Our future classical education

As part of my journey into education, I decided to attend a conference centred on Christian Education in the UK. This conference was a full day packed with seminars, discussions and interactions with teachers and others in education. It was amazing to meet like-minded educators and pioneers.

One of the seminars I attended was about how to start an independent school, the core of my vision as an educator and one of the reasons for starting this blog. The speaker of this session, Mrs. Hayley Brown, is the proprietor and head teacher of the first Classical Education school in the UK, The King Alfred School. The story of how The King Alfred School was founded was very inspiring and practical! However, this was the first time I was hearing about classical education. I later found out that classical education has not been used in the UK before. It is more common in the States with increasing popularity in North America.

In summary, classical education is a traditional approach to learning that focuses on developing critical thinking, reasoning and communication skills. It is a movement that advocates for a return to a traditional European education based on the liberal arts, the fine arts and a lot of history. The roots are said to trace back to ancient Greece and Rome but it is a constantly evolving field. It is estimated that over 1,000 classical schools exist in the U.S. and more of these schools are being opened.

Classical education has been around for many years so I don't think it will be such a straightforward subject to research and discuss in one blog post. I am very curious, however, about the intricacies of this curriculum and the possible benefits of this type of education. But while exploring, I have also seen that there is a controversial side to classical education. Since the 1980s, it seemed to gain a lot of popularity among religious conservatives and to this day, it is often linked to the religious right...

...But let's start with the positives first. In the classical education model, there are three stages known as the trivium - the grammar stage, the logic/dialectic stage and the rhetoric stage. Compared to modern education which is now commonly believed to solely make students employable and prepare them to join the working class, classical education is believed to produce thinkers. Students who can synthesize their knowledge and logic to create well-informed opinions and express them eloquently. There are a vast number of people who strongly believe that classical education is the way forward. They believe that classical education equips students with the tools to form their critical thinking skills and develop virtuous traits like honesty, compassion and courage - virtues that seem to be lost in the education system today. There are many resources on classical education that shed light on its origins and purposes with the mind to attract you to the classical education system.

On the other hand, many articles and blog posts have brought up potential downsides to this education system. Classical education has been said to have limited curriculum and focus, the potential for elitism and social inequality and limited preparation for modern careers. Like I mentioned earlier, the enthusiastic adoption of classical education among parts of the Christian right in particular has cultivated suspicion on the left.

I am not planning to turn this post into a religious or political debate in any way but it is interesting to look at the different perspectives of classical education. From the seminar session, the main points that were relayed focused on how to start a school in general. There wasn't much depth on classical education, I don't think there would have been enough time for it to begin with. But it did open my mind to the types of curriculum that are available, which is one of the first things that need to be polished when starting a school. A school is only as good as its curriculum...so is there a curriculum that surpasses all others? Is classical education the way forward or is it a scheme to promote religious literacy?

Let me know your thoughts below!