Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS)
The Association of Classical Christian Schools was the first and is the largest member organization for classical Christian schools, formed in the early 1990’s.
Battle for the American Mind
A book by David Goodwin and Pete Hegseth detailing the downfall of American Education, and a vision for its future. Personally, I found the Fox Nation documentary with David & Pete, The Miseducation of America, more interesting, but that requires a Fox Nation subscription, or at least a trial.
Cair Paravel Latin School
One of the first 3 known schools in the Classical Christian renewal movement.
Classical Christian Education (CCE)
Classical Christian Education is the type of education that was used for most of history in the West. It was started by the Greeks (before the birth of Christ), and adopted by the Romans. It was later baptized and redeemed by the Christians of the Medieval period. It was the education of America's founding fathers. It was also the education of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. It lasted until the education reforms of the late 1800s to early 1900s.
CCE was lost to time until around 1980 when three schools, separate from each other, began recovery efforts. For a wonderful history of the renewal movement, read David Goodwin's A Short History of Classical Christian Education's Recovery in the front of The Liberal Arts Tradition.
C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis (1898–1963) may have been part of the last generation to have received a Classical Christian education. He was a keen observer of issues in the modern educational system, some of which he addressed in The Abolition of Man. Abolition of Man can be a difficult, but worthy, read. Lewis also wrote That Hideous Strength (which carries the same argument, in the form of a novel) as the final book in his Ransom Trilogy.
Charlotte Mason
Charlotte Mason was a British reformer at the turn of the 20th century. She believed that "children are born persons" and that "education is the science of relations." She promoted a humanistic and highly integrative model for education with a strong emphasis on cultivating a love of learning in children as well as spiritual and moral formation. While not always grouped under the "Classical Christian" umbrella, her philosophy pairs well with it. Many would say that the best Classical Christian schools are those which meld the rich heritage of the Christian West, with the philosophy of Charlotte Mason.
Dorothy Sayers
Outside the CCE world, Dorothy Says is best known as a British crime novelist. Inside the CCE world, she is known for being the author of The Lost Tools of Learning, which inspired some of the earliest fathers of the Classical Christian renewal. It is from this essay that we get the idea that the Trivium maps to ages & stages of child development. While not an official member, Sayers was a friend of the Inklings (the most well known being C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien).
Doug Wilson
One of the founding fathers of the Classical Christian renewal. Wilson is a pastor, the founder of Logos School in Moscow, ID, and author of many books, including Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, and The Paideia of God.
Epistemology
The study of knowledge. What is it? How is it acquired? What do we know? And how do we know what we know.
The Four Causes of Aristotle
- Material Cause: The substance from which something is made. What is it made of? e.g. What is a tree made of?
- Formal Cause: The structure or design of something. What is the essence of it? e.g. What is the treeness of a tree?
- Efficient Cause: What brought the thing about? e.g. Who made the tree?
- Final Cause (see also, telos): Why was something made. What is its purpose? e.g. What is the purpose of a tree?
John Senior
One of the three founding professors (along with Frank Nelick and Dennis Quinn) of the Integrated Humanities Program (IHP) at University of Kansas, which ran from 1970-1979. For a good description of John Senior, and the Integrated Humanities Program (IHP) at University of Kansas, read Let Them Be Born In Wonder by Fr. Francis Bethel.
Liberal Arts
The seven liberal (or liberating) arts are the arts essential for a free people. They are made up of the Trivium and Quadrivium.
Trivium
Latin for the three ways, or three roads. The trivium made up of the arts of language. All learning must begin with learning the grammar of a subject, learning to reason about it, and learning to the point that you can share with others about it.
- Grammar
- Logic
- Rhetoric
Quadrivium
Latin for the four ways, or four roads. The quadrivium is made up of the arts of number.
- Arithmetic: The study of numbers.
- Music: The study of numbers in time.
- Geometry: The study of numbers in space.
- Astronomy: The study of numbers in time and space.
