What is Classical Christian education?
Classical education is a time-tested approach to learning. It focuses on developing the whole person in relationship with others. Students learn not only what to think or speak--acquiring information or reciting facts. They also acquire skill in how to think and speak--evaluating truth, synthesizing ideas, and communicating meaningfully, even under pressure. This shift in focus creates learners who exhibit the independence of mind to inquire without fear and the clarity of thought to answer with courage--which together form the bedrock of a thriving society.
Classical education progresses through three stages of learning, often called the Trivium:
- Grammar – learning to know: getting rules, vocabulary, and core facts of any subject
- Logic – learning to reason: wrestling to understand how ideas fit together
- Rhetoric – learning to persuade: relaying ideas clearly, creatively, and compellingly
In a Christian mode, classical education filters this framework through the person of Jesus Christ, acknowledging that every expression of goodness, truth and beauty starts with him and exists for him. As the theologian Mark Noll puts it, "The light of Christ illuminates the laboratory. His speech is the fount of communication. He makes possible the study of humans in all their interactions. He is the source of all life."
The classical method filled with Christian perspective creates an exciting education for today and tomorrow!
What does this Education produce?
Students who move through the full Trivium learn to absorb knowledge patiently, interrogate it thoroughly, and express it persuasively. They spend years in discussion-based classrooms testing ideas about history, literature, theology, ethics, math, music, art, and the breadth of science. They wrestle with others’ opinions and form their own, with evident grace and solid reason.
When they graduate, these students know many things, as any student will after a childhood of education. But at Christ Academy our students also know how to learn more as they enter adulthood. New ideas, new arguments, new challenges to their faith become new opportunities, not obstacles, which they meet from a place of confidence rather than anxiety. They have learned Christ in a way that forms their whole person.
That is what the Trivium was always designed to do. By God's grace, it is what we see in our graduates.