When a School Loses Confidence in Itself
COVID has left its mark on education in the United States. Since 2019, many districts have seen their schools lose at least 20% of their students between 2019-20 and 2021-22, putting them at risk of closure. Traditional public school enrollment has decreased by 4%, while charter school enrollment has doubled. Four years after COVID, teachers are still following their students: they are now leaving the profession in higher numbers than before 2020.
As a result, states nationwide are overhauling their lumbering education bureaucracies, and one of the fastest-growing options is a movement many people have a hard time defining: classical education.
American classical education involves guiding students towards moral and intellectual virtue through a rigorous course of study in the liberal arts and sciences, coupled with an emphasis on moral character and civic virtue. The “classical approach” is an education based on a certain understanding of human nature. That understanding presupposes that the human person is made up of both body and soul and that the most human activities are knowing and loving. It also presupposes that there is an order to the world, and some things in this order are more important to know than others. The purpose of classical education is to help our minds and hearts understand and seek these most important things.
There is nothing particularly historical about this kind of education. It isn’t the education one would have received in Ancient Greece or Rome, or the medieval monasteries. But it does rely on the classics insofar as they knew that in order for men to be truly free, they must have a liberal education. That education must include literature, mathematics, history, the sciences, fine arts, Latin, and physical education. The study of these liberal arts frees individuals. It frees them from ignorance, confusion, and irrationality. It is a journey towards rationality, enabling individuals to perceive the world with clarity and honesty.
Central to the philosophy of American classical education is the acknowledgment that human beings are inherently driven to seek knowledge about themselves and the universe. This pursuit of understanding extends beyond specialized training, which most parents don’t believe should be the sole focus of education anyway. "Tracking” programs, which match students based on test scores or previous coursework to specific curricula, have met heavy resistance from parents in many schools. A recent Pew Research Center poll put financial stability as only one of three major concerns parents have for their children; the other two are mental health and job satisfaction. Jonathan Heidt’s The Anxious Generation chronicles the massive harm that social media and access to screens have done to young people. And yes, human beings are made for work, but we are also made for more.
Education should be about the highest things. This is why American classical education recognizes the moral dimensions inherent in learning. Rather than attempting to reshape human nature through force, it cultivates that nature so that it may grow and flourish naturally. Character formation is a central tenet, along with self-reliance and responsibility. It is an education that molds citizens fit for self-governance, instilling in them the values of freedom and the ability to contribute meaningfully to their communities. It does that by delving into the origins of their country, helping students develop a mature love for America. This love is not blind patriotism but a thoughtful appreciation for the unprecedented founding of the nation, rooted in reflection and choice—and a thoughtful effort to change what should be changed and preserve what should be preserved within it.
As states embrace reform, American classical education is busy equipping a generation with the surest and most time-tested path toward a truly free life. It liberates individuals from ignorance and the shackles of prejudice, delusion, and misguided passions. Through the pursuit of knowledge and virtue, classical education not only shapes citizens but also instills in them the ability to judge rightly and contribute meaningfully to the preservation of the precious ideals upon which our nation was founded.