The Liberal Arts Tradition
The premier book on the theory of Classical Christian Education by Kevin Clark & Ravi Scott Jain. As of 2021, it is in its third edition.
Living Books
A term that I believe was coined by Charlotte Mason. She said that while at school, we should give children
the sort of books they can live upon; books alive with thought and feeling, and delight in knowledge, instead of the miserable cram-books on which they are starved?
What are cram-books you may ask? Books crammed with information that we expect students to memorize. The kind of books that cause a boy to know facts about a horse, without having any experience (poetic knowledge) with a real horse (see Chapter 1 of Hard Times by Charles Dickens or Chapter 1 of Poetic Knowledge by James Taylor). In other words, textbooks.
"NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them."
– Hard Times by Charles Dickens
The Lost Tools of Learning
An essay/talk given by Dorothy Sayers in 1947. In it, she critiques the modern education of the day, and suggestions going back to a trivium based approach. She maps stages she sees of child development onto the three parts of the trivium.
- Grammar: Poll-Parrot stage (kids repeat everything)
- Logic/Dialectic: Pert stage (kids like to argue)
- Rhetoric: Poetic stage (kids care what others think about them, and want to express themselves well)
This was a novel insight. While it can be a valuable observation, it has led some to put too much emphasis on "ages and stages." These do not define a Classical Christian education.
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the study of existence and reality. It is notoriously hard to define, so I'll borrow from Webster's 1828 Dictionary.
The science of the principles and causes of all things existing; hence, the science of mind or intelligence. This science comprehends ontology, or the science which treats of the nature, essence, and qualities or attributes of being; cosmology, the science of the world, which treats of the nature and laws of matter and of motion; anthroposophy, which treats of the power of man, and the motions by which life is produced; psychology, which treats of the intellectual soul; pneumatology, or the science of spirits or angels, etc. Metaphysical theology, called by Leibnitz and others theodicy, treats of the existence of God, his essence and attributes. These divisions of the science of metaphysics which prevailed in the ancient schools, are now not much regarded. The natural division of things that exist is into body and mind, things material and immaterial. The former belong to physics, and the latter to the science of metaphysics
– Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
Norms & Nobility
One of the earliest books in the Classical Christian Education renewal movement. Written by David Hicks, it is fairly short but dense book, and considered by many a must read.
Ontology
That part of the science of metaphysics which investigates and explains the nature and essence of all beings, their qualities and attributes.
– Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
Paideia
A Greek word (παιδεία) with no direct English equivalent. It encompasses the raising and educating of children, as well as enculturation. When Paul says in Ephesians 6:4, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." the word for discipline is paideia. While the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, not Greek, we see a similar concept in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 & Deuteronomy 11:18-21.
The Paideia of God
A book by Doug Wilson that is often recommended in CCE circles. It is on my bookshelf, but I don't recall having read it yet.
Poetic Knowledge
[Poetic knowledge is a knowledge], according to a tradition from Homer to Robert Frost, from Socrates to Maritan, a natural human act, synthetic and penetrating, that gets us inside the thing experienced. It is, we might say, knowledge from the inside out, radically different in this regard from a knowledge about things. In other words, it is the opposite of scientific knowledge. Concerning scientific knowledge and its predominant spirit in all aspects of modern education, by the end of the nineteenth century Charles Dickens gave us Professor Thomas Gradgrind [a character in Dickens' book, Hard Times] as its great champion.
"NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them."
From the point of view of an ancient tradition, actually from an immemorial view of the nature of the human being as knower, this position of Gradgrind's is a radically shallow idea of knowledge.
– Poetic Knowledge by James Taylor
Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning
One of the earliest books in the recovery movement of Classical Christian Education. It was written by Doug Wilson and published in 1991.
Telos / Teleology
Teleology is the study of the final cause of things. The final cause is the purpose or goal for which something exists. We find this in Aristotle's four causes.
Wisdom & Eloquence
A book by Robert Littlejohn & Charles T. Evans. It is on my bookshelf, but I have not read it yet. It is often recommended in CCE circles.
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