THE CLASSICAL APPROACH

What is Classical Education?

“Classical education is like a very large museum with many beautiful, wonder-filled rooms that could be studied over a lifetime. It is a long tradition of education that has emphasized the seeking after of truth, goodness, and beauty and the study of the liberal arts and the great books.

What are the liberal arts? They are grammar, logic, rhetoric (the verbal arts of the trivium), arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (the mathematical arts of the quadrivium). This approach to education also includes the study of Latin. The classical approach teaches students how to learn and how to think.” — Classical Academic Press

The classical approach trains the mind in three stages called the Trivium (which means, “the place where three roads meet”). These phases wisely leverage the natural stages of a child’s development, resulting in joyful learning that invites curiosity. These three phases include:

Grammar

Grammar students delight in facts through song and chants as they memorize the foundational elements for learning.

Young children love to learn about the world around them! Developmentally, they are wired to quickly absorb essential information and delight in memorizing. The grammar stage uses songs, chants, and rhymes to help children love learning everything from history timelines to grammar rules. By building a factual foundation for every subject with joyful, ordered learning, students are well equipped for a lifetime of critical thinking and clear communication.

logic

Logic students think critically and learn sound reasoning to argue well.

As a student’s capacity for abstract thought matures, the Logic phase harnesses their desire to understand the way facts fit together into an organized framework. Students in 7th and 8th grade begin to think independently, pay closer attention to cause and effect, and form an urge to argue. Classical learning teaches children in this phase to argue well by introducing formal debate and logical reasoning. In line with their developmental stage, each grade uses an interdisciplinary approach with an emphasis on how subjects relate to each other. Armed with formal training in logic within an environment of virtue, our students move toward speaking with humility and wisdom as they discover their individual passions.

rhetoric

Rhetoric students learn to lead with eloquence and prepare to be invested citizens of the world.

Once students have obtained knowledge of the facts (grammar) and developed the skills to arrange those facts into arguments (logic), they must develop the skill of communicating those arguments to others (rhetoric). Students continue interdisciplinary studies with deeper engagement in core subjects and exercise their learning through writing papers, researching, and orating. Developmentally, rhetoric students begin to become concerned with what others think, so classical education seeks to help students refine their thoughts to think and speak well. More than that, classical Christian education desires to help students grow confidently in their identity in Christ. Secure in the gospel, equipped with well-trained minds, Rhetoric students learn and sharpen skills that serve them well beyond the doors of educational institutions.

Why does Classical Education Matter?

Classical education is more than simply a pattern of learning; it’s a holistic learning approach that is focused on forming a well-trained mind that can discern goodness, truth, and beauty - and act accordingly.

To the classical mind, all knowledge is interrelated. Curriculum uses history as its organizing principle, beginning with the ancients and progressing forward to the moderns in history, science, literature, art and music. This time-tested framework results in a more comprehensive understanding of subject matters and the valuable skill of making connections between past events and current information.

It emphasizes virtue, defined as a disposition which inclines us to the good for which we are made. Classical education understands that character and virtue are of paramount importance—they influence every aspect of a person’s life. Teaching with wisdom and virtue in mind (rather than knowledge alone), alters the focus of education to who we become, not simply what we know.

The end goal is not that students would simply acquire information, but that they would gain the tools of learning and aspire to wisdom - and that they would enjoy doing so! Classically educated students emerge as critical thinkers who can serve in whatever capacity they are called and in whatever area most interests them.

“The beauty of the classical curriculum,” writes classical schoolmaster David Hicks, “is that it dwells on one problem, one author, or one epoch long enough to allow even the youngest student a chance to exercise his mind in a scholarly way: to make connections and to trace developments, lines of reasoning, patterns of action, recurring symbolisms, plots, and motifs.”

SCCS is Classically Christian

We teach all subjects as parts of an integrated whole with the Scriptures at the center (2 Timothy 3:16-17; Colossians 1:15-20).

SCCS is not only classical, but notably Christian. This means that the things of God and His Word serves as the lens through which our students look at their lessons, their education, and their world.

“In order to be Christ-centered, Christian education must be more than a baptized secularism. It is not enough to take the curricula of the government schools, add prayer and a Bible class, and claim the result is somehow Christian. Secular education places man at the center of all things. Christian education places the God-man, Jesus, at the center. This means that history, art, music, mathematics, etc., must all be taught in the light of God’s existence and His revelation of His Son, Jesus Christ.” (source: Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning by Douglas Wilson)

As R.L. Dabney stated, “Every line of true knowledge must find its completeness in its convergence to God, even as every beam of daylight leads the eye to the sun. If religion be excluded from our study, every process of thought will be arrested before it reaches its proper goal.”

Classical Christian education at SCCS is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue by focusing on goodness, truth, and beauty under the Lordship of Jesus.

It can be helpful to view Classical Christian Education at SCCS as a combination of approach, curriculum, and development of virtue:

Our students learn by asking questions, reading original texts, and using logic to reach educated conclusions. We teach our students in the way that aligns with their natural development, encouraging a love of learning that equips them well beyond the classroom.

We use integrated interdisciplinary learning and participate in the "Great Conversation" by studying ideas that have stood the test of time. This ongoing conversation of great minds down through the ages is facilitated by reading rich, primary-source material that can be unpacked again and again.

We focus on cultivating virtue. With the Gospel at the center, our students learn stewardship, honor, wisdom, and self-control. Character and virtue are of paramount importance—they influence every aspect of a person’s life.