This is excellent. I've been concerned that an alt-right nostalgia and toxic political culture has fueled much of the attention towards classical Christian schools in recent years. We need a vision for classical Christian education that remembers Egypt but does not wish for it.
You have convinced me that classical education is far superior to the unfounded deconstruction that passes for education today. Nostalgia for a non-existent, historical Golden Age is not the same as learning from history to avoid repeating the mistakes of the ancients.
This is fantastic. A classical education rooted in actually examining the past guards against students falling prey to nostalgia for a past that never was or hopes for a future that can never be.
Interesting idea on the "classical education" concept. I've always taken it as "this is grounded in something" over "we're just trying the new things over and over". We need to know history, the foundations, in order to then grow beyond them. A lot of modern education wants to skip steps. That can be good at times when the steps have no real purpose, but if you encounter kids who had the "whole word" reading over "phonics", you see a loss there. Same for shortcuts for math - if you don't understand the "why", you may be able to do the exercises, but they don't take hold as much.
Now, if that classical education dwells on or glorifies the old to the exclusion of anything new - that could be a problem. I haven't seen that too much in the various flavors of classical education, but I'm sure it could be there. More often what I see is kids who are learning the foundations and then learning how to think and extrapolate from there.
This is excellent. I've been concerned that an alt-right nostalgia and toxic political culture has fueled much of the attention towards classical Christian schools in recent years. We need a vision for classical Christian education that remembers Egypt but does not wish for it.
You have convinced me that classical education is far superior to the unfounded deconstruction that passes for education today. Nostalgia for a non-existent, historical Golden Age is not the same as learning from history to avoid repeating the mistakes of the ancients.
This is fantastic. A classical education rooted in actually examining the past guards against students falling prey to nostalgia for a past that never was or hopes for a future that can never be.
As someone classically educated in a 17th century classroom, this was excellent!
Interesting idea on the "classical education" concept. I've always taken it as "this is grounded in something" over "we're just trying the new things over and over". We need to know history, the foundations, in order to then grow beyond them. A lot of modern education wants to skip steps. That can be good at times when the steps have no real purpose, but if you encounter kids who had the "whole word" reading over "phonics", you see a loss there. Same for shortcuts for math - if you don't understand the "why", you may be able to do the exercises, but they don't take hold as much.
Now, if that classical education dwells on or glorifies the old to the exclusion of anything new - that could be a problem. I haven't seen that too much in the various flavors of classical education, but I'm sure it could be there. More often what I see is kids who are learning the foundations and then learning how to think and extrapolate from there.
Yes and amen!