What is Orthodox Christian Classical Education?
As Orthodox Christians, we understand education in Greek, Paideia as the total training and nurturing of the child. Fathers, do not frustrate your children, but rear them in the Paideia and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). Similarly, My son, do not neglect the Paideia of the Lord (Hebrews 12:5).
Education is not an option for the children of God in the Church; it never has been. Even prior to Holy Baptism, and especially there, people are set aside for life in the Kingdom of God to be fed and nurtured in the Faith and to grow according to Gods will and purpose. The fact that, in English versions of the Bible, Paideia is often translated as discipline, or chastening, demonstrates the persistently corrective nature of Christian education, guiding persons from their earliest years of blossoming self-direction back to the goal of dependent communion with God. The human person body, soul and spirit is educated in the Church according to his or her created purpose, to recognize and act with all of creation in concert with the Creator, God the Holy Trinity.
Classical education refers to the manner of educating children according to a Classical model. The Classical model, time-tested since ancient Greek, Roman, and medieval times, is known as the Trivium, meaning, triple-way. The Classical model recognizes three stages of mental/physiological development in children with corresponding stages of learning. The Grammar stage, grades 1-4, concentrates on learning the facts of language, math, history, and science without much critical thinking. The Logic stage, grades 5-8, concentrates on making truthful connections, deductions, and inferences with all the facts first learned in the Grammar stage. Finally, the Rhetoric stage, grades 9-12, concentrates on truthful expression, meaningful discourse, and skillful persuasion. Classical education prepares the student for valuable service in the world and society by teaching as much as one can about the world, tempering such knowledge with instruction in discrimination, and importantly developing the ability of the student to learn, think, and contribute in any situation in life.
The Classical education model is developmentally appropriate, superior in content, and impressive in its results yet, from an Orthodox Christian perspective, it is incomplete. Education must be accomplished for right-glory (in Greek, orthodoxy), for the love of God, and the love of all people.
The academic standards in any secular or Christian school (or home school) should be the highest possible, and the students of a Classically-modeled program will master more subject matter facts and methods of analysis than most, if not all, students from a non-Classical program. The aim of a specifically Orthodox approach, though, is to contemplate created things, then go beyond them to the Creator, and ultimately to know God, the Holy Trinity. The aim is to offer all knowledge back to God in thanksgiving for His goodness and love to us unto eternity. The end of Orthodox education is summarized with these words from the Divine Liturgy: Thine Own of Thine Own, we offer unto Thee, on behalf of all, and for all.
Orthodox classical education seeks to engender Saints, not just intelligentsia. The overriding diet of the Orthodox school is Holy Scripture (the incarnate Word of God), participation in the Liturgy and prayer hours of the Church, iconography, and the example of the lives of the Saints themselves. The things of this life become a revelation of the Kingdom of God as they are re-integrated and ordered rightly in the practice of the Church both corporately in worship and service, and personally in family and vocation.
To this end, Orthodox education possesses its own triple-way, to which the secular Classical model harmonizes quite well. The Orthodox way is: purification, illumination, and union with God. In an Orthodox context, learning the facts of life (Grammar stage) is primarily learning to practice virtues according to Gods commandments, obedience to God and Church, repentance, and quelling the passions (purification). Learning how everything fits together in an ordered way (Logic stage) is learning the doctrines of the Church, the why things are the way they are by Gods design, and the preservation and the restoration of all creation to a right use in Christ (illumination). Learning truthful expression, discourse and persuasion (Rhetoric stage) is learning the faith in unceasing prayer, passing beyond all human reason to rely assuredly on God despite empirical evidence and opposition to the contrary (union with God).
While corresponding in purpose, the triple-way of Orthodoxy is not so much sequential like the stages of the Trivium, but present in its tri-fold aspect throughout a person's life. Ultimately purification, illumination, and union with God cannot be attained by any method or model, but are gifts from God and a way of life in the Holy Spirit. Therefore the Orthodox way transcends the Trivium and is maintained through a basic attitude of humility, purity of heart and life, and prayer. Not only does an Orthodox classical education impart knowledge and the best tools of human learning, but it seeks to teach the student three most important things: how to desire God, not merely material ends; how to tenaciously cling to Gods wisdom, not our own; and how to direct all our powers toward God, without straying according to human pride.
The genuineness of the Orthodox way in the school, an Orthodox classical education is that this way is the shared experience of the faithful throughout the centuries. Orthodox education does not rest on theoretical knowledge, speculation, or experimentation, but on the experience of God by the Saints as they were purified, illumined, and united to God. Orthodox classical education is very academic, but it transcends academia. Moses, who was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22), and the Apostle Paul, who excelled in Pharisaic training and could quote Greek philosophers with ease, both learned true wisdom, however, only as God appeared to them to Moses on Mount Sinai and to Paul on the road to Damascus. So, too, Orthodox classical education revels in the finest of human learning but relies on the wisdom coming from God alone, revealed through His Son in the Holy Spirit. The Church knows such divine learning is only received by grace as we are purified in body, soul, and spirit.
The beauty of an Orthodox classical education is in its struggle. The struggle is not merely to offer a worldly education, or a collection of information merely to meet the standards of state or national accreditation. The struggle is not to use educational efforts as an opportunity for self-congratulation or supposedly guaranteed keys of worldly success. The struggle is to hope for more, to grow in the Kingdom of God, to long for the experience of Gods grace, to love God, to cooperate with God in His eternal design, to commune with God. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Romans 12:2). This beautiful struggle of Orthodox classical education is the life of the Church, the Body of Christ, and eternal life that we may grow up in all things into Him Who is the head Christ (Ephesians 4:15).
~ Father Jonathan H. Cholcher
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