Back to Basics - What is Classical Education?

 I recently attended a professional development conference for educators who have experience teaching at classical schools. Despite the collective experience in the room, the first two sessions, totaling over three hours, were devoted to an attempt to define classical education. I won't dwell on the eye-rolls and mild agitation of the more seasoned classical teachers, but will instead offer an explanation as to why basically everywhere people go in the classical education world people feel the need over and over to try to explain what classical education is. The answer is very simple - no one, including the people giving their definitions, knows. 

Thank you for your time, you've been a wonderful audience. 

Ok, in all seriousness though, in all my time as a classical educator I have never heard two people give the same explanation or definition of classical education. I've heard it described as, "the way everyone was educated until one hundred years ago," "a distinctive education based on the Greek and Roman tradition," "An education that produces good men who speak well," "an education that shapes the thoughts and pleasures of its students toward the Good, the True, and the Beautiful,"  "An education that produces joy and wonder and creates students who are a light to those around them," or "an education that leads students toward Truth, Goodness, and Beauty and seeks to pass on the soul of a society from one generation to the next." I actually heard all of those different definitions last week. There were twice as many as which were floated, but honestly, I got bored and stopped writing them down. You feel like you know what it is yet? I know my struggle has always been that these so-called definitions that people frequently float have no shortage of jargon but are somewhat lacking in actual substance. 

So, how, then, are schools able to describe themselves as classical, to claim that they're providing a classical education if there's not a clear sense of what a classical education actually is? I've sort of discovered that when most people talk about classical education, they're not really talking about a real pedagogical thing. They're more talking about a sort of pedagogical zeitgeist, a feeling, a movement.

 

Over the next few weeks, I'd like to explore some of the ideas, methods, and courses that tend to be shared by schools that call themselves classical. It should be noted, however, that because there's not an actual clear-cut definition of classical education, there's not an actual set of rules or pedagogical prescriptives that can be produced and pointed to, that the list I'll be exploring is built on generalizations and tendencies within the so-called classical community. Not every school or co-op will do everything listed, and that's ok. 

So, what makes a school 'classical?'

According to my observations, a classical school tends to, in broad strokes: 

• Connect itself to a perception of a more moral and more academically rigorous past
• Describe itself as a liberal arts institution
• Require its students to learn Latin
• Use older books and use primary texts as its main teaching tools
• Focus on producing students who can use language well

Over the next five weeks, we'll look at each one of these:

1.  Is classical education really the way everyone was educated until a hundred years ago? Here
2. What is a liberal art, and where can I buy one? Part One, Part Two
3. What is the point of learning a dead language (no, really, what is the point)? 
4. Should we only read things by dead people?  
5. And finally, Who is the 'good man speaking well?'

I Can Classical... And You Can Too

I’m a classical educator, I guess. I never set out to be one. I was originally going to study and teach philosophy at the university level. Or if that didn't work out, I was going to get married and volunteer at a zoo. However, my senior year of undergrad I realized that the plan I had crafted for my future had become intolerable to me. I was a philosophy major, and while philosophy texts were fun to read when you could understand them, philosophers were no fun to talk to (you all know what I mean). I could no longer imagine spending the rest of my life trapped in conversations about the place that quantum mechanics held in the debate about the B theory of time. Also, it turned out that zoos wouldn't let you volunteer to just hang out with the animals without some kind of useful degree in biology or exotic veterinary science So, what was I to do?

A friend conveniently mentioned to me that fateful December that it was possible to teach in a classical charter school without an educational degree. I figured that could do that for a year while I reevaluated. And here I am, seven years later, still reevaluating. I fell into the world of classical education, despite never having received one myself. I’ve even been ‘converted’ to its methods and ideologies so far as I or anyone really understands them. I like teaching, and if test scores mean anything (which is debatable), I’m pretty good at it. I still feel a lot of times, however, that I’m just kind of floating aimlessly down a path I sort of fell into.

I know that classical ed. has no shortage of defenders, most of whom are far more eloquent than I am, and honestly, I’m not really interested in defending the style. For one thing, it’s hard to defend something that barely has a definition. For another thing, classical education has become something of a fad in recent years. The amount of metaphorical ink that has been spilled describing, and defining, and defending the style is literally astronomical.

