(An excerpt from a discussion we are having on the K-W Classical Education Discussion Board on Facebook regarding Lisa VanDamme's The False Promise of Classical Education.)

I would agree that history, for instance, should be taught in chronological order, but to teach science in the order of discoveries is, I agree, counter-intuitive.

To her credit, VanDamme does provide a decent analysis of today’s “progressive education,” but she does not truly understand classical education, especially as set out by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer in The Well-Trained Mind.

VanDamme believes that children should not be taught facts that they cannot fully understand. The truth is that there are many complicated concepts that may need to be taught several times, this is precisely why subjects are repeated and studied in more depth in future years.

She is also against learning anything that is not based on perceptual reality. Thus, she says, the Great Flood should not be taught since it’s not based on evidence. (Of course there is evidence of the Great Flood but she is just ignorant to the subject matter.) She is against “indoctrination,” i.e. teaching children to love their country or believe in the Bible since it does not allow them “individualism” or “liberty.” Thus, she does not want children instructed in truth or proper citizenship, she wants them find their own individuality and decide what is true for them. That sounds an awful lot like progressive relativism to me.

In her attacks on classical education, it becomes clear that VanDamme misunderstands the trivium as she refers to it as “reasoning being studied in a vacuum.” She ignores the very point of the grammar stage with her argument, which is the learning of as many facts as possible, since young children’s minds have such a great ability to absorb information.

She claims classical education is not concerned with the truth of a debate, for instance (at the logic stage of the trivium), but she misses the point. Classical education is concerned about independent learning skills, the ability to discern what is and is not relevant to an argument and to be able to promptly detect and expose invalid inferences. This is exactly what is required to find the truth!

Her fundamental belief that the Bible is not just errant but purely untrue is her largest criticism of Christian classical education and it infuriates her that these beliefs are taught as inseparable from the subject matter being studied. To me that is one of the great benefits of Christian classical education. As Douglas Wilson points out, it is not possible to have a religiously neutral classroom, it can be pretended, but it cannot be accomplished.

Retired Pres. Maleske supports Lutheran day schools

In the May/June issue of Canadian Lutheran, then-president of LCC East District, Rev. Al Maleske, writes in his article on raising children in the Lutheran faith: "It is first and foremost the parents’ responsibility to raise the child, to surround the child with a protective environment that will suppress the sinful nature and encourage the function of the Holy Spirit in the child’s heart. That means church, Sunday school and, ideally, a Lutheran day school as active parts of family life."

Is it not indeed the parents' responsibility to ensure that children receive academic instruction that is consistent with the family's faith?

Classical education for all

I just got back from vacation, during which time I managed to get through part of Dr. Thomas Korcok's "Forward to the Past" (see Links). It's an excellent read. One of the things that struck me as relevant to this project was the link between baptism and a liberal arts education. The point is made that through baptism all Christians have equal status before God, and therefore a liberal arts education should be accessible to everyone. If I didn't believe it before, I certainly am convinced now that a classical Lutheran school in K-W, if it's God's plan that there be one, should definitely be available to all Christian families, regardless of income level. Nowadays it goes without saying that education should be accessible to all races and colours, and to both genders. However, if a family desires a Christian education for its children, the cost of private education can be a barrier. I'm not sure if it is possible to completely overcome this -- the money to fund the school has to come from somewhere. But I think we need to approach this with the attitude that in principle, all Christian children deserve an education that would enable them to understand scripture, to eloquently defend and explain the faith, and to be fully-equipped to carry out the mandate that Christ gave them in Matthew 28:18-20. The goal is not to start some kind of elite school that only the rich kids could attend. A classical Lutheran education is rigorous and will produce well-educated children. There is this generally accepted idea that a good education has to be so expensive that only the rich could afford it. But not only the wealthy deserve a good education. This is for everyone. We need to find a way to make it accessible to the average Christian family.