Classical Education is about seeking the best way to live a good life
Classical education is an optimistic enterprise. We speak about seeking the True, the Good and the Beautiful. These are not slogans. In real ways throughout our program, they come to dominate our instruction, starting with truth. We believe truth is knowable. It can be reasoned. It can be recognized. It can be organized. It can be evaluated, and it can be expressed through actions. Primarily, we seek truth about the human experience. We ask questions such as:
- What are humans like?
- What is good for them?
- What is the world in which humans live?
- How should they act in order to thrive?
- What does that mean for the context in which we live?
The answers to these questions, explored during our 13-year (K-12) journey through our classical school experience will lead us to the place where we will so well understand what it means to be human that we are able to solve problems, direct others towards good things, order our affairs both individually and cooperatively, and act morally.
John Locke was an 18th-century philosopher who wrote about how humans understand things and how we order society as a result. He was instrumental in establishing the English Bill of Rights in 1689 and resisting the idea that we should agree to allow the government to be the ultimate authority in our lives (Thomas Hobbes). Locke was a close colleague of Isaac Newton, who we still view as a key figure in mathematics and physics. Locke believed that we can seek the good while governing ourselves, and if anything, the Monarch should only be enthroned to secure the people’s essential rights. In the process, he considered the questions above and created a political framework that America’s Founding Fathers would read and rely upon as they formed the United States.
Locke assumed that humans are created with a fixed nature, and it is good for us to be honest, knowledgeable, responsible, and humble (among other things). We can live together successfully in society when we all adhere to these standards. Not only that, but when we are concerned about seeking the good, which I wrote about here, we will live well and thrive.
We still use the questions above to guide our own understanding of how society should be ordered, and until we find a better model than liberty wrapped in rule of law, personal responsibility, and civic duty, we will continue to look to thinkers like John Locke.
Mike Terry
Natl. Dir. of Classical Education
Founders Classical Academies