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THE CONSORTIUM
A Journal of Classical Christian Education
Promoting classical education and fostering human flourishing for generations to come.
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Volume 1, Issue 1
The Consortium: A Journal of Classical Christian Education Volume 1, Issue 1.
Copyright © 2022 by Roman Roads Press
Published by Roman Roads Press in collaboration with Kepler Education and The Consortium of Classical Educators
Moscow, Idaho info@romanroadspress.com | romanroadspress.com
Editorial Advisory Board:
- Daniel Foucachon, Executive Editor
- Scott Postma, General Editor
- Dr. Robert M. Woods, Senior Editor
- Dr. Christy Vaughan, Contributing Editor
- Dr. Gregory Soderberg, Contributing Editor
Interior Layout by Carissa Hale
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by the USA copyright law.
Licensing and permissions: info@romanroadspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-944482-64-0
Version 1.1.0 June 2022
Introduction
What is a Classical Christian Education?
by Scott Postma
The Consortium is a journal of classical education published semiannually in June and December, offering readers a broad array of quality writing, research, and book reviews about all things related to Classical Christian Education. Each issue is published with parents and educators in mind, really anyone who wants to gain deeper insight into the education that created free human beings in Western civilization for the past two-and-a-half millennia.
Classical Christian Education expresses itself under a fairly broad tent of thought and there are likely as many micro-persuasions as there are eyes on Argos. This is true for at least three reasons.
First, what we call Classical Christian Education today has looked differently in epochs of history. So, depending on who is answering the question, “What is Classical Christian Education?,” one may get a slightly different answer if they are focusing on pre-Christian classical education, or classical education as it functioned during the Scholastic period, the Renaissance period, the modern period of clas- sical Christian renewal that began in the early 1980s, or what some are now calling Christian Classical Education.
The second reason is during this modern age of recovering Classical Christian Education, educators have continued to grow in their understanding of what Classical Christian Education is. For example, in The Liberal Arts Tradition, written by Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain, the authors suggest there have been four periods of growth in the Classical Christian Education movement.
The third reason is directly related to the first two. As understanding has grown about what Classical Christian Education has been and how it was implemented in ages past, so have opinions about which historical expression is most important to recover in the modern world (i.e., do students in the modern world still need to study Latin to be classically educated? Wouldn’t studying modern languages do just as well?) Also, where does the study of subsidiary sciences like, biology and ecology, fit into Classical Christian Education?
In a nutshell, while Classical Christian Education is a historic tradition of education that stands in opposition to the modern progressivists’ pedagogy and agenda, this journal recognizes the tradition is mildly dynamic, developing over more than two millennia of Western civilization. Because of what has been noted in these prefatory remarks, The Consortium journal takes the position that a truly Classical Christian Education is one that strives to glean the best of Western liberal education in every epoch. Therefore, the journal’s editors strive to foster conversation and dialogue in the true spirit of the academy where the free exchange of ideas offered respectfully and in good taste are welcome and put forth here for your consideration and contemplation.
How is Classical Christian Education defined? The Association of Classical Christian Schools provides one of the most concise definitions of Classical Christian Education:
Classical Christian education (CCE) is a time-tested educational system which establishes a biblical worldview (called Paideia), incorporates methods based on natural phases of student development, cultivates the seven Christian Virtues, trains student reasoning through the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric), and interacts with the historical Great Books.
The website, welltrainedmind.com, gives a far more expansive definition, then summarizes it this way:
A classical education, then, has two important aspects. It is language-focused. And it follows a specific three-part pattern: the mind must be first supplied with facts and images, then given the logical tools for organization of facts, and finally equipped to express conclusions.
While these definitions are both accurate and sound as far as they go, neither mention an essential aspect of Classical Christian Education, The Quadrivium, the second half of the seven liberal arts; further, what is accurately mentioned still requires some unpacking to more fully answer the question, What is Classical Christian Education? Consider these following seven characteristics that are shared by all expressions of Classical Christian Education.
