ABOUT CLASSICAL EDUCATION

Classical Christian education is a “new old thing.” Many of Western civilization’s most influential people over the last 1,000 years were classically educated, including Nicolaus Copernicus, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Thomas Jefferson, William Shakespeare, Martin Luther, Isaac Newton, John Adams, Johann Gutenberg, and others.

Today’s classical Christian education takes richness of content—literature, mathematics, science, grammar, art, history, music, Latin, logic, rhetoric—and combines it with what we know about a child’s natural brain development. Supporting this time-tested methodology is a posture of worship to the Living God who is the Good Author of all there is to know, all there is to teach, and all there is to learn.

In the grammar stage (grades K-5), students learn the fundamental rules and elements of each subject. Children at this age enjoy memorization, so in these early years of their education, they learn facts: poetry; Latin vocabulary; the stories of literature and history; math facts; descriptions and functions of the human body, plants, and animals; the rules of English grammar. In short, students are eagerly absorbing the grammar, or foundational knowledge, for the next stage of their education. 

In the logic stage (grades 6-8), students become more analytical in their thinking, exploring cause and effect, relationships among disparate topics, and the ways facts relate in a logical framework. For example, in writing, students learn to support a thesis; in reading, they learn to analyze texts for truth and fallacy; in science, they learn to use the scientific method.

Finally in the rhetoric stage (grades 9-12), students learn to apply the rules of logic to the knowledge they’ve built during their classical education, and to express their ideas in clear and persuasive language. 

These three stages—grammar, logic, and rhetoric—make up the Trivium, which is Latin for “the place where three roads meet.” 

Learning in a classical setting gives context and structure to knowledge. Instead of a system of education whose organizing principle is standardized testing, classical education enables students to see the interconnectedness of all knowledge. No more “silo” subjects, taught in vacuums. Here, all there is to know relates—and points to the nature of God the Creator and Redeemer.

Note: This summary is adapted from The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer, which you can find here.