Classical Home Schooling and Learn Classical Home School Basics

The benefits of home schooling are today well known. Among the foremost of them is being able to allow your children to learn not just at their own pace, but also focus on the subjects that will help them met their life goals. The classical home school is one such option. The classical home school is a secular method of instruction and should not be confused with the Classical Christian home school which a religious based system of teaching.

What we call the “classical” education began in Europe in the Middle Ages and produced some to the greatest minds in history. Classical education is dedicated to the idea that the aim of education is to provide children the tools they need to learn for themselves. This system is divided up into five tools of learning, called the Trivium, which are reason, record, research, relate and rhetoric.  These tools are used in four specific stages in the education of a child. Children begin at the preparatory stage where they learn reading, writing and basic maths. The next stage is the grammar stage where composition and the basics of conveying ideas, along with more advances maths and other subjects like science, history and geography are taught. The third stage is the dialectic stage where all these subjects are studied in more detail and students are encouraged to question ideas and concepts. The fourth and final stage of the classical education is the rhetoric stage where the main focus in on communications and children are encouraged to express their understandings, beliefs and doubts.

This process can be easily and effectively incorporated into home education, making it a classical home school. The classical home school follows the same pattern with the idea not of teaching children everything they need to know but of creating an enquiring intellect that understand the value of knowledge and how to acquire it. This is an attitude of mind that stays with the adult, long after the memories of school have faded.

The classical home education is meant for parents who are willing to step outside the ordinary and look at educating their children in terms of their ability to use a systematic thought process to understand issues and a creative approach to resolve them, rather than focusing on grades and marks.

The question often asked of the classical home school system is what is the need for children to study ancient languages like Latin and Greek or other such subject that are seemingly irrelevant in the modern world. The answer is that they do not need to, unless their bent of mind takes them that way. Classical home schooling is not bound by the subjects of the past. It is the concepts of learning and the ability to think independently that define a classical education.

For whom is the classical home school best suited? It is for those parents who want their children to have a wide perspective of the world they live in and understand that what is around them today is not the result of a few hundred years of progress and invention but is just a stage in the development of mankind. This kind of understanding will give children educated in a classical home school a sense of their place in the complex modern world and with this understanding, be able maximize their own potential.

Classical home schooling is not the best option for everyone. It does not guarantee success in life. But for parents who want to encourage individuality and the creative process in their children, it is one worth considering.