Classical Education – A Brief Summary
Exactly what ‘is’ a Classical Education? Well, as always, there is some healthy debate about what it all means. Here is an article that touches on the basics of what makes up a ‘Classical Education’. So, what is this thing we call Classical Education? I read somewhere recently that the “whole point of Classical Education was to cover each topic three times, once in each stage of development of the child”. Well, that’s partly true – the main thing we consider when homeschooling our children via the ‘Classical Method’ is that there are three distinct phases in a child’s development. Now of course, these have been given some marvellous, technical names – those being the ‘Grammar Stage’, the ‘Logic Stage’ and the ‘Rhetoric Stage’. Let me explain a little bit. The ‘Grammar Stage’ is when the child is just starting out on their schooling journey. This is the age, (around grades k-4), where memorisation, and the recitation of facts, jingles, nursery rhymes and stories all come very easy to them – they just LOVE to hear the same story told over and over again. Memorisation is the key – someone once described little children in this stage as ‘sponges’ – they soak everything up, and enjoy it! The ‘Logic Stage’ comes next – usually beginning around 5th-7th grade – and this is when their young minds begin asking those...
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