Classical education depends on a three-part process of training the mind called the TRIVIUM

• The early years of school are spent in absorbing facts, systematically laying the foundations for advanced study: "The Grammar Stage"
• In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments: "The Logic Stage"
• In the high school years, they learn to express themselves: "The Rhetoric Stage"

The Grammar Stage

These are the years in which the building blocks for all other learning are laid, just as grammar is the foundation for language. In the elementary school years -- what we commonly think of as grades one through four -- the mind is ready to absorb information. Children at this age actually find memorization fun.

So during this period, education involves not self-expression and self-discovery, but rather the learning of facts. This information makes up the "grammar," or the basic building blocks, for the second stage of education.

The Logic Stage

By fifth grade, a child's mind begins to think more analytically. Middle-school students are less interested in finding out facts than in asking "Why?" The second phase of the classical education is a time when the child:

• Begins to pay attention to cause and effect
• Learns how the relationships between different fields of knowledge relate
• Experience the way facts fit together into a logical framework

A student is ready for the Logic Stage when the capacity for abstract thought begins to mature. During these years, the student begins algebra and the study of logic, and begins to apply logic to all academic subjects. The logic of writing, for example, includes paragraph construction and learning to support a thesis; the logic of reading involves the criticism and analysis of texts, not simple absorption of information; the logic of history demands that the student find out why the War of 1812 was fought, rather than simply reading its story; the logic of science requires that the child learn the scientific method.

The Rhetoric Stage

The final phase of a classical education builds on the first two. At this point, the high school student learns to write and speak with force and originality. The student of rhetoric applies the rules of logic learned in middle school to the foundational information learned in the early grades and expresses his conclusions in clear, forceful, elegant language. Students also begin to specialize in whatever branch of knowledge attracts them; these are the years for art camps, college courses, foreign travel, apprenticeships, and other forms of specialized training.

Classical Education is Language-Focused

A classical education is more than simply a pattern of learning, though. Because it is language-focused, learning is accomplished through words, written and spoken, rather than through images (pictures, videos, and television).

Why is this important?

Language-learning and image-learning require very different habits of thought. Language requires the mind to work harder; in reading, the brain is forced to translate a symbol (words on the page) into a concept. Images, such as those on videos and television, allow the mind to be passive. In front of a video screen, the brain can "sit back" and relax; faced with the written page, the mind is required to roll its sleeves up and get back to work.

Classical Education is Systematic

To the classical mind, all knowledge is interrelated. Astronomy (for example) isn't studied in isolation; it's learned along with the history of scientific discovery, which leads into the church's relationship to science and from there to the intricacies of medieval church history. The reading of the Odyssey leads the student into the consideration of Greek history, the nature of heroism, the development of the epic, and man's understanding of the divine. A classical education takes history as its organizing outline -- beginning with the ancients and progressing forward to the moderns in history, science, literature, art and music.

How is this accomplished?

The twelve years of education consist of three repetitions of the same four-year pattern: Ancients, Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, and Modern Times. The child studies these four time periods at varying levels -- simple for grades 1-4, more difficult in grades 5-8, and taking an even more complex approach in grades 9-12. It is in the older grade levels that the student works through these time periods using original sources and also has the opportunity to pursue a particular interest (music, dance, technology, medicine, biology, creative writing) in depth.

Classical Education is Rigorous

Rigorous study develops virtue in the student. Aristotle defined virtue as the ability to act in accordance to what one knows to be right. The virtuous man (or woman) can force himself to do what he knows to be right, even when it runs against his inclinations. The classical education continually asks a student to work against his baser inclinations in order to reach a goal -- mastery of a subject.

Classical Education has an Inherent Beauty

"The beauty of the classical curriculum," writes classical schoolmaster David Hicks, "is that it dwells on one problem, one author, or one epoch long enough to allow even the youngest student a chance to exercise his mind in a scholarly way: to make connections and to trace developments, lines of reasoning, patterns of action, recurring symbolisms, plots, and motifs."

This beauty is part of the coherence of study in history, science, and literature -- subjects that are too often fragmented and confusing. The pattern widens and deepens as the student progresses in maturity and learning. For example, a first grader listens to you read the story of the Iliad from one of the picture book versions available at any public library. Four years later, the fifth grader reads one of the popular middle-grade adaptations -- Olivia Coolidge's The Trojan War, or Roger Lancelyn Greene's Tales of Troy. Four more years go by, and the ninth grader -- faced with the Iliad itself -- plunges right in, undaunted.