This weekend I was talking to some folks about the different levels of rigor that may be employed in a classical education.
Some were adamant that there is a lot of new ‘fad’ curriculum out there that calls itself classical because being classical is all the rage these days, and so the mere label of classical will attract customers.
So what? some said. So what if some just do classical ‘lite’. It is not our job to make sure that those who claim to school classically do so with rigor. But, others objected, words have meaning, and the very word ‘classical’ implies something rigorous and traditional.
But do we need to ensure ‘quality control’ in the world of homeschooling? Is it even possible?
When I mentioned this to my husband, he paralleled it with his experience in the world of martial arts. There are many karate schools out there, where you can get a black belt in two years. Those who are serious in the arts call such places McDoJos. The point is, those schools are’lite’ drive-through dojos that allow you and your family to dabble a little in the martial arts while having fun and getting exercise. There is nothing wrong with them. They just aren’t the rigorous real schools that will get you in top shape and give you a credible black belt.
The same could be said for a classical education. We live in an age where most people achieve literacy, but not all people get their jollies by spending Monday nights reading Dante’s Divine Comedy with other avid literature fans. Not all people care to be able to read the Aeneid or the Iliad in the original. Not everyone needs to enjoy this. Some would rather watch “The Hulk”.
But we are such a society of appearances. We all feel a NEED to LOOK like we’re doing the best. And what sounds better than “a classical education”. So we like the labels, even when they don’t deliver what they appear to be about. We like to fool ourselves a little, to feel good about the education we’re giving our kids. Certainly few of us are honest enough to say: I just don’t care enough to give Johnny a rigorous education.
We want our kids to be well-educated; we really do. But the reality is that most of us do not provide a rigorous course of rhetoric for our students, nor do most of us care enough to read all the Greek tragedies, or delve into the Early Church fathers’ writings. And that’s OK. We don’t all need to read all that… but in some sense, neither do we need to pretend we do. We’re not better people, more valuable, more admirable for having read those Greek tragedies. Greek tragedy should be read for its own sake, for the love of it, not for showing off.
What when curriculum that is not at all rigorous calls itself classical?? Should we care? Well, when it happens the word “classical” has been diluted. It causes those who are more rigorously classical to need to beef their self-description with superlatives akin to “real committed” classical–we see this in Christianity where some feel a need to differentiate their faith as more authentic than others by the use of those very same modifiers, “real” and “committed”.
But at the root of it, may lie a mistaken need to box everything into neat little compartments. This curriculum is “real committed classical”. This curriculum is “not”. So that once we have the boxes clearly defined, we can decide which camp we’re in and then we all know “who we are”? — And then what?
Well, I suppose life is easier at that point because I don’t have to think as much. I can just react, because I know who and what IS and ISN’T of the sort I would lump myself together with.
But that is impossible. We can never definitively box everything (much less everyBODY) in. Yes, there will always be “rip off” curricula trying to get our money without delivering what they promise, there will always be watered-down versions of something that has become a fad (like classical education). We will always need to use discernment–with each person we meet, with each curriculum we evaluate. We will always need to watch to see, first of all whether this is ‘someone/something’ for me, and then secondly whether (in the case of curriculum) this is really classical.
No amount of classification or boxing in of anything will ever preclude our need to consider things carefully for ourselves (at each instance) before deciding to use, or not use, something.
In the case of classical education, you don’t just need to decide whether something is classical or not. None of us are 100% authentically classical. That is not even the goal. The goal is for each homeschool family to evaluate carefully what the goals for each student and for each school year is, and then allow as much rigor, and as much authentic classical education as time, money, child’s abilities, and teacher resources allow. — This will look different for each family.
Don’t sweat it. Nothing good was ever achieved by over-simplification, much less your child’s education. You simply have to do your homework.
🙂