The three stages of learning: the Grammar stage, the Logic stage, and the Rhetoric stage

In today’s busy world of education we have gotten to involved in computers, social emotional learning, positive behavioral intervention support, common core, ESSA…the list goes on and on and on…

Those in charge of education have decided that the old ways are no longer valid or useful or appropriate as we wend our way into the 21st Century. But…is that really true? Can we still learn from the past and are there basics that can and should be part of our education foundation that have been pushed aside? We say yes.

We reached out to Mr. Peabody and his Way-back-Machine and bring you this treatise on the best of the past that is still valid today. If you agree ask your local school board to make changes.

Home schooled children tend to score well on tests and perform at the top academically. Why? There is an aspect of their education that is very classical. We borrowed some information from: The Home School Mom that we want to share:

Classical homeschooling involves teaching based on the three stages of learning:

1. The Grammar stage: involves learning facts, memorization, and knowledge gathering.
2. The Logic stage: is when reasoning and logic begin to be applied to the knowledge.
3. The Rhetoric stage: completes the Trivium and is when the student learns the skills of wisdom and judgment.

Simple? Yes. Strange? No. Using this approach we seek to learn from the past and teach children how to think instead of what to think. We teach problem solving based on gathering facts and information as a basis for developing solutions. We are NOT training people to be good little workers or robots. Rather, they are being taught to use their abilities and talents.

In An Introduction to Classical Education Christopher Perrin goes back to the Greeks and Romans’ approaches to education and walks forward through history.

In “What is Classical Education” author Susan Wise Bauer shares her views on what constitutes classical education and why it’s relevant and important. She is co-author of a booked titled “The Well Trained Mind” in the book review: The Well-Trained Mind will instruct you, step by step, on how to give your child an academically rigorous, comprehensive education from preschool through high school―one that will train him or her to read, to think, to ?understand?, to be well-rounded and curious about learning. Veteran home educators Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer outline the classical pattern of education called the trivium, which organizes learning around the maturing capacity of the child’s mind and comprises three stages: the elementary school “grammar stage,” the middle school “logic stage,” and the high school “rhetoric stage.” Using this theory as your model, you’ll be able to instruct your child in all levels of reading, writing, history, geography, mathematics, science, foreign languages, rhetoric, logic, art, and music, regardless of your own aptitude in those subjects.

Is Classical Education a replacement for current approaches? Should it be part of the curriculum today and going forward?