This past fall, I announced the launch of my free eBook “The Craft of Teaching: ‘Teach Like a Champion’ for Classical Educators.” I am now excited to share that this summer I will be presenting a workshop on the same topic at the Society for Classical Learning‘s Annual Conference (you can access the full schedule here). I look forward to gathering with fellow classical educators across the country to mentor and inspire one another as we seek to follow in the footsteps of the great philosophers of education.
In this short blog, I want to share six tips for teachers who want to hone the craft of teaching classically. This is, of course, the tip of the iceberg when it comes to thinking about how to teach within the classical tradition, but it will hopefully serve as a helpful introduction. If you want to learn more, you are warmly invited to attend my SCL workshop or download the eBook linked above.
1. Keep the Goal in Mind
The goal of teaching in the Christian, classical liberal arts tradition is to lead human beings to pursue what is good, true, and beautiful, and to cultivate virtue within themselves and society. This education occurs through studying the best that has been thought, written, preached, painted, drawn, calculated, composed, and performed. The goal of human formation can be understood in contrast with a vocational, or technical, goal of education in which the focus is on acquiring skills for a particular career path. Both goals have their place, of course, but the classical teacher’s primary focus is on helping their students become virtuous, not merely employed.
2. Adopt a Growth Mindset
Teachers who seek to teach classically understand that, to use a fitting metaphor, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Teaching, like any profession, is a craft that takes extensive time to hone. Rather than waiting for the two or three observations from an administrator each semester, classically-inspired teachers seek to drive their own growth and development. They take an honest look at processes and outcomes in their classrooms and set ambitious yet realistic goals for themselves to improve. With this mindset, minor failures and missteps are all part of the growth-oriented process.
3. Check for Understanding
It is tempting for any teacher, not just those seeking to teach classically, to confuse how much one attempted to teach with how much students actually learned. But we must keep the two distinct. It is possible for a teacher to think she has taught something sufficiently only to find out through a formative impromptu assessment that students actually did not learn it. For real learning to occur, classical teachers constantly check to see if their students have, in fact, demonstrated growth in understanding through asking good questions and giving students opportunities, like narration, to show what they know.
4. Assign Worthy Work
Not all work is created equal. In an age of worksheets, multiple choice, and scantron machines, it can be tempting for teachers to assign their students work to merely “cover content.” But classical teachers constantly go back to the principle that students are persons, not robots.1 Consequently, the work teachers assign students should be befitting of their personhood, specifically the hunger a person’s mind has for ideas, not mere information. An academically rigorous, classical education shapes students through assigning work that will lead students to make connections across the disciplines and grow in love for wisdom.
5. Let Students do the Work of Learning
Who does the work of learning in your classroom? While we know the right response is “students,” too often it is the teacher who gets the most intense workout. After all, it is no secret that we learn best through teaching someone else. In the classical tradition, students are equipped to do the work of learning through training in the liberal arts. The liberal arts are complex skills that produce and justify knowledge. The classical education renewal movement took off with the rediscover of the Trivium, the three language arts of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. As time goes on, the movement is growing in its understanding of all seven liberal arts, both the language and mathematical arts, and how they can equip students to do the work of learning in order to truly know.
6. Cultivate a Classroom Culture of Character and Excellence
Modern society, perhaps like any society, tends to value achievement over virtue. It is all too tempting to prioritize results over process. But classical teachers understand that the two can work together to promote an inspiring classroom atmosphere, one characterized by both character and excellence. It is often said that humans are products of their environment, and classrooms are no exception. Classical teachers who are on their game seek to cultivate classroom cultures in which personal responsibility, perseverance, and a desire to serve are core values, along with other good habits. A high-achieving classroom culture is not merely measured by test results, but the quality of the students who depart at the end of the year.
I hope you enjoyed these six tips and find them helpful for seeking to teach classically. There is, of course, much more that could be said about teaching in the classical tradition; this article only scratches the surface. If your interest is peaked, I encourage you to subscribe to our mailing list and podcast, and help us keep the renaissance spreading!
- I thank Karen Glass for this insight in her book In Vital Harmony in which she exposits Charlotte Mason’s twenty principles of education.
I currently teach at a lovely Christian school whose current curricula is basically “public education” with a bit more grammar and phonics and a big dose of Jesus on the side. Being both a bit of an antiquarian by nature and a lover of literature has drawn me to the classical education movement. However, my administration and coworkers are not with me. Are there ways I can adapt my instruction to provide my students with at least a “classicalish” classroom?
This is my exact question too. I homeschooled my daughters using mostly the Charlotte Mason philosophy of education. I am now a teacher in a small rural Christian school. I would love to have a CM/Classical classroom even if the school generally is not classical. I am trying to figure out how to do that. When I compare what my children were able to talk and write about (along with care about) at the grade level I teach now, I find my current students lack the tools and interest in learning that my homeschooled children had. I love CM/classical education and would be so happy to bring it successfully into my classroom.