Learning How to Fly

A wise parent once explained the concept of a "freedom funnel" to me. In parenting, it is important to have incredibly strict rules while a child is little. It is then important to start relaxing the rules bit by bit to give a child the room to grow in responsible freedom. It also serves as a sort of reward for showing responsibility. We entrust more to those who are responsible in the small things.

The converse principle is that rules are too relaxed when a child is little so that they do not learn to exercise their freedom responsibly. A parent will inevitably compensate once they see their now pre-teen slipping off the rails by belatedly tightening the funnel, which a child who is not used to rules will inevitably buck against.

(By the way, this wisdom came from a parent at Grace Church, which is a treasure trove of mature married couples and wise parenting, by God's grace.)

I saw this principle exemplified at a classical school, Ad Fontes Academy, where I taught Church history to ninth graders and helped coach cross country runners for the better part of a year. In this venue, I saw boys and girls of different races and socio-economic backgrounds show the intellectual acumen of college students (and often more so).

The classical model (which like home-schooling, is currently flourishing around the country) goes back to the medieval principles of education: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. "Grammar" refers to the tools of learning (the coat rack, if you will) that must be given to children at the earliest possible age. "Logic" naturally teaches them to employ such knowledge in incorporating, analyzing, and critiquing new information. "Rhetoric" refers to the ability to communicate such knowledge.

In practice, this meant starting a Church History class with a discussion on the philosophy of history. They would then write papers on questions like "Can the period of the early Church be considered a Golden Age? Explain." Not long after, they would engage in a spirited debate (where they all addressed each other by last names).

Dorothy Sayers, the masterful mystery writer and friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and other great thinkers, wrote a groundbreaking article on the need to go back to this classical model.

Ideally, a child will learn the grammar of learning in elementary school, attaining the tools to even self-educate, if necessary (which is the most common form of learning throughout human history). After home-schooling my child in elementary school, I would hope to send him to classical school during the middle school years. At that stage, he would still receive a phenomenal education, as well as have a broader forum in which to employ logic.

Many of my students were previously home-schooled, and now were thriving in this environment. One student was particularly brilliant and diligent, turning in collegiate-caliber research papers (with MLA footnotes), but now he also found that he enjoyed running cross country. I remember his pride, and that of his parents, as he realized that he could not only run five miles in one fell swoop, but speed up in the final mile and sprint over the final one hundred yards.

Classical schools allow your child to take the tools of learning and start employing them, along with providing him with the resources and opportunities that come with a larger community.

That said, it is an expensive option--one that later pays dividends in college scholarships, but expensive nonetheless. If I am not able to afford classical education for my child, would I opt for public education or continued home-schooling? I am really not sure. I believe home-schooling would offer a superior education (grammar), but public schooling would provide a wide and diverse forum through which these tools could be used in engaging others (rhetoric). I guess it would probably depend on where I felt my child stood with regard to employing logic.

"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ." (2 Cor. 10:5)