Classical Education is taking a modern stand and many homeschoolers are choosing to return to this style of education. Based upon the educational methods of the Ancient Greeks, Classical Education is based upon a method that divides education into three stages or levels. These are:
Primary Education
Secondary Education
Tertiary Education
Primary Education is based upon teaching children how to learn. It involves what is known as the Trivium or teaching Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. It relies heavily on teaching the art of reading, writing, thinking, and reasoning. Latin and Greek were also studied, enabling children to read and discuss the Classics of Western Civilization.
Logic was taught using Aristotle’s texts.
Rhetoric is the culmination of Logic. Where Logic is reasoning, Rhetoric is the debate and the “Practiced Art of Persuasion”.
Secondary Education deals with the Quadrivium. The Quadrivium includes Astronomy, Arithmetic, Music, and Geometry. Where Grammar is the thread that binds the Trivium, History is the fabric that weaves the Quadrivium into its complete form. Today, modern forms of Classical Education rely heavily on the use of History and Biographies. Critical thinking skills are the evidence that one has transferred from the Trivium to the Quadrivium with leaps and strides.
Tertiary Education is the last level and is synonymous with an understudy or an apprentice. Most people are familiar with the fact that Alexander the Great was tutored by Aristotle. This is the perfect example of Tertiary Education in the Classical sense.
Some great reading about Classical Education and websites can be accessed by visiting “The Well Trained Mind”
And Dorothy Sayers, “The Lost Art of Learning”
During the 1950’s Encyclopedia Britannica listed the Great Books of the Western World. In 1990 the list was revised and updated. Here is a link to read the new listing. Great Books of the Western World Revised
Many of the books are available to read online.