges
What does the future hold?
The Dorothy Sayers Model
Perhaps the most well-known grass roots renewal of classical
education was spearheaded by Dorothy Sayers famous essay, The
Lost Tools of Learning, an address presented to the Oxford Union
in the 1940's. National Review owns the copyright to this essay
and has published it in their journal every year for something
approaching 50 years.
In this essay, Ms. Sayers argues that English schools spent
too much time teaching subjects and too little time teaching
students how to think. Her solution was to apply the medieval
Trivium to the stages of a child's development and thus teach
students according to their natures.
Over the years a few schools were started patterning
themselves on Sayers' essay. Then, in 1992, Crossways Books
published Douglas Wilson's book Recovering the Lost Tools of
Learning and a movement was born. Like the work of Francis
of Assissi, Martin Luther, and John Wesley before him (though
not yet on quite so great a scale), Wilson's book met a need and
lit a fire that must have astonished its author.
In 1993, the Association of Classical and Christian Schools
was formed and held its first conference in Moscow, Idaho. Some
60 people attended, including CiRCE founder Andrew Kern. Since
then, the conference has grown to over 900 attendees as it
continues to meet annually. In 2007, there are over 200 ACCS
member schools.
Also following the program of Dorothy Sayers is another
astonishing publication success, The Well-Trained Mind by Susan
Wise-Baur, an application of the Sayers' approach to the trivium
to home school.
The heart of Ms. Sayers' approach to the trivium is the idea
that the three arts of the trivium correspond to three stages of
development in a child's life:
- Grammar, during which children up to about fifth grade
are capable of learning lots of knowledge and should experience things with their senses;
- Logic, during which children's argumentative nature's come to
life so they should be taught how to argue correctly;
- Rhetoric, during which the high school aged student is able
to master a subject and express his ideas effectively so they should be taught to communicate
effectively on the matters taught.
To read the Sayers essay, click
here
Marva Collins
Shakespeare in the "allegedly fetid ghetto."
David Hicks
Norms and Nobility
Mortimer Adler/Paideia
democratic, works with public schools
Traditional Liturgical
Churches
Catholics
Anglicans
Orthodox
Evangelical
churches and schools
BIOLA and John Mark Reynolds
Home School
It is great fun to write about Christian classical home
schooling because home educators are always exploring and
adapting to new circumstances. Writing gives the impression of
things being a certain way forever, but, while large
administrative bodies do educate that way, home educators are
far more flexible than those who are researching them. Here one
must draw on Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty, which states
that electrons cannot be studied directly because they are
altered by the act of observation (children are like that too!).
However, I will presume to identify a few particularly
influential forces on Christian classical home education in what
follows.
Susan Wise-Baur: The Well-Trained Mind opens the American
mind
Fritz Hinrichs: Great Books Tutorial pioneers the use of the web
Laura Berquist: Design Your Own Classical Curriculum launches a
vision
Co-ops and University models: Ever flexible parents find new
means and tools to serve their children
To learn more about models of classical education, we
recommend
Classical Education, by Dr. Gene Edward Veith and Andrew
Kern
Norms and Nobility, by David Hicks
Our Free E-book: The Birth of Classical Education, by
Andrew Kern, free
for with your subscription to our monthly newsletter,
The CiRCE Papers
Visit this page frequently for updates and additional
resources
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