Neo-Classical Education and CM Education

This was just shared with me and I have permission to share it. The author is Brighid Nisbett. It came from a CM discussion on Facebook.

I just wrote an article about it but it still needs editing and I haven’t posted it yet. It’s designated for Catholics but might help.

“Put simply, a classical education is one that adheres to certain time-tested principles.

There are many ways to answer the question, and you will likely want to do a little research on the topic.The majority of homeschooling educators will tell you that Classical education involves the use of the Trivium, or stages of learning… the “grammar” stage, “reasoning” stage, and “rhetoric” stage, in which a student is taught the basics of reasoning, taught to reason, and then freed to opine on his own.

Dig a little deeper and you’ll learn that this common misperception is called the “neo-Classical” movement, and only contains a (skewed) part of the answer.

The Trivium is indeed a part of a classical education, as is the Quadrivium (the second part) and together these form the Classical Liberal Arts. They are seven in number:

TriviumGrammarLogicRhetoric

QuadriviumArithmeticGeometryMusicAstronomy

And learning them does not require a certain age (an adult can learn them!) but rather a certain ORDER, because the knowledge of each them builds upon itself and helps inform the others.They also, typically, require a good, knowledgeable teacher.Which is why so many wonderful homeschooling curriculum providers who offer help with a classical education tend to eventually turn towards recommending a school setting (even online) vs a homeschool setting, where a mother who doesn’t know the classical liberal arts can’t really TEACH them to her own children.The model is and always has been master / student (s).

The purpose, of course, is the fine-tuning of the mental mechanism and a training, so to speak, of the mind. In essence, they teach the student TO think, and to think well.

Now, a Charlotte Mason education teaches the seven liberal arts. And thoroughly. What it doesn’t do is require a school setting, although there are many wonderful CM schools.What it DOES do is teach the student to think, and clearly, and with great joy… and to self-educate.A Charlotte Mason education is a self-education. The teacher does not get between the student and the material. The teacher, is, in fact, the great book— and it’s author.Which is why a Charlotte Mason-method trained teacher will give a student only the BEST books, full of what is true, and right, and beautiful. Enough exposure to the truth will, as the years go by, enable a student to recognize a falsehood as it is presented. More importantly, the basic subjects of the trivium and quadrivium (“core” of a classical education) are taught methodically and using whatever means are available and effective, and typically in a very traditional style (For example, math need not be fussy– Charlotte used a program much like Ray’s Arithmetic. Same for grammar, Latin, etc.)The rest (arts, music, history, natural history, geography) is taught using living books or living interaction with the subject (As in nature study, picture study, dry brush, or composer study, for example.)

In a Classical school, these might be addressed via memory work, but certainly the hands-on, “ideas coming to life” aspect would be missed. Unless an excellent teacher were, of course, able to bring the subjects to life.Further, the typical classical educator is concerned with the assimilation of “knowledge…” but the Charlotte Mason educator is concerned with the spreading of a feast of ideas from which to be inspired. Rather than think of the student as a receptacle for knowledge, which is there, ready to be filled, the CM educator thinks of the student as  a PERSON, waiting to be ignited so that he, too, may join The Great Conversation.

So rest assured— a Charlotte Mason education is indeed a Classical education.You will find that even in practical application, there is a great similarity between the two methods as they are practiced in many ways.”