American Classical Education Priorities
In his book, Cultural Literacy, E.D. Hirsch argues that for Americans to achieve our best as a society, we have to share a view of the world, knowledge about that world, and a sufficient vocabulary to express both.
At Heart of Ohio Classical Academy have built our program in agreement with Dr. Hirsch’s view. We start with the conviction that humans thrive when we are free and fully equipped to govern our own affairs. We don’t need a king. We do, however, need to take our responsibilities to ourselves, our families and our communities seriously. That’s where we get the idea of participation. We all have an important part to play in making our society livable.
Secondly, we must know as much as we can about us and our world. We need knowledge so that we can tackle questions like, “What are humans like? What is good for them? What is the world in which humans live? How should they act in order to thrive?” We study the literature, history, philosophy, math, science, art and music of Western Civilization to find the answers to these questions. In every grade, we waste no time in beginning our exploration. We progress from ancient to modern history every four years, and we dig into the other subjects according to those time periods. Knowledge should not be compartmentalized, so reasoned Dr. Hirsch, and our Hillsdale curriculum smartly integrates it so that our children have a connected understanding of their world and can answer the questions above even in the earliest grades.
Thirdly, we must master the words we need to express our answers to the big questions and the little details. This is a process that begins in kindergarten with our orthography program and progresses through the study of literature, Latin, logic, mathematics, and rhetoric in middle and high school. Your children will learn to write well and to speak well. They will stand apart from students in other schools by the time they graduate because they will be able to convince us of why we should value the things that help us thrive.
You should want this from any school. You should expect it from ours.
Learn more: What is the Benefit of Classical Education
Mike Terry, National Director of Classical Education and Ohio State Superintendent for ResponsiveEd, discusses why we run classical schools in this short video (click here).
By Mike Terry
National Director of Classical Education
ResponsiveEd