The Marriage of Classical Education and Information Technology

At first sight, nothing could seem more unlikely - classical Christian education bound to the free-for-all of the World Wide Web? After all, the classical approach dates to medieval times, hearkening back to a no-nonsense system that equipped young scholars to translate the Iliad, debate its origins and message, and send it back to the Greek - all by the ripe old age of sixteen. How can the Internet be a party to such an approach?

Trivium is the Latin term for the three-staged education of the medieval student. First, the student devours the raw materials of any subject - memorizing its grammar or basic facts. Next comes the dialectic, or logic, stage as the student grapples with analytical processes. Finally, the student emerges from his long fellowship with memory and process, ready to practice the artistic expression of his subject - its rhetoric.

While the three stages are generally associated with developmental ages, the student may also run the course of the Trivium in a single lesson plan. An example - in simplified form: the subject is British poetry - specifically, the heroic couplet. Its grammar is memorized -naming metrical lines and metrical feet, along with rhyme schemes. Next, the logic of the form is appreciated in great literature. Couplets of diverse authors are contrasted for form and effect. Finally, the student may enter the world of rhetoric as the form is put to use and the student's own couplet heroically emerges.

So, how does the Internet figure in this process? As classicist Dorothy Sayers put it in her legendary argument for the Trivium style of education, "The Lost Tools of Learning," any and all subjects may be treated with the classical approach. The Internet provides, not only a wealth of information, but also a wide array of viewpoints and approaches to the study of any subject - just the environment that encourages the analytical discovery of the young classical student. Sayers also emphasized the classical method of allowing a student to find his own specialties. Once again, the Internet serves as the frontier for his explorations, creating in him a love of active learning and allowing him pick his own way along a pathway to learning. Finally, the testing of his classical thinking tools on a content expert is an integral part of every classical student's experience. Never has it been so easy for a student to make contact with an expert in almost any field, and located anywhere in the world, at just the click of a mouse. Hence, the marriage of classical learning and information technology - at every homeschooling family's fingertips.

Bonnie Rowe, 2000

The "Lost Tools of Learning" is available online at http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html and is appended to Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, by Douglas Wilson, where the reader may learn of a modern application of the Trivium .