What is Classical Education?

Since joining Classical Conversations three years ago, I have been learning about the classical education model.  What is it and how does it differ from how I was taught?  When I was applying for a directors position with CC, I  was asked to read and write a response of Dorothy Sayer's essay The Lost Tools of Learning.  It is exceptionally well written and I recommend reading it in full.  I wrote a cliff notes version of her essay and since it's a bit shorter I thought I'd share it here:

Response to Dorothy Sayer’s Essay The Lost Tools of Learning

In reviewing Dorothy Sayer’s essay, The Lost Tools of Learning, she delves into the problem of our modern educational system.  She states the main problem with modern education is that although we often succeed in teaching our pupils “subjects” we fail on the whole in teaching them how to think: they learn everything, except the art of learning.  Modern teaching methods teach subjects in isolation so the student has great difficulty making a mental connection between say, history and current economics.  She argues that if we are to produce a society of educated people, able to preserve their intellectual freedom in the midst of complex pressures of modern society, we must return to the proven teaching methods used for two millennia, the Trivium.

The Trivium is defined as a method of dealing with subjects intended to teach the students the proper use of the tools of learning before he begins to apply them to “subjects” at all.  The Trivium is by nature not learning but a preparation for learning.  The Trivium consists of three stages.  The first stage is Grammar.  This stage focuses on memorization, recitation, and observation.  Memory facts should include a historical timeline, Latin fundamentals as well as Science, Geography, English Grammar, Mathematics, and Theological facts. The second stage is Dialectic. Within this stage the students begin to understand all the facts they memorized in the Grammar stage.  It is in this stage when the students are shown all branches of learning to be interrelated.  Students will be taught reason and formal logic, which is defined as the art of arguing correctly.  The final stage is Rhetoric.  Now the trained mind is free to explore and apply all the facts that have been learned by rote and analyzed within the Dialectic stage.  It is a time to learn the science of communication and the art of expression.  Students are encouraged to begin specializing in subjects for which there is a natural disposition yet also continue with a few supplementary subjects to keep his mind open to the interrelations of all knowledge.  This stage culminates with the student learning to express himself in language and how to say what he has to say with elegance and persuasion.  

Still reading? Whew, almost done.

The integration of subjects is key within the Trivium.  It strings the isolated facts, which are memorized in the Grammar stage, together to make a meaningful whole.  Subjects are taught in relation to each other within a biblical worldview.  Ms. Sayer relates theology as the mistress-science without which the whole educational structure will necessarily lack its final synthesis.  The word mistress is defined as something regarded as feminine which has control and supremacy or something that directs or reigns.  Theology should, thus, be in the center directing and interrelating each subject to each other. 

In conclusion, Sayer states the tools for learning are the same and the person who knows how to use them will at any age obtain the mastery of a new subject in half the time and with a quarter of the effort.  The sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort expended in vain.