About Catholic Classical Education
In its essence, Catholic classical education is about the formation of the human person both in mind and heart.
It was a constant of the Church for nearly two millennia and has been one of the main means for passing on the Faith. For each new generation, the Catholic educational tradition, and the Catholic intellectual tradition it engendered, was understood as precious, something to be treasured and preserved, enriched and enhanced, guarded from error, and then carefully and vigilantly handed on. Every new student who receives this education becomes part a communal effort across the ages to seek out Truth, Goodness, and Beauty and thereby to better know, love, and serve God.
We provide talks on:
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Where did Catholic classical education come from? And why have many recent saints and popes warned us not to lose it? These three talks trace the history of Catholic education from its Hebraic and Ancient Greek roots, through its most fruitful years during Christendom, to its current weakened state during Modernity. The teaching of the Trivium Skills, Salvation History, and Science and Math are presented, in turn. We explore, in particular, the impact that Christ’s Incarnation had on education and culture.
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‘Truth, Goodness, and Beauty’ has become a hackneyed phrase. Do these transcendentals really matter? “How Catholic Classical Education Restores Our Vision, Redeems Our Souls, and Enlarges Our Hearts” looks carefully at the central role these ideals play in the formation of the student, the content taught, and healthy classroom dynamics. This is a key talk for those new to Catholic classical education or to The Saint Patrick Curriculum.
“Teaching Our Faith – A Cruciform Curriculum” is the capstone talk, bringing together all the themes found in the talks above. Catholic classical education is directed toward and finds its fulfillment in the Liturgy. We know we are teaching well when our students realize that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is not a distraction from their schooling but the main reason for it.
See a quick introduction to the three pillars of Catholic classical education, Content, Skills, and Pedagogy:
“As the Roman Empire collapsed and the barbarians swept across Europe, the monasteries of St. Benedict formed a chain of sanctuaries, where civilization itself was preserved and reforged in the fires of liturgy. The monks were drawn by a stable form of life built on a wise monastic Rule, which itself was a supreme work of the poetic imagination. Their communities instantiated the ancient ideal of a “musical” education: an ordered life, proportionate, harmonious, disciplined, and (often) joyful. Body, soul, and spirit were catered for: manual work and prayer gradually transformed the landscape in the remote locations they chose to live. At the center of this way of life was the Mass, and the Breviary or “Divine Office” created as a way of praying the Psalms seven times a day (and once in the night). Time itself had been sanctified by the sevenfold spirit of Christ, and the monk’s soul could be tuned to the rhythm of the cosmos by entering into this spirit.
Beauty flows from beauty, and from these oases of the spirit flowed art in profusion: music, architecture, painting. Plainsong, developed from the ancient chants of Israel and then transformed by the advent of polyphony, gave the foundation for all that we now know as “Classical” music. The architecture of the great monasteries was devised in service of the harmonies of this music and the duties of prayer. The refined art of illumination grew from the great work of transcription, by which the great books of the past were handed down.”
— Stratford Caldecott, Beauty for Truth’s Sake: On the Re-Enchantment of Education
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