Dorothy Sayers, a 20th century Christian writer, delivered an essay at University of Oxford in 1947 titled the "Lost Tools of Learning". [link to LTL]This essay influenced the modern classical education movement. A modern classical education revives the medieval Trivium, which consists of three stages: the Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric stages which are characterized by the three subjects, Latin, Logic and Rhetoric which themselves act as tools to enable the analysis and mastery of every other subject. These three learning stages correspond to the learning stages of children that change as they mature and informs the educational method used in each stage to best develop a knowledgeable, thinking, and articulate student. The methodology changes through age levels as a child grows in his ability to learn and understand. We at C3 see homeschooling as perfectly suited to classical education because homeschooling has the flexibility to adapt to these changes.
The early grammar stage is when the child absorbs factual information readily and higher reasoning is difficult. A classical education uses this stage to teach the child factual information as a gathering together of material to use in the next stage of learning. Each subject has a “what” component. Latin is the best grounding for this early educational period. It lays a foundation of study and mental exercise that carries the student through the next phases.
When a child is about 12 to 14 they enter the dialectic or logic stage when they are more inquisitive and analytical. In their classes they should be learning to critically analyze and understand the relationships in what they are learning. Logic should be taught in this stage but all subjects have a logic component in understanding how its parts fit together, the “why” of the subject.
The Rhetoric stage is when the student begins to skillfully express what they have learned. The subject Rhetoric should be taught in this stage but all subjects should be developing this skill of expressing that subject persuasively and skillfully. It is the stage that focuses on the "how" of the subject.
With a classical education a student is able to use the tools of learning with any subject of study whatsoever, into their college years and their future vocation.
Dorothy Sayers said of modern education, “…young men and women are sent into the world to fight massive propaganda with a smattering of subjects….We let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of film and the radio [and now television and the internet] we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words,…they are prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects…” But with a classical education, the family who gives the student the Sword of the Lord in His Word, that student through their time at C3, will have the fencing lessons to wield that Sword.
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