Latin, Classics Focus For Some Parents, Educators

CLASSIC EDUCATION
Teacher Robyn Maner works on Friday Feb. 7 2014 with academy students, from left, Yukiko Ochiai, Maddey Hilliard and Zenda Staab during a chemistry class.
CLASSIC EDUCATION Teacher Robyn Maner works on Friday Feb. 7 2014 with academy students, from left, Yukiko Ochiai, Maddey Hilliard and Zenda Staab during a chemistry class.

Classical education, with its Latin instruction and classic texts, is an increasing choice for some Northwest Arkansas parents.

“It’s a niche, but it’s a good niche that parents are able to have,” said Michael Crouch, school performance evaluator with the Office for Educational Policy at the University of Arkansas.

At A Glance

What Is Classical Education?

Classical education is widely regarded as having three stages: grammar, dialectic and rhetoric. Dorothy Sayers and her 1947 Oxford presentation, “The Lost Tools of Learning,” defines grammar as the early study of Latin and learning of dates and mathematics by heart; dialectic as the study of the logic; and rhetoric as a more refined articulation of ideas.

Source: Staff Report

Classical education builds on rote learning in early grades, expanding into discussions in later grades. Memorization can build a foundation for exploring a concept, especially with mathematics, Crouch said. While no educator or politician is going to demand Latin be taught broadly across schools, it has value, especially in fields of law or medicine.

“It’s good for people to do, but hardly necessary,” Crouch said.

The Office for Educational Policy runs the admission lottery for the Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy in Bentonville, and evaluates the charter school’s performance for the state.

Defending views in a Socratic discussion builds critical thinking skills, he said, and that culture is part of the reason the schools work.

“They are building minds that are ready to ask big questions,” Crouch said.

Part of what he values in the idea is choice.

The academy is a kindergarten through eighth-grade public charter school, making a classical education an option for parents who win a lottery spot for their child at the school. Parents who choose their child’s school are getting involved in their education and involved parents traditionally have children who learn well, regardless of the style of learning, Crouch said.

Four percent of the school’s 400 students came from homeschool environments, and another 4 percent came from private schools. The rest came from public schools. Responsive Education Solutions runs the charter school.

“Our experience is, the underlying reason that parents are interested in our schools is because of the rigor of the schools and the expectations the school has for the students,” said Grif Griffin, Responsive Education Solutions’ chief communications officer.

Other local options for classical education are more hands-on.

Families gather once a week at the Classical Conversations campus in Rogers at Temple Baptist Church. Tutors go over lessons with children, and parents in lower grades are required to sit in on the class. They then go home and teach from the national organization’s guidebook.

Teaching Latin, a language they didn’t learn in school, can be daunting, but they feel like it is the right choice, parents said.

Jenee Grassle taught Latin and a smattering of Hebrew to her children at home for years before joining the Classical Conversations group. The support helps, she said.

“The mothers are the best students. They sit in on the class and they learn it along with their child, Grassle said.

Parents, even as teachers, can’t teach children everything they need to know before they graduate high school, said Christine Hummel, director of Classical Conversations’ high school level.

“What we can do is teach them how to learn,” Hummel said.

If parents don’t know the answer, they go find out, she said.

Parents are also a big part of the teaching equation at Providence Classical Christian Academy in Rogers, said Jason Ross, headmaster.

The school operates on the university model where students attend classes a couple days a week and finish the assigned work at home, as if they were taking a college class. Parents are expected to help with assignments.

The classical influence at Providence starts with Latin in kindergarten.

Early grades learn by rote, sing-songing parts of speech and using jingles to memorize information. Rote learning can be a bit of a taboo in traditional education, but it is effective, Ross said.

“Sometimes people see ‘classical’ and they think antiquated or out-of-touch, and it’s not at all,” Ross said.

Classical educational principals have stood up for thousands of years, Ross said, but his students do work on e-readers or laptops today.

While both the Classical Conversations campus and Providence are Christian-oriented, that doesn’t mean classical learning is religious, Ross said. Latin was the language of the Roman Empire and it’s a natural curiosity on the part of believers to understand languages and cultures that surrounded the time of Christ, he said.

Many of the historical figures students study at Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy — people such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle — came before Jesus Christ, said Scott Davis, national director of classical schools for Responsive Education Solutions.

The draw to the Bentonville academy, which had 700 applications for the 540 seats available next fall, pulled students from diverse backgrounds.

“People have come from all over the United States and the world,” Davis said. “It’s a colorful place if you walk through the school.”

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