So I’m left with a problem: I’m a child of the internet age and I fit the type well. I have no real skills or interesting hobbies – I’ve finished one cross-stitch project, I’ve knitted half of a scarf, and I draw badly, so I can’t really call myself a crafter. I say that my hobby is reading when asked, but by that I mean that I liked to read when I was younger and now I binge-watch Netflix, listen to podcasts while I drive, and listen to one audiobook a month on audible. I’m overeducated and have a masters in classical education, so I guess that in the world of credentialism, I’m qualified to talk about something. I don’t have Facebook, Instagram, or even TikTok - I got rid of all my social media accounts - and I’ve never been very good or consistent about journaling. So, now I’m stuck with the only philosophical question that really matters – if I don’t post my thoughts on the internet for strangers to read, does my life have any real meaning or value at all?

This post was meant to act as a sort of ethos for myself, as well as to provide a sort of vision or mission for this blog. So far I hope that I have shown that I am not really the most qualified person in the world to talk about anything with any sort of authority. I fell into this life by accident. I’ve been trying to figure out what everything is as I go, and I’d like to invite you on this journey with me as I attempt to discover answers to the perennial questions surrounding classical education.

What is a liberal art? Where can you find a quadrivium? Did Dorothy Sayers ever find her tools of learning?  Does anyone actually know what classical education is anyways? I’ve been a classical educator for a laughable seven years, but if these past years of exercising copious amounts of unearned confidence have taught me one thing, it’s that with a little bit of humility and a lot a bit of patience (and some research) I can classical… and you can too. 

Classical Education - Ancient Answers for Modern Problems

          If you do a quick Google search for the term ‘Classical Education’ you will be flooded with links to various forums, curriculum companies, and blogs giving advice on how to best practice the system. The modern classical education movement, an educational method rooted in the traditions of the medieval university system, is enjoying a resurgence of popularity today. It bills itself as an answer to the crisis in which the public education system finds itself.

I am something of a unicorn in the public education system. I am a state certified teacher who teaches classically. I don’t teach to our state test (I don’t even mention it until the day before they take it, and they still do amazing). My students read great works of literature, we have Socratic seminars, memorize and recite poetry, engage in debate and public forums, and learn about things like logical syllogisms and ancient rhetoric. What’s more, I even teach in a public classical school! And yet, in my own sphere, the majority of my colleagues, administrators, superintendents, and board members are ignorant of or hostile to the aims of classical education (for those wondering how this can be, I work in a public charter school owned by a parent company. The CEO of our company has a classical vision, but that doesn’t mean that everyone in the company shares this, and in fact, many don’t).

 In professional teaching circles there is a doubling down against methods of teaching or ideas about education that go against whatever passes for the professional consensus, and there is a reluctance to admit that education needs to change at a fundamental level. If you ask most public school professional educators today what classical education is you'll most likely get blank stares. If you do get a reaction, it is likely to be hostile, ill-informed, or both. In the minds of many state certified teachers, classical education is associated with rote-memorization (a Bad thing), teaching out of textbooks, and learning that is derived primarily from the works and ideas of white, European, Christian men (another Bad thing).   

However, many normal people (read, not professional teachers) have lost confidence in this ‘Traditional’ model of education (educational methods developed in the 1970’s).  According to a Gallup poll, in 1973 nearly 60% of the American people had a great deal of confidence in the American education system, while less than 10% had little confidence. As the years have gone on there has been a dramatic shift in people’s perception of American education. The percentage of people who have high confidence in our education system has suffered steady decline, while the number of people who have low confidence in our system has continued to rise.

(Gallup poll) (Jack Schneider/Gallup)

Because of this loss of confidence, many educational alternatives have been developed and sought. This can be seen in the rise of the charter school movement, the increase in private schools, and the boom of the home school community. In recent years the alternative education movement has tended to turn more and more to the past – seeking better teaching methods and increased educational quality in the Classical Education movement.

          The world of education is in crisis – even if it is only a crisis in confidence. This blog is my letter to the professional educational community. It’s time to start teaching students how to think logically and critically, and not how to test. It’s time to stop focusing so much on what is relevant or useful and focus on what is timeless and valuable. It’s time to stop trying to create good citizens and start working together with families and communities to create good individuals. Modern public education is philosophically opposed in its methods and curriculum to these goals, and yet many individual teachers understand that the goal of education is to help immature people become good and decent human beings. Traditional education can’t do that. It’s time to give classical a try.