I’m a checklist kind of person.  Can you relate?  The happiness of checking a task off of a long list, whether it be folding laundry or finishing an expense report, is very gratifying.  A check mark means it is done.  Or, at least, it is done for now. 

Understandably, that same checklist mentality is often applied to education.  Get the workbook done.  Finish the chapter.  Check off the book or the assignment and poof(!) it disappears off our list, never to be looked at or pondered again.  

For those of us who like to check things off, Classical education is a big problem.  You see, in Classical, Christian education, we rarely check things off.  In Classical education, you don’t finish quickly and move on to the next thing.  

When a reader gets to the end of the book, that is not the end.  There is more to discover between the pages, and a second or even a third read-through is in order to extract the beauty from the text.  Books are friends that last beyond just a classroom assignment.

When a student masters a mathematical formula or a scientific principle, it is not just memorized and then set aside.  To the contrary, the student uses that formula or principle and expands beyond it.  And beyond it again.  Memorizing is instead the foundation for more concepts and for deeper thinking.  

Part of the beautiful appeal of Classical education is that it requires students to slow down and really wrestle with what they are reading in this fast-paced, meager-attention world.   Our culture has trained students that stories lasting longer than 15 seconds are irrelevant and Classical education discards that, encouraging students that stories can last 15 minutes, 15 years, or even 15 generations and still be relevant and life-changing.

So, consider the slowness of Classical education.  Ponder it (slowly), ease into it, and feel the frenetic thoughts in your mind slow down.  Classical, Christian  education, with all of its beauty and goodness, is worth savoring, worth the slowness that it requires.  Sounds appealing, doesn’t it?  

Holly Kalton
Head of School, Libertas Academy