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The think tank Civitas has published a report into the benefits of a classical liberal education – popular with homeschooling families – and why a comeback would be good for the nation’s children.
A classical liberal education focuses not only on facts, assignments and passing tests, but on the whole person and cultural transmission, giving children a clearer idea of the history, culture and world they are inheriting. It is not liberal in the modern political sense of ‘woke’, but means the development of intellectual abilities needed to think independently.
Another focus is the ancient concept of the “Trivium” whereby students would gain a clear understanding of grammar, logic and rhetoric and so, it is argued, become adults who could think, write and speak clearly.
Having mastered the Trivium, students could then better attack the “Quadrivium”, which covers arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. It is likely that William Shakespeare himself learned the Trivium, and possibly the early stages of the Quadrivium.
In its report Civitas noted that modern schooling had been “eroded” by three main factors, notably an excess of scientific materialism, the rejection of past authorities, and the provision of mass-education by the state.
The reports note that the purpose of an education is no longer deemed to be the production of fully formed human beings, with the capacity to make right choices and to fully appreciate and contribute to society, but has been reduced to securing grades in order to improve job prospects and earn more.
In a statement, Civitas argued, “It is still perfectly possible to pass through school, including with flying colours, having never picked up a work of classical literature, having never considered the nature of truth, without the basics of Western chronology, with not one line of poetry committed to memory. Modern schooling has become a gateway to riches but not our full humanity.”
Despite this, classical liberal education has made something of comeback in recent decades.
Toby Young is an advocate of both classical liberalism and the “Free Schools” begun under David Cameron’s premiership in the 2010s. He was heavily involved in the establishment of the Michaela Community School in London, headed by Katherine Birbalsingh.
The approach is increasingly popular with Christian homeschoolers in Britain and the USA, particularly those concerned about the influence of secular ideologies on their children.
“The ancient world has much to offer us today in thinking about how we might best teach and encourage young people toward virtue, wisdom, and truth,” says the Society for Classical Learning website, a Christian organisation that supports and encourages classical education.
Jamie Burns, headteacher of St Anselm’s in Cardiff, said, “Whereas modern education seeks to maintain curricular relevance, classical education pushes against that and instead says that the content our children learn should be the best that has been thought and said – what is known as the ‘Great Conversation’.
“Classical Christian education teaches things because they are true, good or beautiful, and not because they are culturally relevant or fashionable.”
