Revisiting Norms and Nobility as The Classical Difference

I was talking with a colleague at another Classical Christian school recently and he was bemoaning the truth that many of his parents and even more than a few of his teachers were not able to describe what it is that makes Classical Christian education so very different from all other kinds of education. We discussed several books that marvelously articulate a robust vision of Classical Christian education.

    While there are lots of good ones, I still rank Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education at the top of the list. I plan on writing a blog in the future simply asking many of the questions asked in this important book. In this article, I will give a few, just a few, of the many deep nuggets in this foundational masterpiece.
    The best education is an education that teaches the student to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a knotted thread of thought, to detect what is foolishness, and to discard what is irrelevant. It prepares the student to fill any post with credit, and to master any subject with wisdom. Dr. Hick’s says,

• Before he is eighteen, no one has time to do more than a few things well.
• Any subject, no matter how potentially complex, can be taught to any student at any level. The secret is not in what is taught, but in how it is taught.
• Only the careless and unskilled teacher answers questions before they are asked. The teacher’s chief task is to provoke the question, not to answer it; to cultivate in his students an active curiosity, not to inundate them in factual information.
• The teacher has to have a zest for learning and zeal for learning new things. Expertise and specialization are not required for this–the teacher who is excited about learning all sorts of new things will be very inspiring.
• The school should not nurture and ape the attitudes and beliefs of popular culture–what Erasmus calls “the false opinions and vicious predilections of the masses”–but it must call these into question with the inherited wisdom of its lofty paideia.

    The best books about the all important process of education are informed by the good, the true, and the beautiful. These are books engaged in the great conversation of what is true learning. I am most grateful when a book steeped in the truth of the best education also provides suggestions of what a Classical Christian curriculum should look like. A curriculum that shapes the mind and soul of the student, teacher, and parents is a desired outcome of authentic learning.