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What is Classical Education?

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Classical education is a time-honored approach rooted in the traditions of ancient Greece and Rome.  Classical education emphasizes the development of a well-rounded individual through the trivium—grammar, logic, and rhetoric. It cultivates a deep appreciation for the great works of literature, history, and philosophy, fostering critical thinking and effective communication skills. By engaging with the enduring ideas of the past, classical education provides a foundation for a lifelong love of learning and equips students with the intellectual tools necessary to navigate the complexities of the contemporary world.  Classical education is:

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  • Traditional American education

  • The acknowledgment of objective standards of correctness, logic, beauty, weightiness, and truth intrinsic to the liberal arts 

  • A school culture demanding moral virtue, decorum, respect, discipline, and studiousness among the students and faculty 

  • A faculty where well-educated and articulate teachers convey real knowledge using traditional teaching methods rather than “student-centered learning” methods 

  • Uses technology effectively but without diminishing the faculty leadership that is crucial to academic achievement

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A classical education is more than simply a pattern of learning. Classical education is language-focused; learning is accomplished through words, written and spoken, rather than through images (pictures, videos, and television).  This is important to understand because language-learning and image-learning require very different habits of thought. Language requires the mind to work harder; in reading, the brain is forced to translate a symbol (words on the page) into a concept. Images, such as those on videos and television, allow the mind to be passive. In front of a video screen, the brain can “sit back” and relax; faced with the written page, the mind is required to roll its sleeves up and get back to work. 

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A classical education, then, has two important aspects: 

  1. It is language-focused, and 

  2. It follows a specific three-part pattern: 

    1. the mind must be first supplied with facts and images,

    2. then given the logical tools for organization of facts, 

    3. and finally equipped to express conclusions, what a classical education deems The Trivium. 

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The classical inheritance was passed to England and from England to America through colonial settlement. At the time of this nation’s founding, classical education was thriving. Jefferson heartily recommended Greek and Latin as the languages of study for early adolescence. Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans was often recommended by men like Jefferson and Franklin, and Hamilton seems to have given it special attention during his military encampment at Valley Forge. Eighteenth-century Americans venerated and trusted George Washington in large part because he reminded them of the Roman patriot Cincinnatus. So important has classical education been in the history of the West that it would only be a slight exaggeration to say that the march of civilization has paralleled the vibrancy of classical schools. Such a long tradition of education continues to be relevant today.

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These resources are a great way to learn more about Classical Education. 

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What is a Charter School?

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A charter school is a tuition-free public school that is privately managed with its own board of directors.  It operates under a contract (or charter) with an authorizer, and that contract frees the charter school from some of the restrictions of a standard public school. 

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Charter schools in Florida are funded on a per pupil basis, and receive about two-thirds the per-student funding of traditional public schools.  Charter schools have to cover operational, capital, and indirect costs with the same amount of funding that standard public schools receive only for operational costs. 

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It is open to all children eligible who attend public school in the county in which it is located. The first charter school in America opened in Minnesota in 1992, and, since then, over 40 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have laws allowing the creation of charter schools. 

 

Florida Charter Schools are publicly funded schools of choice.  There are currently over 650 charter schools operating in the state, educating more than 300,000 Florida students. According to the Florida Department of Education, charter school students generally outperform traditional public school students on key metrics of student achievement, including closing the achievement gap.

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