Christian Classical Education Web Resources

A brief 7 minute video from CBN explaining the classical curriculum and Logos School in Moscow, ID:

Online Resources:

An excellent 46 page introduction to Classical Education by Dr. Christopher Perrin:

Dorothy Sayers’ essay on the Trivium–the catalyst for the classical school movement in America:

A 10 page essay on the need to educate children from a Christian Worldview by Douglas Wilson. Wilson writes:

Education is a completely religious endeavor. It is impossible to impart knowledge to students without building on religious presuppositions. Education is built on the foundation of the instructor’s worldview (and the worldview of those who developed the curriculum). It is a myth that education can be non-religious — that is, that education can go on in a vacuum which deliberately chooses to exclude the basic questions about life. It is not possible to separate religious values from education. This is because all the fundamental questions of education require religious answers. Learning to read and write is simply the process of acquiring tools to enable us to ask and answer such questions.

John Seel’s “What Typical Christian Parents Want in Christian Schools”:

When I am visiting with prospective families, I say to virtually every one of them some version of the following: “You should look every headmaster or admissions director straight in the eye and ask simply, ‘What is your goal for my child as an 18-year-old graduate of your institution?’  I then proceed, with all seriousness, to say, ‘If that person cannot answer that question, you should politely dismiss yourself and head to the next school. But if they can and do answer that question, you need to ask yourself an important question. ‘Is that my goal for my child’ or, at least, ‘Is that goal compatible with what we want for our child?'”

“Why Work?” by Dorothy Sayers. Sayers writes during WWII on the importance of viewing work as essential to life rather than a drudgery endured to obtain money or goods. Sayers writes:

The habit of thinking about work as something one does to make money is so ingrained in us that we can scarcely imagine what a revolutionary change it would be to think about it instead in terms of the work done. To do so would mean taking the attitude of mind we reserve for our unpaid work–our hobbies, our leisure interests, the things we make and do for pleasure–and makeing that the standard of all our judgments about things and people. We should ask of an enterprise, not “will it pay?” but “is it good?”; of a man, not “what does he make?’ but what is his work worth?”; of goods, not “Can we induce people to buy them?” but “are they useful things well made?”; of employment, not “how much a week?” but “will it exercise my faculties to the utmost?”

“Of Education” by John Milton. Milton’s definition of education resonates with the heart of GCA:

The end of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, and to be like him as we may by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection.

The Association for Classical and Christian Schools website, of which GCA is a member.

Books

The Case for Classical Education by Douglas Wilson

Clergy in the Classroom by David A. Noebel

Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning by Douglas Wilson

Repairing the Ruins by Douglas Wilson

The Abolition of Man by C.S.Lewis