Advantages of a Classical Education

Proponents of the classical approach to homeschool education point to a number of advantages to their approach. The first is that a classical education gives each child a solid classical base. This extends from the child learning Latin through having them gain an understanding and appreciation of the finest literature and arts that Western culture up to the flowering of science and philosophy. More than that, the classical base allows students to understand the interrelationship between these ideas and the culture that spawned them.

A second advantage is that the classical education produces students who are extremely logical and literate thinkers. These are two qualities that are highly valuable both in further education and (more importantly) in life beyond academia.

The trivium is designed to follow the natural stages of child development. At the youngest age, children are particularly adept at and (for the most part) enjoy memorization and learning facts. Similarly the middle years are typically focused on ideas and the teen years are a hotbed of argumentation which are the core of the "logic" and the "rhetoric" phases. This is beneficial because working with the child's natural tendencies makes learning easier.

For children who love playing with language a classical education (built as it is on the foundation of Latin) is an excellent fit.

<< Introduction      Disadvantages >>