UNC course catalog from June, 1819
Seal of the University of Pennsylvania from 1894
The classical education movement advocates a form of education 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.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, it has been used to refer to a broad-based study of the liberal arts and sciences, as opposed to a practical or pre-professional program.
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. There are several
major societies and associations within the classical Christian education movement, including the Society for Classical Learning, the Association of Classical and Christian Schools, Trinity Schools, and the CiRCE Institute.
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" teaches students how to learn.
- "Secondary education" then teaches a conceptual framework that can hold all human knowledge (history), fills in basic facts and practices of major fields of knowledge, and develops the fundamental skills (perhaps in a simplified form) of every major human activity.
- "Tertiary education" then prepares a person to pursue an educated profession such as law, theology, military strategy, medicine, or science.
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 of the workings of languages and allow 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." Students learn to articulate
answers to important questions in their 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. 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. Essentially, 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 is of this tutor system is of Alexander the Great, who 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
There are several major societies and associations within the classical Christian education movement, including the Society for Classical Learning, the Association of Classical and Christian Schools, Trinity Schools, the Classic Learning Test, and the CiRCE Institute.
These schools tend to rely for upon one or more of the visions of classical education represented by Dorothy Sayers essay "The Lost Tools of Learning", Mortimer Adler's Paideia Proposal, Alfred North Whitehead's The Aims of Education, or Susan Wise Bauer's The Well Trained Mind.
Most classical Christian schools employ the trivium as three stages of learning which are linked to child development:
- Grammar: The fundamental rules of each subject
- Logic: The ordered relationship of particulars in each subject
- Rhetoric: How the grammar and logic of each subject may be clearly expressed
Classical Christian schools vary in their approach to the sectarian
integration of Christian thinking. Some schools ask parents to sign a
statement of faith before attending, some do not require this of parents
but are clear in their sectarian teaching, others are consciously
ecumenical.
Classical secular education
There
exist a number of classical schools in the public/secular sector.
These schools, primarily charter schools, also 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 more contemporary subjects.
The revival of "classical education" has resulted in Latin being taught at classical schools, but less often Greek. 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 four-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:
