What if everyone had a classical education? | Rebekah Hagstrom | TEDxMahtomedi

Galileo William Shakespeare Martin Luther Charles Darwin Albert Einstein John Adams and Thomas Jefferson What do all these great thinkers have in common? A

classical

education

, while many of us in America have no idea

what

this means. This is the method by which most of the story. The most influential people were educated in our search for a school for our children. I discovered

classical

education

and the more I read, the more I became convinced that this is the best way to educate children, not only is it time-tested but it is experiencing a resurgence today. Educators are looking for more effective ways to teach children.

Let me tell you my story. This is a photo of my husband Peter and our four children aged 28-18 when they were young. Like all parents, we look for the best school for our children. We tried a public school with an excellent reputation, we tried a private college prep program that was also good and we even tried denominational religious schools and in most cases we found that our children were not being challenged academically and were not receiving the values ​​that we thought were very important for them to learn, it was very frustrating, well, it turns out our frustration was justified.

If you look at how American students compare to the rest of the world, you might be very surprised to see that our students are scoring only 14th in Reading 17th in science and an abysmal 25th in math (remember this is only 34th). developed countries these are terrible results and on the values ​​front things are not better some of you may recognize this young woman her name is Hadia Pendleton she was the unfortunate victim of a fatal shooting in Chicago just a few months ago in a newspaper article covering the story, the Rev. Michael Fer, who was actually at the funeral, was quoted as asking when we lost our soul.

He was clearly asking how in this Society we have lost our soul. filled with violence so much that we have practically lost our Humanity, our soul, well, it was that same frustration due to the lack of values ​​and the fact that our children did not have academic challenges that made us continue looking for other school options like me. Then I came across an advertisement for a school that had opened in Rochester just a few years earlier. I read the synopsis of that school and knew in an instant that it was exactly

what

we were looking for, so I contacted the school and said, There are schools like this in the Twin Cities and they said we don't know of any, but the school was started by six families and you can do it too.

How to start a school? That was the furthest thing from my mind, but you know what we were. hunger for this type of education Against all odds that is exactly what we did, we started a classical school, so you might be wondering what is classical education, well let me tell you that it involves three stages of learning, the grammar stage in the elementary school where we focus on the tools of the subject the logical phase in middle school where we focus on understanding the topic and the rhetorical phase in high school where we focus on application and communication all of these stages integrate beautifully with the natural progression of the child's knowledge Intive development let's start by looking at the grammar stage in the grammar stage children have a development capable of memorizing information very easily they are like sponges those of you who are parents know that at this age children will watch the same movie over and over again They will read the same book over and over again and they will never get tired of it, so what you do is pack as much information as we can into songs, chants, rhymes, sounds, things that they don't mind repeating over and over again, We add actions to make them even more engaging and the kids have so much fun that almost not even we can teach them the chemical elements through a song, parts of speech and how to diagram sentences through chanting.

It's amazing what you can learn using this method. and another part of classical education is that we teach using the classics from the grammar stage. They have stood the test of time. They have all the wisdom of the times. They are so full of rich content that children love reading them. We also teach cursive writing at the grammar stage because of all the well-documented cognitive benefits and Latin is started at the grammar stage. Latin forms the basis of all Romance languages ​​and approximately 65% ​​of the English language is based on Latin, so students who know Latin tend to perform much better on standardized tests in the future and, therefore, more importantly, they can learn modern foreign languages ​​and also history is an important part where we teach it from ancient times to modernity sequentially several times throughout the 12 years of education and We focus on using the primary documents instead of textbooks so that students actually read what the people themselves had to think and say at that time.

Now let's look at the logical phase. The logical phase is marked by children who are becoming much more argumentative. they want to know how and they want to know why if you are a parent, then what we do is we capture again where they are and now we introduce a formal investigation, we compare contrast exercises that write from the historical and literary perspective. represents any activity that makes students develop a deep understanding of the topic they are learning because that is the objective in the logic phase we give them formal logic classes where they learn the art of argumentation how to develop a formal argument a reasoned argument how to stop recognize logical fallacies and then can practice them in debates.

They start debating a lot in their high school years. Also, writing becomes very important during the logical phase. We teach students the process of how to write and that is emphasized throughout. During their high school years, then the rhetoric phase, the rhetoric phase is marked by children who, developmentally, are becoming dependent, are forming their own opinions, and are beginning to separate from their families, so Now once again we are going to take advantage. From where they are now not only do we want them to know the tools of the topic and then understand that topic, we now want them to analyze and synthesize the information from their own opinions and then communicate those opinions in an effective and persuasive way.

This is what we call the crown jewel of a classical education because it is the culmination of everything we have worked to ensure that students have a lot of room for deep discussion, where they can practice the analyst's analysis and synthesis ideas, They can also practice their debate. skills and learn to develop arguments that are based on reason, then they are given two years of formal training in rhetoric where they learn the art of writing and speaking articulately and persuasively. The most important thing with a classical education is that students learn how to learn and what from a values ​​perspective, classical education has historically addressed both the mind and the soul.

At our school we nourish the soul through Judeo-Christian values ​​and beliefs, although we do not require our students to be Christians, we want to make sure they understand that that is the perspective we are teaching from and then we expose them to all other faith traditions and that way they can understand other points of view in the world. Let me tell you our results: our students are performing well on all standardized standards. test, but most of you are familiar with law and the SATs, as our college entrance exams our students are performing in the top 133% of the nation in law and are performing in the top 177% of the nation in the ESS ATS. and I want you to know that we are not only taking top quality kids, but we are taking students who are average and above and they achieve these types of results with this method and as a result, you can imagine that they are offered excellent scholarships. approximately $3,000 per student per year of college, but even more important than that is that these kids are learning to become deep thinkers, they are learning to speak persuasively and articulately, they are learning to reason logically, and they are learning to write.

Well, as I said, we have learned to learn and other tangible benefits that we are seeing is that the children have learned to develop respect for others, including those who have opposing values ​​and beliefs, and they are internalizing their Valu to have a guide for them. . moral decision-makers are becoming responsible, focused on and focused on others, they have developed the strength of character to act compassionately and well with these outcomes. I finally had peace regarding my children's education. Not only was he no longer frustrated and excited. so I can share this method with others, so I would like you to imagine with me for a moment what it would be like if

everyone

in our sect had a classical education and I mean imagine this from the halls of Washington DC to those of our nation.

Media to our school systems, to our communities, and to our neighborhoods, what would it be like if citizens knew their history so well and so deeply that we were less likely to repeat the mistakes of the past? Let's imagine citizens who base their opinion on reason instead of reason. emotions and who recognize logical fallacies so as not to be deceived and manipulated so easily imagine that citizens can express their thoughts and ideas in an articulate and persuasive way and imagine that they are respectful rather than simply denigrating those with whom we disagree, Wouldn't this just be a nice change of scenery in all these different areas of social interaction.

Well, with this in mind, could it be possible that we would all be better off with a classical education? With the results we are demonstrating, what type of education do you receive? I want our future leaders to have What about their own child? We know this works, thank you.