Classical Education Curriculum Made Simple
What is the Trivium? This is the classical education curriculum, which is divided up into three distinct phases. The first phase, also known as the grammar stage, is the equivalent of grades 1 through 6.
Because children’s physical brain development and cognitive thinking skills are not yet mature, it is important to focus on concrete information. In other words, kids at this age should just learn facts.
Even though some children this age want to know the whys and hows, their brains can only absorb the whats. You can still respond to your children’s whys and hows, but they are not the focus of the grammar stage.
It’s essential for children to learn the whats first, since it creates the foundation on which to build higher level thinking and a basis for philosophical questions such as the hows and whys. Children who are still in the grammar stage generally can’t process this kind of advanced thinking.
This is largely due to their own lack of experience and background knowledge: They don’t yet have the tools to process reason.
This is the beauty of the grammar stage in the classical education curriculum. Even though the grammar stage is solely based on facts, it is the foundation for all the other learning that will take place in the other two stages.
All the work in the other two phases requires this firm foundation.
The second phase in the classical education curriculum is called the dialectic stage. A child usually enters this phase anywhere between 5th and 7th grades.
At this stage in a child’s development, there is a noticeable change in mind development and cognitive abilities, which means the child is maturing from the concrete to the analytical.
Although the child will move from one phase to the next, the first methods aren’t abandoned. The classical education curriculum has a cumulative effect. Concrete learning remains part of the process, but analytical learning is added to it.
The first stage is where the child learns facts and concrete information. It is in the dialect stage that he or she is also introduced to whys and hows. The dialect stage emphasizes the importance of understanding “why things are the way they are.”
In this stage, a child begins to test the facts that he/she has learned in the grammar stage to determine if they were in reality true. This self-examination of determining truth is a very important step in the development of thinking skills.
Children learn to understand the importance of asking questions, judging, examining, and analyzing with respect and honor. In classical education curriculum, disrespect is an attitude you don’t need when you’re asking questions.
By not getting defensive when children ask questions, parents and teachers can encourage a positive atmosphere. Setting a good example helps children learn that you can be respectful and disagree.
The last phase in classical education curriculum is the rhetoric stage, which starts in grade 9 and ends in grade 12.
Language, literature, math, history, music, philosophy, oratory, writing, and science are subjects that are all commonly taught. This is the arena where all the phases join as one, putting everything into practice.