I attended a workshop by Chris Schlect in which he present results of a recent survey of longtime teachers and administrators in the ACCS. As we homeschool, I’m not in the classical school movement directly. It was fascinating to hear the inside scoop on where educators see the movement as succeeding, making progress, or struggling. There were 114 respondents, all of which have been involved in the movement at least 5 years. 43 different schools were represented.
No real suprises were presented. Most interesting to me were the issues of Latin and teaching at the Rhetoric level (a.k.a. High School). Conclusion on Latin was that students knew it well enough to “cipher” or translate original classic texts, but not like a true second language. As homeschoolers, we’ve never studied Latin. This helped confirm that we really aren’t missing much, compared to the Classical Schools. It would be great to have a “classical” mindset that would come from immersion in Latin/Greek studies, but if most of the best schools/teachers/student had not attained it, I don’t expect we will. I’ll leave the translation to the experts and focus on other areas.
For the high school teaching issues, opinions varied but consensus was a general uneasiness at the results. Many schools seem strong and confident at the Grammar (Elementary) and Logic (Middle School) levels, but that confidence doesn’t hold for the final years of schooling. One idea was to move to a more elective approach, narrowing the subjects depending on a student’s calling.
George Grant is a classical educator who has great success teaching at the Rhetoric level. He’s a brilliant man able to combine knowledge in areas of history, aesthetics, literature, culture, and church history into a coherent 4 year series of lectures. These are the Gileskirk lectures. I’ve heard most of the 4th year of these and they are very impressive. Dr. Grant also spoke at the conference on how he integrates these various areas so that his Rhetoric level students get the big picture. He said that the typical student is overwhelmed by his approach during the 1st year (9th grade). About 2/3 of the way through their sophomore year “the lights come on” and the student begins to really “get it”. This would be about age 16 for most students.
Combining Mr. Schlect’s findings about the struggles of Rhetoric teachers, with Dr. Grant’s observation, with my earlier article on Puritan education, I reach the following insight. What if education for students age 16+ is more appropriately considered “college”? This would more accurately match the historical norm where a student’s “secondary” schooling was considered college. Early schooling is the grammar/logic stage of preparation. Grammar is for childhood. Logic is for the short transition between childhood and adulthood. Rhetoric is for students beginning their adult lives. This would be more like today’s “college” where a student begins to work on their specific calling. A good student and teacher in a discipleship/mentoring relationship could complete “college” in a couple years so that by age 18 or 19, the student is fully equipped to begin work in their calling.
This fits our experience as homeschoolers, fits the historical norm, and I believe has support from evidence presented at the ACCS conference. No one at the conference proposed such a framework, but as a homeschooler able to think outside the K-12 box, it jumped out at me.