Why Your Child Needs a Classical Education

Your child needs a Classical Education. “Needs” is a strong word but I am not being hyperbolic. Modern Classical Education is part of a tradition that spans two millennia, several countries, and at least two continents. It is an education that takes its cues from the classical world, i.e. Greece and Rome, but adapts those classical insights to the needs of the present age. Christian Europe did this. The founding generation of America did this. Each studied classical works of philosophy, history, and literature (in the original languages, of course, when they could), and each generation gained tremendous insights about our common human condition. Classical Education today looks different than it did in the past though its essential features remain unaltered.

Classical Education has always placed the perennial above the trivial. In the age of Tik Tok trends, viral videos, and dank memes, nothing lasts a month let alone a generation or multiple generations. Instead of the latest trends, Classical Education puts the greatest works of literature, art, math, and science before its students–works that have literally been trending for centuries or more. Sometimes these are called the “Great Books,” and sometimes studying these books has been called joining the “Great Conversation”–a conversation about perennial ideas such as Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

Classical Education is also a moral education. Gleaning insight from Aristotle who said virtue is a habit, teachers in classical schools require their students to practice the intellectual and moral habits necessary for a thoughtful life. In an age that throws around subjective terms such as “self-expression” and “self-realization,” a virtuous education gives students something objective by which they can judge their own character and that of others. It gives students the opportunity to ask not just if something is good but to ask what is the highest good of all. This has been called the summum bonum (the highest good).

Lastly, Classical Education builds literacy. Not only does it develop the lost art of reading well (see Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book), but it also immerses students in what is necessary to be culturally literate. The student of classical education will not only know the names of Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare, they will be able to discuss them because they have read their works carefully and intelligently. But this does not only apply to the humanities. The classical student will be able to discuss the Pythagorean Theorem, Newton’s laws of motion, what makes something alive, and the fundamental theorem of Calculus, not to mention they will be able to discuss great historical events such as the Fall of Rome, the Medieval synthesis, and the American Revolution. Such acquaintances are the marks of a classically educated person.

Being educated classically used to simply mean being educated. It has only been in the last few centuries that we have had to add the adjective “classical” for clarification. However, this was the type of education that many great Americans received throughout history, such as James Madison and Martin Luther King Jr. So, if you want your child to see beyond the immediate gratification of the present, to develop the moral and intellectual virtues, and become genuinely literate, then your child needs a classical education. Only in Classical Education will you find the curriculum, pedagogy, and instructors to attain these goals. And only in Classical Education will you find a tradition that takes the words of Socrates seriously: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Is there any other life that we should want for our children?

This article was submitted by Zack Withers, Headmaster of Great Hearts Anthem.  Mr. Withers has completed ten years of service in the Great Hearts network. During this time he has taught history, economics, poetry, rhetoric, and humane letters. Additionally, he has served as an Academic Dean and Assistant Headmaster at Glendale Prep. He is passionate about reviving the Liberal Arts Tradition in the 21^stcentury, and very excited to now be serving as Anthem Prep’s Headmaster. He lives on a two-acre homestead with his wife, three children, and an assortment of farm animals.

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