Books on Classical Christian Education
Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition
The Liberal Arts Tradition introduces readers to a paradigm for understanding a classical education that transcends the familiar 3-stage pattern of grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
Instead, this book describes the liberal arts as a central part of a larger and more robust paradigm of classical education that should consist of piety, gymnastic, music, liberal arts, philosophy, and theology.
The Liberal Arts Tradition also recovers the means by which classical educators developed more than just intellectual virtue (by means of the 7 liberal arts) but holistically cultivated the mind, body, will, and affections. This is a must-read for educators who want to take a second big step toward recovering the tradition of classical education.
Robert Littlejohn and Charles Evans, Wisdom and Eloquence
To succeed in the world today, students need an education that equips them to recognize current trends, to be creative and flexible to respond to changing circumstances, to demonstrate sound judgment to work for society’s good, and to gain the ability to communicate persuasively.
Wisdom and Eloquence takes the best of classical education and creates a fresh framework for a “Christian liberal arts and sciences approach to the classroom,” offering a new perspective on modern languages, classroom management, dialectic, the trivium and mathematics, while advocating for a reasonable synthesis of classical learning models with the equally important values of Christianity.
Christopher Perrin, An Introduction to Classical Education
An Introduction to Classical Education is an ideal introduction to classical education that traces the history of classical education and describes its modern renaissance.
The booklet also highlights the distinctive elements of the movement, including its emphasis on teaching grammar, logic, and rhetoric (the trivium); the role and benefit of classical language study; and the extraordinary achievements of students who are receiving a classical education.
This engaging and conversational booklet includes anecdotes, diagrams, and charts, and is especially recommended to parents just beginning their examination of classical education.
David Hicks, Norms and Nobility
Norms and Nobility is a provocative reappraisal of classical education that offers a workable program for contemporary school reform.
David Hicks contends that the classical tradition promotes a spirit of inquiry that is concerned with the development of style and conscience, which makes it an effective and meaningful form of education. Dismissing notions that classical education is elitist and irrelevant, Hicks argues that the classical tradition can meet the needs of our increasingly tec
Chris Hall, Common Arts Education
The academic foundations of classical education do not alone guarantee human flourishing.
The liberal arts the trivium and quadrivium represent the core frameworks for cultivating virtue and practicing skills vital to our life in the world. And yet, they alone are insufficient, for we must eat, heal, defend ourselves, trade, build, find our way around, and more. It may seem evident that the common arts should be an integral part of education, and yet we see that every generation is losing skill in the common arts as we increasingly rely upon others to provide them for us.
In Common Arts Education, author Chris Hall provides not only an argument for an integrated liberal, fine, and common arts pedagogy, but also some practical advice for crafting a robust, hands-on curriculum.